More Dumb School Administrators

A couple more cases where the ADF is almost certainly in the right, reported by Agape Press. One school in Kansas and one in Texas where school officials are not treating Fellowship of Christian Athletes clubs the same as other student clubs, denying them mention in school yearbooks or access to announcement mechanisms that other clubs have. I don't know why so many schools have difficulty with this issue, on either side. It's really pretty simple: you have to treat religious and non-religious student clubs the same, always. If one has access to hand out flyers or use school vehicles or make announcements over the PA, then they all must have it. If you charge one club a fee for using school facilities, you have to charge all clubs the same amount for the same thing. For crying out loud, the Federal law is actually called the Equal Access Act; the title alone should tell them what they have to do.

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Gribbit has responded to my questions. In his response, he admits that he was wrong about the order of the two examples, but misses the larger falsehood in his post. Here's his initial claim, again: We have seen this already. The ACLU fought to gain equality for after school projects so that a gay…
I just encountered a new argument against allowing gay/straight alliance clubs in schools, or at least it's one I've never seen before. It comes from a guy running for attorney general in Georgia, who is upset that a Federal judge in Georgia ruled that a school there had to allow such a club (as…
In yet another victory for the Equal Access Act, a Federal district judge in Georgia has ruled that a school must allow a Gay Straight Alliance club to meet on school grounds just as it does other groups. The response from the Alliance Defense Fund is stunning in its dishonesty: But Mike Johnson,…
STACLU has been busy adding new contributors lately. It appears that they've been seeking out every anti-ACLU crank they can find on the internet and asking them to post there. Unfortunately, the quality of the arguments and the level of intellectual honesty hasn't budged. A new contributor named…

If I was paranoid, I would think that these districts - especially in Texas and Kansas - are doing this on purpose. If they get the public riled up about this "assault on Christianity", then they can try to legislate special protected access for Christian groups and possibly limit non-Christian groups they don't like.

Kind of off-topic, but I remember seeing posters when I was in college inviting students to join the FCA that stated that you didn't have to be an athlete to join. My guess is that you still had to be a Christian.

In an unrelated development: Teachers win suit over forced anthem singing

TOKYO (Reuters) - A Japanese court ruled in favor of teachers who objected to being forced to sing the national anthem at school events, saying the Tokyo Metropolitan government's orders to do so infringed upon freedom of thought. The surprise ruling comes as conservative lawmakers, including Shinzo Abe, poised to become prime minister next week, seek to put more patriotism into classrooms in an effort to revive a Japanese sense of identity they see as lacking in modern-day society...

By somnilista, FCD (not verified) on 21 Sep 2006 #permalink

dhodge--I was a member of FCA in high school, although I didn't become a Christian for a long time after. As proselytizing is a major reason such groups exist, yes, they allow anyone to join. My group didn't have any club officers; if they had, those might have been reserved for Xtians.

Keithb,

Totally agree with you. Who...Who I say do you think stole that portrait of Jesus from that school in Harrison County, WV earlier this summer? Was it the godless, hippie, liberals who filed the lawsuit do you think? Or was it someone trying to rile the troops?

By Russell Claus (not verified) on 21 Sep 2006 #permalink

It is actually idiot administrators like this that get the righties all lathered up for a fight all the time. The "persecuted" Christians jump up and down claiming that this is just another example of the atheist liberal ACLU trying to wipe religion off the face of the earth; And they'll not believe a word of it if a reasonable and objective person tries to point out that when Christians are unfairly censored in public places the ACLU actually has to come out and straighten out the mess caused by panicky and diminished school administrators.