Greenwood Indiana High School Circumvents The Law – Again
Posted by Phil Ferguson on May 24th, 2010 – 7 Comments – Posted in Church and StateGreenwood Indiana High School administrators were either ignorant of the law or did not care about the rule of law when they let students decide if there should be a christian prayer at graduation. I’m sure you heard that a judge decided it would violate the constitution and it could not be done.
U.S. District Court Judge Sarah Evans Barker granted a preliminary injunction against the reading of a prayer at the May 28 commencement.
In the ruling, Barker wrote that “the process in place permitting a student-led prayer at Greenwood High School represents a clear violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, as does the delivery of a specific prayer set to occur as the result of that process during the upcoming 2010 graduation ceremony.”
So it’s all good right? right?
Well…. NO!
New story from Fort Wayne, IN.
GREENWOOD – A central Indiana high school that was the subject of a lawsuit over a graduation prayer says it is breaking with tradition and will not screen speeches by speakers at its May 28 commencement.
In the past, Greenwood High School’s principal has required student speakers to submit their speeches in advance to review the content, grammar and length. Most schools in the nation follow similar practices.
But Greenwood is lifting the practice this year, and school officials say speakers will not be stopped even if they use profane language or deliver politically charged speeches.
School officials would not comment on the reason for the change.
“It’s the First Amendment, freedom of speech,” Superintendent David Edds said.
Yeah – right. What a load of shit. We will not review speeches “wink, wink”. You can say what ever you want, “Wink, Wink”. You could even lead a prayer, “WINK, WINK”.
It sounds like an attempt to violate a court order to me. Once again it’s not enough to be a christian – they have to force it on others. It is wrong and it should stop.
Can someone please record this for us to laugh at – Please.
They’re obeying the letter, if not the spirit, of the law.
What we need to prevent is selective enforcement. If a student gets up and leads a Christian prayer, okay, so long as the student who wants to lead a Muslim prayer or the student who wants to pray to the Flying Spaghetti Monster are allowed as well. Something tells me that the non-Christians will face “technical difficulties”, or even outright censorship.
This looks like freedom of speech, but since the school will be picking those students who get to speak, it’s really not. If anyone who wanted to were allowed to speak at commencement, it would be a different story.
I think its wonderful that the school has ended the practice of pre-screening commencement speeches. There’s nothing unconstitutional about a student independently offering a prayer at a school function (IMHO). And maybe some atheist valedictorian will now get a chance to make a speech slamming creationism or promoting free-thinking or something. There are thousands of intelligent, deserving kids across this nation who would love to be able to speak their minds in their commencement speeches, but those speeches white-washed or outright rejected by the PC police in the school administration. Some aren’t even political or religious in nature. I bet any one of them would be cheering about Greenwood High School’s decision.
Sounds like the perfect opportunity for someone to break out some Bertrand Russel, or maybe some Mark Twain.
It’s funny to read the “jailhouse lawyer” comments to this story.
The school is following the law under Santa Fe v. Independent School District v. Doe, 530 U.S. 290 (2000) and not involving itself with the process of speech making, as long as the students selected to speak represent a similar demographic as previous invitated speakers.
If that wasn’t clear enough for you, the valedictorian of the school was the one who originally brought the suit.
Now the libtards are crying “foul” because they THINK that they MIGHT be broken. Silly little libtards, the school is following the law and it’s becuase our your ACLU stupidity that they are outthinking you.
You lose again.
What we have is religious nitwits who find their religion so pathetic and weak that it just can’t make it with out some kind of superficial appearance of state endorsement.
We have a tax free church on every corner, if you want to babble to yourself, do it in there. Or do it anywhere else you want but don’t use a state owned address system, before a captive audience to make a fool of yourself and babble about your invisible Jesus friend who SPECIFICALLY told you not to be goddamn hypocrites and pray in public for the purpose of looking holier than you are. It’s pathetic, it’s rude and you are embarrassing the Christians who are not fanatics.
For more about school prayer see the most excellent:
http://www.ffrf.org/publications/brochures/schoolprayer/
D.
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From the 2000 Supreme court decision on prayer a football games:
“The delivery of a message such as the invocation here — on school property,
at school-sponsored events, over the school’s public address system, by a
speaker representing the student body, under the supervision of the school
faculty, and pursuant to a school policy that explicitly and implicitly encourages
school prayer — is not properly characterized as ‘private’ speech.”
In response to the proposition that students had voted for the “invocation”:
“Through its election scheme, the District has established a governmental mechanism that turns the school into a forum for religious debate and empowers the student body majority to subject students of minority views to constitutionally improper messages. The award of that power alone is not acceptable.”
Making the central case:
“Nothing in the Constitution as interpreted by the Court prohibits any public
school student from voluntarily praying at any time before, during or after the
school day. But the religious liberty protected by the Constitution is abridged
when the State affirmatively sponsors the particular religious practice of prayer.”
There are much bigger problems than a student praying. Find me an example of someone discriminating against any other religion, then you might have a fight to fight. If you don’t want to join in an invocation or prayer then don’t. Who cares. I find it amazing that you libs out there make such mountains out of mole hills. Its ok for a Rabii to where his deal over his head in a government building and a muslim to stop at his appropriate time and face the way he’s supposed to and pray where ever he is, but a kid can’t thank his Christian God for making it up on that graduation stage. Get over yourselves and stop acting like a “smarter than everyone else lib” I’ve had with your mental disorder. Go smoke a joint or take one of your pills. Then “chill”