I guess my red and gree nail polish would not be welcomed?
When are school boards going to concentrate more on EDCUATING CHILDREN?
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Can someone explain to me what's wrong with red and green? Or why these morons are discriminating against chocolate?Schools' rules on religious candy canes assailed
Associated Press
A religious liberties law firm accused Plano school officials today of violating students' constitutional rights by forbidding them to hand out candy canes and pencils with religious messages on them.
Attorneys with the Plano-based Liberty Legal Institute said they planned to file a federal lawsuit claiming the district has an unconstitutional censorship policy that victimizes students.
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Several parents and students planned to discuss their concerns at an afternoon news conference. Attorneys intended to notify the district of the lawsuit at that time and file the petition later Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Sherman.
Plano schools spokeswoman Nancy Long did not immediately return a telephone message from The Associated Press.
She previously has denied that district policy forbids students from passing out materials with religious messages; rather, she has said each school has a central distribution area where such materials can be left for students to pick up at their own choosing.
"This lawsuit includes a large amount of evidence that demonstrates the pervasive religious hostility in Plano ISD," said Hiram Sasser, the Liberty Legal Institute's director of litigation.
Last week, Plano school officials sent a letter home requesting that parents not send their children to school with anything green or red this holiday season, Sasser said. All cups, plates, napkins and icing must be white or the children violate the district's policy, he said.
"These government officials have lost all common sense. This Christmastime and religious censorship is not the law and this discrimination must stop," said Kelly Shackelford, chief counsel for Liberty Legal Institute. "Our children are the ones suffering from this discrimination. Our schools are not zones of religious censorship."
I guess my red and gree nail polish would not be welcomed?
When are school boards going to concentrate more on EDCUATING CHILDREN?
That red and green thing is completely stupid, but I gotta go with the school on the other thing.
FOR THE 85 MILLIONTH TIME FREEDOM OF RELIGION IS ALSO FREEDOM FROM IT!
Passing out religious material ina PUBLIC SCHOOL is WRONG!
Doesnt belong there.
Outside of school, cant do much about it I'm sure, but on school grounds it doesnt belong.
Handing out candy canes would be fine in my opinion, but not religious propaganda.
I don't have a problem with a ban on religious messages, as long as it's all religions.
But I'm speechless about the ban on red and green. What if someone has a favorite red sweater? Green socks?
The whole thing is ridiculous.
I agree about the green and red thing.
Who cares!?!?!?!?!
How can that possibly be a problem?
I'd wear a blue santa hat to school the next day. LOL!
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<font color="#a52a2a" size="1">[ December 16, 2004 11:21 AM: Message edited by: cincygreg ]</font>
More from Plano, TX.
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Schools prohibit
Christmas colors
District targeted with lawsuit after officials require white-only supplies for 'winter' party
By Ron Strom
? 2004 WorldNetDaily.com
First it was schools that banned the singing of Christmas carols.
Then another banned carols played only by instruments with no lyrics being presented.
Now a school district has banned the colors red and green from a "Winter Break Party," requiring parents to bring only white plates and napkins.
In response to the party policy, as well as many other rules a group of parents and students believe to be rank censorship, a lawsuit has been filed against the Plano Independent School District in Texas to fight back against its "religious hostility," as one attorney puts it.
Other policies cited in the suit, filed today in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Sherman Division, include a ban on candy cane distribution when a religious card is attached, a ban on parents giving religious-oriented items to one another on school property and a ban on criticizing school board members or administrators on campus.
"This lawsuit includes a large amount of evidence that demonstrates the pervasive religious hostitlity in Plano ISD," said Hiram Sasser, director of litigation for Liberty Legal Institute, which, along with Alliance Defense Fund, is representing about 20 clients in the suit.
Kelly Shackelford, Liberty Legal Institute's chief counsel, noted the suit was purposely filed before Friday, when the white-only Winter Break party is scheduled to occur.
"We asked for a temporary restraining order today to provide protection by this Friday," he told WorldNetDaily.
Shackelford says if the order is issued by Friday, at the party the students would be allowed to pass out religious items, parents would be able to do the same, and the ban on criticizing school officials would be lifted.
"These policies are a blatant violation of religious freedom and free speech," he said. "These are school officials who have lost all common sense."
One item included in the suit is the case of a girl student who was forbidden to invite her friends to an Easter event at her church, according to the law firm.
"We've even got a mom who went to the school asking if her daughter at her birthday party could hand out a pencil with 'Jesus' on it," Shackelford told WND, "and the principal got so upset with her that he called the police.
"It's just unbelievable stuff. We've been collecting these things for a year or two. This is a pervasive, district-wide problem of political correctness in the extreme."
Shackelford said the families' attorneys worked with the district's attorney, Richard Abernathy, to try to get the officials to back down on some of the policies, but they did not.
"We filed the federal lawsuit hopefully to put an end to all this nonsense," Shackelford said.
Shackelford said he didn't mind if the district engaged in its "silly pretense" that there is no Christmas, but he says it cannot violate the rights of students and parents in the process.
Said Shackelford: "There's a huge difference between the school putting a sign out that says, 'We endorse Jesus,' and telling students and parents that they can't live out their faith."
Commenting on the white-only policy for party supplies, Shackeford quipped, "I guess nobody has told them white could symbolize the purity of Christ. They'd probably ban white!"
He says parents have been verbally told the reason for the color restriction was to shun traditional Christmas red and green. Last week, a note went home with students asking parents to bring certain items for the party. Two items listed that some were asked to supply were: "One package small white plates" and "One package white napkins."
Food being requested included a dozen sugar cookies and a bag of Hersey's kisses. Liberty Legal Institute says the parents were told not to include any colored icing on the cookies, while Alliance Defense Fund reports children were told not to wear red and green clothing to the party.
Shackelford said the complaint is over 150 pages ? "just fact after fact."
"We are confident that the courts will uphold the fundamental law that school officials may not suppress or exclude the speech of citizens simply because their speech is religious or includes religious content," Shackelford said.
Gary McCaleb is senior counsel with Alliance Defense Fund.
"The U.S. Supreme Court has never ruled that public schools must prohibit the distribution of candy canes or Christmas cards," he said in a statement. "They have never ruled that you can't say 'Merry Christmas' in the public schools. These attempts to stifle all religious expression and sanitize Christmas of all religious content are tiring to the overwhelming majority of Texans and all Americans."
The lawsuit is known as Jonathan Morgan, et al., v. the Plano Independent School District, et al.
A request for a response from attorney Abernathy's office had not been fulfilled by press time.
Sounds ridiculous, but then once again our info source is Whirled Nuts Daily and the Liberty Legal Institute. Well, if accurate perhaps each and every one of the students will show up in red & green. Let's see what they do then...
Like Lan, I'd like to know more - from a reliable source. Maybe it's a backlash against this
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Most often, fundamentalist and creationist candidates for local office try to hide their religious agendas while they are running for office (since few of the items on the fundamentalist agenda have much popular support). Instead, they will run a campaign around such traditional conservative issues as local taxes, cutting waste, etc. Only once they are elected and in office will the real agenda be shown (a strategy which has earned such candidates the moniker "stealth candidates"). When a number of fundamentalist candidates are running, they will often make every effort to avoid advertising the
fact that they share a common goal, and will often even deny that they know each other (they may in fact have never met before the campaign--although they will have been selected, supported and funded by the same local fundamentalist organizations). The school board members who attempted to introduce creationism into the Plano, Texas school district in 1995, for instance, ran as "stealth" candidates and made no mention of creationism until after the election.
OR...maybe it was in response to THIS:
<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">QUOTE
A Harry Potter party will go on next month at a Plano elementary school, despite one parent's attempt to have the courts block the event on constitutional grounds.
A federal judge in Sherman on Wednesday decided that a student party starring the popular book character should not be halted.
James O'Connor, a parent of two children in the Plano schools, filed a lawsuit Monday arguing that the district is encouraging "Wicca, an explicitly pagan, earth-centered religion."
"Incrementally, we've been removing a lot of Judeo-Christian models in our culture, and I am concerned that incrementally they may be replaced by non-Christian models," Mr. O'Connor said.
Mr. O'Connor, who is representing himself, asked the judge to cancel the party or require that all other religions be given equal time at the event.
The suit surprised those familiar with the party's intent.
"It's about reading, not a religion," said Donna Winemiller, PTA president at Haggar Elementary School. "This just kind of really came out of left field. ... We really couldn't quite believe it. We don't teach anything else. Why would we all of a sudden promote Wicca?"
Plano school district attorney Richard Abernathy agreed.
"We've not violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment," he said. "We're not even close."
Sponsored by Haggar's librarian, the after-school Harry Potter party for six students on May 7 was one of the hotter items during a silent auction at the school's Spring Fling, a carnival that raises money for the school's PTA.
It's the PTA's biggest fund-raiser, and no complaints were raised at the April 2 carnival, organizers said. In fact, Mr. O'Connor bid repeatedly on the item, which went to someone else for $175, according to school officials, who assumed he wanted it for his child.
Mr. O'Connor would not comment on whether he bid on the party or why.
"I'm not against Harry Potter," said Mr. O'Connor, who said he has read the well-known children's series about a young wizard. "I'm not a book-banner or anything like that. I'm just a concerned parent."
U.S. Magistrate Don Bush declined to grant Mr. O'Connor's request for a temporary restraining order to keep the party from being held on school property or with school employees in attendance.
However, he has not ruled on the overall lawsuit. Still to be decided is Mr. O'Connor's contention that the school district was promoting a religion.
The school district intends to hold the party.
LINK
This article mentions dissemination of candy canes with religious messages, but nothing of the alleged banning of the colors of red and green.
<font color="#a52a2a" size="1">[ December 17, 2004 08:16 AM: Message edited by: reason ]</font>
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