Although the religoius right loudly complains about "activist judges", they sure do love to spend time in court. Here is a story about three high school students in Pennsylvania, backed by the Alliance Defense Fund, who are suing their school district claiming they are being prevented from quoting bible verses in posters they want to display at their school.
This sounds disturbing, but the posters they wanted to put up were supporting "the harmful effects of homosexuality." The Alliance Defense Fund is the group that sponsored "The Day of Truth" last week to "counter the homosexual agenda." There was also a recent ruling in California that upheld the prohabition of a student wearing a t-shirt saying"'homosexuality is shameful" during the 2004 "Day of Truth."
The "fundamentalists" of the religious right like to whine about cases such as this, claiming that schools and the courts are favoring "the homosexual agenda" at the expense of religious freedom.
As is the case with so much coming from that direction, it doesn't require much thought to see through their flawed, narrow-minded arguement here.
Events such as "Day of Silence" are designed to bring attention to mistreatment and bullying of GLBT students and promote acceptance and tollerance. This is the type of thing educators should and often do try to teach in our schools.
On the other hand, t-shirs like the one the student in San Diego wore don't promote positive affirmation, they promote hate and intollerance. Wouldn't it be the same if he had worn a shirt with a nazi symbol or one saying "muslims are murderers?"
Growing up and finding out where you fit in at school is tough even if by most measures you are "normal." It was difficult when I grew up in the 1970's and I understand it is even more so now. If school administrators allowed some students to actively promote hate and intollerance toward other students, wouldn't that only make things tougher and take away from anything they might actually learn.
Let's face it, our nation's youth don't need to learn that kind of thing in school. That's what their parents and churches teach them, but at least they are not supported with taxpayer money.
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Our school has a character building program which emphasizes one beneficial characteristic each month. They include Respect, Honesty, Tolerance among others. So your point that schools should promote torerance and respect for others is well taken.
ReplyDeleteT-shirts or posters which denigrate others, due to race, sexual orientation, religion, ethnic origin and so on, have no place in school since they are contrary to the schools goal of promoting inclusion and community among students who come from a variety of backgrounds.
My take on the t-shirt issue is here.
"the posters they wanted to put up were supporting "the harmful effects of homosexuality."
ReplyDeleteYou lack credibility here. You haven't even bothered to investigate the most fundamental facts in this case, so allow me to enlighten you.
The students at Downingtown wanted to do NOTHING of the sort. The posters that were banned were simply announcements that gave the time and place for "See You at the Pole" and an accompanying verse from Jeremiah 33:3. NOTHING about homosexuality. Additionally, the school's policy has relegated words like "Christian" and "Bible" to the same class as profanity and promotion of illegal behavior. If this isn't unconstitutional religious discrimination, I don't know what is.