Judicial Review: What's Your Opinion?Follow

No, you don't overreact to anything, do you?

It's all a matter of perspective. I don't see it as an overreaction to have a simple rule and apply that simple rule. I consider this to be an overreaction:



Cause teaching children science and about gender diversity.... scary scary stuff, amirite? But all the little atheist kids should have to listen to some kid wail about the blood the the lamb, with no notice to their parents and no opportunity to recuse themselves

Edited, Jan 20th 2012 12:27pm by Olorinus

Edited, Jan 20th 2012 12:28pm by Olorinus

The operative phrase here is "in the news." There's a fair bit more to said organizations than what's newsworthy/outspoken.

Edited, Jan 20th 2012 3:38pm by Eske

Because having a small prayer, a series of words at best, is the same as changing the entire ciriculum, amirite? Not using the wrong example to justify your bigotry, nope.

Rev. Wright thanks you for your support

You sure you're not confusing "preach" with "pray"?

Haven't met many catholics, have you. Or more accurately, haven't expressed that you are different around many catholics before, have you. mostly making a joke about the pope.



Gotta agree with Gbaji here. You're seriously putting way to much thought into it, olo.

This kind of subject just makes me think about the whole "mandatory moment of silence" debacle we had in Illinois's public schools while I was in HS. I don't remember exactly when they started it, but it was some time after I started my freshman year, until it ended the second semester of my senior year, so like, 2.5~3 years. For those of you who don't know about it (I assume most of you, I don't remember how many/if any of you are from IL or if there was a big thread about it at the time), as I recall, Illinois passed a law that required all public schools include a "moment for silent reflection" each day (typically following the pledge of allegiance) that was supposed to be a non-denominational time for "silent reflect" (read: prayer). It was a big issue with schools because, while it did not directly state that it was for prayer, it was heavily implied to be the intended purpose. And by heavily I mean that they laid it on so thick that anyone at the time trying to say it wasn't a moment for prayer was laughed at. It was basically 10~15 seconds of silence each day, assuming that one could say a small prayer to themselves in that time if they were religious, and if not, they could simply use the time as a quiet moment of thought. The problem arose from people whose beliefs require spoken prayer, or people who felt that it was infringing upon the whole separation of church and state issue.

It was a massive public issue when it first started, with teachers and students who were opposed to it doing various things to protest, mostly excessively comedic actions done to prove a point. Some of my favorites included a teacher of a friend at a different HS in town who, during the moment of silence, would spew loud gibberish to "express his beliefs" (and I don't mean he was talking in a different language, like praying in hebrew or arabic, I mean he was literally using silly nonsense words), and one of my teachers who would, randomly during the moment of silence, stand bolt upright and salute the flag, usually scaring the sh*t out of everyone in the class, and the classes next door, because of how the school got pin-drop quiet.

As an adamant atheist and at the time closeted trans individual, living in a fairly religious part of the state, I was excessively against it, and outspoken about that whenever the topic came up in class. Initially. After about six months everyone stopped caring because it really didn't change anything, it just made the morning announcements a little longer. By the next school year no one cared (though I think that teacher still did his random shock-salute, just because of how funny the reaction was). I mean, they still blathered on about it being unfair on the news, but most of the people who were complaining and arguing for or against it weren't students, teachers, or even parents. When they finally repealed the law during my senior year, the response from the students/faculty was a resounding "meh".

This was a mandatory thing. Giving people the option to do something is mostly harmless because honestly, 80~90% of the time it won't impact anything, and even when it does, it doesn't cause any lasting, harmful effects. It's not like they're giving schools permission to hold sermons or disrupting classes specifically to pray. To me, it sounds like they're mostly saying "We're tired of having to waste time dealing with every situation where someone wants to publicly thank God. Sure it's not perfect, but this is mostly just a bureaucracy bypass."

Edited, Jan 23rd 2012 3:06pm by Jinte

Assuming you meant thought, then that's not what I would've said. Too little thought, too much emotion.

This. I'm happy that some people have never been subjected to this kind of "prayer" but as someone who has, I'd appreciate if people didn't try to pretend that it never happens.

As for thought/emotion etc.

/shrugs

The point is there is no right, god given or otherwise for people to force others to participate in their religious rituals in our publicly funded (as in, funded by tons of people who may vehemently disagree with the ritual/religion) institutions. And there is enough that needs work in the school system not to waste energy revisiting the issue.

I would say all the people clamoring about how horrific it is that the rules/laws which restrict religion from public school are being enforced are more emotional than I am about the issue.

The rule is there so we don't have to have constant all out war in our schools about the role of religion and whether everyone should be religious or what religion is best. Maybe you all are from less diverse places but round these parts those with christian upbringings and beliefs are just as likely to be a minority as not. Making a bunch of Sikh kids listen to some little proselytizer babble on about Jesus is really not what our school system should be spending energy on.

Nor would the christians like it if a sikh kid was forcing their kids to participate in his religion. Crikes, we had christians complain about yoga in gym class being religious and influencing their kids (even though they were just doing poses, not chants or anything)

Thank god (lol) around here, the issue has been settled, and rather than trying to weasel prayer into public schools, religious folks send their kid to private schools, or they pray amongst themselves, or go to church and pray.

As someone who was a christian in high school it never occurred to me that I needed to make other people listen to me pray. I prayed with my christian friends and there was no problem with that. I haven't heard one person explain why non-relgious/otherly religious individuals would need to participate in christian prayer in public school

So, yeah, you can change the topic by trying to make this about my emotional state or whatever, but there is no good reason to force anyone to participate in specific religious rituals at school - and lots of reasons why it is a bad idea.


Edited, Jan 23rd 2012 3:57pm by Olorinus

So more or less identical to liberals berating conservatives for their evil positions on health care, welfare, gay marriage, etc? Except that no one actually follows those hateful prayers with legislative changes designed to force those who don't believe properly to comply anyway.



/shrug It's interesting how frequently those who call that sort of prayer "hateful", or even noticed it are people who've adopted atheistic positions over time. Is it people like me pretending it never happens, or people like you going out of your way to find reasons to be offended by something that is said.

Also: I have serious questions about how we define "hateful speech" in the first place.

Can you explain to me how believing in upholding rules against prayer in public school is over the top? I am honestly baffled. As I said, within my cultural context, I can't imagine this being seriously discussed. It just isn't on.