<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Do you seriously believe there is?? [img]eek.gif[/img]Are you seriously saying that there should not be an explicit division between the two?
From today's Enquirer, no less:
Oak Hills student missed lesson
Editorials
Oak Hills High School was right to give student Eric Bast a five-day suspension last week for distributing more than 3,000 copies of a religious letter through the school system. Unfortunately, a lot of people, including the young man responsible for the incident, seem not to have learned the importance of this civics lesson.
Bast misused the school's internal mail system to distribute his evangelical Christian message. He admits he intentionally bypassed school rules about needing to have mass distributions approved. He sealed the letters in envelopes bearing each student's name and distributed them in bundles through the school's homerooms during school hours. Many teachers apparently passed them out thinking they had come from the school district.
Bast, an honor student, apologized and accepted his punishment. But on his Web site (lettertomyfriends.com), Bast said he willingly disobeyed school rules and sent the letters because he believed that if he asked for permission he would have been turned down.
"The rules I violated were not anything to do with content of the letter but were about passing of pamphlets or leaflets without school permission," Bast wrote on the site. "I did not get school permission because I was afraid that if I asked the school and they said that I couldn't do it then it would be over and I could not do this awesome thing."
He got it only half right. It is true that bypassing the screening process was a serious violation. Although his message was probably considered benign by most people, the content of Bast's sneak letters could just as easily have included anything from hate speech to a private business solicitation - none of which would have been appropriate. But Bast is wrong if he thinks the content of his letters was not part of the problem.
Oak Hills is a public school. It is not in the business of promoting a particular religion, but that is exactly what Bast tried to trick the district into doing. This is a matter of religious freedom - the freedom not to have the schools push a particular religious doctrine at the students. A public school's one mission about religion is to teach that in this country we respect the right of individuals to worship as they choose, not as the government tells them they should.
What were students who don't believe as Bast does supposed to think when their teachers handed them his religious tract at the start of the school day?
This wasn't an innocent misunderstanding. Bast's parents told him to be sure he followed school rules in passing out the letters.
Bast and the friends who helped him stuff the envelopes and sneak them past the school administrators are free to worship as they wish. They can pass out their literature before or after school. Between classes they can tell all their friends what they believe and why. But Bast cannot expect the school district to distribute his message for him.
The district was right to punish him for trying.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Do you seriously believe there is?? [img]eek.gif[/img]Are you seriously saying that there should not be an explicit division between the two?
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Do you seriously believe there is?? [img]eek.gif[/img] </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I seriously believe that it is an ideal that we should aspire to and work towards. The implementation of separation of church and state has been imperfect from the onset but this does not mean that we shouldn't do all that we can to more fairly and universally enforce it.Originally posted by Jumper69:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Are you seriously saying that there should not be an explicit division between the two?
While it was never mentioned, the student appeared to gain legitmacy of his message by utilizing the school's distribution channel.
If he and his friends handed the letters out before or after class, I seriously doubt his message would have gotten the attention it did when presented as school-authorized material.
The precedent the student tried to set is dangerous. Just because the message is palatable to most doesn't make it right. The next time the message could be rather heinous, and the school needs to prevent that from happening.
Five days suspension is appropriate punishment.
<font color="#a52a2a" size="1">[ December 13, 2004 04:15 PM: Message edited by: reason ]</font>
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">There seems to be this attitude that because the student can't use school distribution channels, there is no religion in schools. That's hardly the case.Originally posted by Sluggo:
Bullshit, greg!!!!Why is it OK for the public schools to hand out information about abortion and all kinds of stuff pertaining to sex but it isn't OK for a student to hand out "Personnally addressed" information about Jesus? [img]mad.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/grrr.gif[/img]
Bullshit!! MHO
The student is still free to distribute the information. That right has not been abridged. He's just not allowed to trample others' rights and steal school property - in this case the labor of distributing 3,000 letters.
It's the same with school prayer. Just because there's no school sanctioned prayer doesn't mean there isn't prayer in school. I would hope by the time a student enters high school his/her personal relationship with God is such that they don't need to recite the Lord's Prayer in unison in order to establish some connection with Him.
I'm still kind of perplexed as to why more attention hasn't been given to the irony and hypocrisy of a young man lying and stealing in order to spread the Word of God.
Doesn't that mixed message bother anyone else?
The ends do not justify the means.
By my estimation, the student violated two Commandments here:
The Fifth Commandment: Honor thy father and thy mother.
The Eighth Commandment: Thou shall not steal.
I would also argue that he violated the Ninth Commandment, bearing false witness against your neighbor. He pretty much admitted he lied.
I'm just wondering why no condemnation of the student for violating the most basic of God's Laws?
<font color="#a52a2a" size="1">[ December 13, 2004 04:38 PM: Message edited by: reason ]</font>
Lan & Pina-
if this goes on repeatedly and the school does nothing about it, then yes, I will agree that this may create establisment clause problems.
And for the record, you can shut this kid down long before you reach the Constitution. First and foremost, he violated school rules, that's enough there.
But Pina brought up the Constitution, and as I see it, there are no Constitutional violations anywhere in this incident, on either side. The school did not violate the establishment clause because they were not behind the letters in the first place (and far as I can tell, they took action immediately after they did discover it). There is no free exercise violation because the school isn't saying he can't practice his religion, they're just saying he can't break school rules that would apply to all students.
But the student's rights of free speech weren't violated, either. For one, minors do not have the same rights as adults (nor should they). But second, free speech does not apply to violating school rules in this manner.
I still think 5 days is harsh, but if that's the rule, then so be it.
Agreed, but notice part of the reason you don't think there is a constitutional violation is the school punished the student. If the school had not, we should conclude they support the message in the letter.
Front page story about religion in public schools in today's Enquirer.
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