Religious Freedom Doesn’t Just Mean Freedom FROM Religion, Douche... - Political Fever

RSDavis · #1 (**permalink**) 04-02-2008, 11:41 AM

Religious Freedom Doesn’t Just Mean Freedom FROM Religion, Douche...
by RS Davis
The Freedom Files

Hello Freedomphiles! So, a kid in Wisconsin is suing his school, Tomah Hight School, for violating his First Amendment rights. FoxNews reports:

A Tomah High School student has filed a federal lawsuit alleging his art teacher censored his drawing because it featured a cross and a biblical reference.

The lawsuit alleges other students were allowed to draw "demonic" images and asks a judge to declare a class policy prohibiting religion in art unconstitutional.

"We hear so much today about tolerance," said David Cortman, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal advocacy group representing the student. "But where is the tolerance for religious beliefs? The whole purpose of art is to reflect your own personal experience. To tell a student his religious beliefs can legally be censored sends the wrong message."

Seems to me like an open and shut case of a government agency suppressing the free expression and religious freedom rights enshrined in the First Amendment.

Millin showed the student a policy for the class that prohibited any violence, blood, sexual connotations or religious beliefs in artwork. The lawsuit claims Millin told the boy he had signed away his constitutional rights when he signed the policy at the beginning of the semester.

The boy tore the policy up in front of Millin, who kicked him out of class. Later that day, assistant principal Cale Jackson told the boy his religious expression infringed on other students’ rights.

Jackson told the boy, his stepfather and his pastor at a meeting a week later that religious expression could be legally censored in class assignments. Millin stated at the meeting the cross in the drawing also infringed on other students’ rights.

This really gets me. One of the greatest tragedies of our day is that people really don’t even understand what a right is anymore. First off, a prerequisite for a right is that exercizing it will not violate the rights of another. The student clearly has a right to free expression, which the government cannot make you sign away.

So, what right is it that these other students hold that his free expression violates? The right to never see evidence of other people’s faith? That policy is completely antithetical to the principles upon which this nation was founded, and anathema to a free society.

Not to mention that the other students were drawing ****ing demons. Keeping in mind that demons are a construct of the Christian faith, that image is also religious, is it not? It’s at least Satanic, which is a clear counterpoint and symbiot of Christianity. Are we then to assume that Satanists have First Amendment rights, but Christians don’t? Do we really wanna give Tim LaHaye a boner, here?

But really, I am bending over backward to make a point, when the school’s hypocricy is brazen:

A Buddha and Hindu figurines are on display in a social studies classroom, the lawsuit claims, adding the teacher passionately teaches Hindu principles to students.

In addition, a replica of Michaelangelo’s "The Creation of Man" is displayed at the school’s entrance, a picture of a six-limbed Hindu deity is in the school’s hallway and a drawing of a robed sorcerer hangs on a hallway bulletin board.

Drawings of Medusa, the Grim Reaper with a scythe and a being with a horned head and protruding tongue hang in the art room and demonic masks are displayed in the metals room, the lawsuit alleges.

Seriously, dude. Stories like this make me question my skepticism at "the war on Christians" with which so many overwrought conservative pundits like to charge up their base.

You can read the complaint from The Alliance Defense Fund here (pdf).

Chan · #2 (**permalink**) 04-02-2008, 12:54 PM

While I absolutely oppose any government entity interfering with the free exercise of religion, the school might have had a leg to stand on if there wasn't all this other religious expression going on in the school.

Also, children are not legally capable of entering into a contract.

Oregon Elephant · #3 (**permalink**) 04-02-2008, 12:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chan

While I absolutely oppose any government entity interfering with the free exercise of religion, the school might have had a leg to stand on if there wasn't all this other religious expression going on in the school.

Also, children are not legally capable of entering into a contract.

They are with the signing of a guardian, which most schools require. My schools always had both (parent and student) sign that stuff.

micfranklin · #4 (**permalink**) 04-02-2008, 12:57 PM

Reason # 1 for why I don't like schools anymore: something as simple and everyday as religion gets you into trouble.

RSDavis · #5 (**permalink**) 04-02-2008, 12:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chan

Also, children are not legally capable of entering into a contract.

Excellent point!

Freeman15 · #6 (**permalink**) 04-02-2008, 04:50 PM

Tinker v. Des Moines: Students do NOT surrender their First Amendment rights when in school.

The kid will win this case, and rightfully so. I'm not a Christian, but how exactly does his depicting tenets of his faith artistically hurt anybody else?

Oregon Elephant · #7 (**permalink**) 04-02-2008, 05:00 PM

Tinker v. Des Moines did not have a contract that they agreed they wouldn't do what they did. If the contract was signed by both the student and a legal guardian, saying that there will be no religious symbols in artwork and all students were held to this contract, than there isn't much that he can do.

Lumara · #8 (**permalink**) 04-02-2008, 05:07 PM

It is unfair to single one religion out if that is really what happened, but a lawsuit which will ultimately cost the taxpayers just because a student insisted on portraying his religious symbol on a landscape assignment which had nothing to DO with religion, against school policy, isn't fair, either.

RSDavis · #9 (**permalink**) 04-02-2008, 05:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oregon Elephant

Tinker v. Des Moines did not have a contract that they agreed they wouldn't do what they did. If the contract was signed by both the student and a legal guardian, saying that there will be no religious symbols in artwork and all students were held to this contract, than there isn't much that he can do.

Well, we already know several things: