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As a resident of Kentucky all my life, I have to say I was thrilled when I heard this news on Rush's morning update today. I'll summarize the story below:

Seems there is ONE person at a high school in Russell Springs, KY, who is so offended by prayer that they had to go complain to the ACLU and get a lawsuit filed to get school prayer banned. This meant that there would be no prayer at the graduation ceremony this year. Guess that praying stuff was just making life a living hell for our poor, easily-offended, God-hating unidentified student.

Well, it turns out that during the graduation opening remarks about 200 or so students interrupted the principal by reciting the Lord's Prayer. Senior Megan Chapman, addressing the crowd, made mention of God many times in her speech, drawing thunderous applause.

I couldn't be prouder of my fellow Kentuckians.

They certainly dealt with it with panache. I am rather, however, rather dumbfounded what some people consider "offensive". This student is not just atheistic, he (or she) is antitheistic. Taking this much umbrage at prayer indicates that this person _does_ on some level believe in christianity. To paraphrase Pratchett, an atheist this violent is almost as good as a true believer. Someone who merely disbelieved christian faith would be able to sit through prayer no problem, like the adherents of other religions in the school probably do.
There are in fact two schools of thought here among secularists I know:
1.) I don't believe in it, I won't pray. They'll have to put up with that, even if it seems stubborn.
2.) I'll pretend to pray, no need to ruffle feathers.
The latter is debatable; some people think that it's offensive to God pretend to believe when you don't; others counter that it's like christians wondering about whether Allah would be offended - they don't believe in Allah, so the only concern should be his believers, not he himself.

Furthermore, I fail to understand why the ACLU is getting involved here. As far as I can tell, no "liberties" were violated. An institutionalized time slot was given for the vast majority of students to pray together, voluntarily. This is completely reasonable, unless abstaining from prayer was somehow penalized, in which case I'd like to retract my previous statements and go help organizing the barricades. However, that is most likely not the case.

When following the career of the ACLU, it is always important to remember their mantra: "ABC - Anything But Christianity!" There may be a few odd exceptions here and there, of course.

They don't seem to like the second amendment much, either, but it's usually ABC...

reignbow wrote:There are in fact two schools of thought here among secularists I know:
1.) I don't believe in it, I won't pray. They'll have to put up with that, even if it seems stubborn.
2.) I'll pretend to pray, no need to ruffle feathers.

Well, I don't know about "pretending to pray", but certainly I've never seen anything wrong with bowing your head in silence, eyes closed, simply to honor the fact that other people are praying. I have been in situations where a prayer was uttered that I did not agree with, but I didn't open my eyes and stare resolutely forward, puff out my chest and everything to "make a point". Mind you, I did not say "Amen" when the prayer had concluded, but I did honor the fact that someone else was praying, so I didn't seek to disrupt their prayer. I see nothing wrong with that spiritually.

Naturally, we live in a country where if you don't want to pray, you don't have to and we won't make you. But this nonsense of believing that you can go through life without ever encountering something you don't agree with, and feeling like you have to get a lawyer everytime you do is just plain stupid.

Reignbow wrote:Furthermore, I fail to understand why the ACLU is getting involved here. As far as I can tell, no "liberties" were violated. An institutionalized time slot was given for the vast majority of students to pray together, voluntarily. This is completely reasonable, unless abstaining from prayer was somehow penalized, in which case I'd like to retract my previous statements and go help organizing the barricades. However, that is most likely not the case.

I would agree with you there. If it had been mandatory prayer I would seek to eliminate that as well. Heck, I want to convert as many people to Christ as I can, but you can't force someone. I always use my wife as an example. She is not a Christian, but she always tells people that she supports prayer in schools and "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, etc. In her eyes this is a nation founded on Christian beliefs and built by God-fearing people. If you're going to live here then you should expect to encounter Christianity in a lot of places, including school and government. There won't be government-enforced religion, but if you walk by the courthouse and see the Ten Commandments, don't be surprised.

Let's face it, these so-called concerns about the separation of church and state are really just a disguised move by anti-theists (I like that term, Reign) to eliminate religion from government - not eliminate the government enforcing a particular religion - but from even observing any particular religion.

BrockthePaine wrote:When following the career of the ACLU, it is always important to remember their mantra: "ABC - Anything But Christianity!"

The perfect mantra for the "Anti-Christian Liberties Union", as it were.

Indeed, I fail to see how enforcing legal restrictions on worship in public places, such as school, is a SEPARATION of church and state.

Was it a public or private school?

The JAM wrote:Was it a public or private school?

Public as far as I know.

Well, that explains a lot

As a Kentucky Colonel I am especially proud of them.

As long as teachers assign pop-quizzes and tests, there will be prayer in schools.

Narnian wrote:As a Kentucky Colonel I am especially proud of them.

You're a Kentucky Colonel? Cool! Just like Harland Sanders!

Spacewolfomega wrote: Naturally, we live in a country where if you don't want to pray, you don't have to and we won't make you. But this nonsense of believing that you can go through life without ever encountering something you don't agree with, and feeling like you have to get a lawyer everytime you do is just plain stupid.

*applauds* You find people everywhere like this. One of my classes has -no- non-class discussion becuase one Christian girl gets 'offended' by the mere mention of Anime or Sci-fi. Somehow, the teacher disallowed -any- discussions that offend others. O.o

NydaLynn wrote:*applauds* You find people everywhere like this. One of my classes has -no- non-class discussion becuase one Christian girl gets 'offended' by the mere mention of Anime or Sci-fi. Somehow, the teacher disallowed -any- discussions that offend others. O.o

Well, I'm offended at the teacher's position on discussions. Let's see the teacher logic their way out of that one. I have to admit, it's just absurd to imagine that you can get through life without being offended or without offending anyone. It happens. Reminds me of the story about the father and son leading their donkey through town and everyone criticizes them for one reason or another. The message being "You can't please everyone."

Besides, as a devout Christian myself I can tell you that there are some anime and sci-fi out there that offend me as well ('course there's a lot more titles that I really enjoy, too, but anyhow...), but to be so thin-skinned so as to require the teacher to ban discussion about it? Geez, you'd think that if she really thought some of this stuff was eeeevil then she'd want the chance to discuss it so she could influence others to stop watching it, etc.

NydaLynn wrote:*applauds* You find people everywhere like this. One of my classes has -no- non-class discussion becuase one Christian girl gets 'offended' by the mere mention of Anime or Sci-fi. Somehow, the teacher disallowed -any- discussions that offend others. O.o

Aw, poor widdle baby gets offended by anime and sci-fi, we must feed her tea and dumplings to make her feel better... poor widdle baby...

Spacewolfomega wrote:

Narnian wrote:As a Kentucky Colonel I am especially proud of them.

You're a Kentucky Colonel? Cool! Just like Harland Sanders!

Yep. And I even made chicken tonight.

Though it doesn't exactly get you any real world benefits beyond something to add to the resume as an eye catcher.

I have a good reason for everyone to be proud of at least one fellow Kentuckian. They are putting out a new line of GI Joe type soldier figures based on real soldiers serving in the war. One of the featured soldiers is from Kentucky. I heard him interviewed on the radio today.

Narnian wrote:Yep. And I even made chicken tonight.

Though it doesn't exactly get you any real world benefits beyond something to add to the resume as an eye catcher.

Did you know that Gary Gygax is a Kentucky Colonel, too?
"It's a..." *dice roll* "...pleasure to meet you!"

Sebastis wrote:I have a good reason for everyone to be proud of at least one fellow Kentuckian. They are putting out a new line of GI Joe type soldier figures based on real soldiers serving in the war. One of the featured soldiers is from Kentucky. I heard him interviewed on the radio today.

GO, JOE!!!!!

Spacewolfomega wrote:

Narnian wrote:Yep. And I even made chicken tonight.

Though it doesn't exactly get you any real world benefits beyond something to add to the resume as an eye catcher.

Did you know that Gary Gygax is a Kentucky Colonel, too?
"It's a..." *dice roll* "...pleasure to meet you!"

I must confess I have never played D&D - I tend to prefer card and word games.

My family hails from Lawrenceburg (my grandfather was a distiller at J.T.S. Brown and Sons) but I was born in Washington, DC.

reignbow wrote:They certainly dealt with it with panache. I am rather, however, rather dumbfounded what some people consider "offensive". This student is not just atheistic, he (or she) is antitheistic. Taking this much umbrage at prayer indicates that this person _does_ on some level believe in christianity. To paraphrase Pratchett, an atheist this violent is almost as good as a true believer. Someone who merely disbelieved christian faith would be able to sit through prayer no problem, like the adherents of other religions in the school probably do.
There are in fact two schools of thought here among secularists I know:
1.) I don't believe in it, I won't pray. They'll have to put up with that, even if it seems stubborn.
2.) I'll pretend to pray, no need to ruffle feathers.
The latter is debatable; some people think that it's offensive to God pretend to believe when you don't; others counter that it's like christians wondering about whether Allah would be offended - they don't believe in Allah, so the only concern should be his believers, not he himself.

Furthermore, I fail to understand why the ACLU is getting involved here. As far as I can tell, no "liberties" were violated. An institutionalized time slot was given for the vast majority of students to pray together, voluntarily. This is completely reasonable, unless abstaining from prayer was somehow penalized, in which case I'd like to retract my previous statements and go help organizing the barricades. However, that is most likely not the case.

The ACLU just passed around a memo trying to reign in board members who have dissenting opinions, stifling their right to speech. It's an organization that's suffering staff and donor capture and either needs to be put down and replaced or have a very thorough purge.

Spacewolfomega wrote:

reignbow wrote:There are in fact two schools of thought here among secularists I know:
1.) I don't believe in it, I won't pray. They'll have to put up with that, even if it seems stubborn.
2.) I'll pretend to pray, no need to ruffle feathers.

Well, I don't know about "pretending to pray", but certainly I've never seen anything wrong with bowing your head in silence, eyes closed, simply to honor the fact that other people are praying. I have been in situations where a prayer was uttered that I did not agree with, but I didn't open my eyes and stare resolutely forward, puff out my chest and everything to "make a point". Mind you, I did not say "Amen" when the prayer had concluded, but I did honor the fact that someone else was praying, so I didn't seek to disrupt their prayer. I see nothing wrong with that spiritually.

There's two parts to the bargain on that and 99.999% of the time the prayer giver keeps up their end so it's more of a theoretical issue but I almost walked out on a sermon once when the Orthodox priest started talking about how Catholicism was heretical due to a difference in the Creed, a difference, mind you, that had already been pretty much ironed out by the interfaith commissions that have been working on the issue for the past few decades. It is *possible* to make a prayer offensive and sectarian enough to merit disruption. It's also very unamerican and most people in this country know better.