Generally a public school has broad authority over what teachers say in class. When they’re teaching, or counseling students, they are seen as speaking on behalf of the school, and the school has broad power to control its own speech. And schoolteachers generally have no constitutional right to put up materials of their own on the walls, since those are the school’s walls, for the school to dispose of as the administration pleases.
But Johnson v. Poway Unified School Dist., decided yesterday by the federal district court for the Southern District of California, is a rare exception: The judge concluded that the school district had created a designated public forum for teacher speech, by allowing teachers to put up pretty much any posters they please in their classrooms, including:
- a 35 to 40-foot long string of Tibetan prayer flags with writings in Sanskrit and images of
Buddha.- a large poster of John Lennon and the lyrics to the song “Imagine”:
Imagine there’s no Heaven, It’s easy if you try
No hell below us, Above us only sky
Imagine all the people, Living for today
Imagine there’s no countries, It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for, And no religion, too
Imagine all the people, Living life in peace
You may say that I’m a dreamer, But I’m not the only one
I hope that someday you’ll join us, And the world will be as one.- a poster of Hindu leader, Mahatma Gandhi.
- a poster of Hindu leader, Mahatma Gandhi’s “7 Social Sins”:
Politics without principle
Wealth without work
Commerce without morality
Pleasure without conscience
Education without character
Science without humanity
Worship without sacrifice.- a poster of Buddhist leader, the Dali [sic] Lama.
- a poster that says: “The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.”
- posters of Muslim minister, Malcolm X.
- a Greenpeace poster that says: “Stop Global Warming.”
- posters of rock bands Nirvana, Bruce Springsteen, and the Beatles.
- posters of professional athletes and sports teams.
- a poster of the movie “Monty Python’s Quest for the Holy Grail.”
- “Day of Silence” posters.
- bumper stickers that say: “Equal Rights Are Not Special Rights,” “Dare to Think for Yourself,” and “Celebrate Diversity.”
- a Libertarian Party poster.
- a poster with a large peace sign and the word “peace” in several languages.
- a mock American flag with a peace sign replacing the 50 stars and appearing to be six feet wide and four feet tall.
- an anti-war poster that asks: “How many Iraqi children did we kill today?”
- a pro-defense poster of a Navy aircraft carrier that says: “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of All Who Threaten it” and appearing to be seven feet wide and four feet tall.
- posters of civil rights advocate Martin Luther King, Jr.
- a large poster that says: “Zero Population Growth.”
- a large poster of an American flag with the motto: “United We Stand.”
- a large poster of an American flag that says: “…life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
- flags with the historical political motto: “Don’t tread on me.”
- non-student artwork.
- life-sized cartoon characters.
- photographs and inspirational sayings.
Therefore, the school district couldn’t constitutionally exclude from this forum Bradley Johnson’s 7′ x 2′ banners, “striped in red, white, and blue and set[ting] forth famous national phrases” — on one, “In God We Trust,” “One Nation Under God,” “God Bless America,” and “God Shed His Grace On Thee,’” and on the other, “All Men Are Created Equal, They Are Endowed By Their CREATOR.” The court concluded that such exclusion — especially in light of the school’s allowing the Imagine lyrics, the Tibetan prayer flags with images of the Buddha, and Gandhi’s “Hindu messages” (the court’s label) — was impermissible viewpoint discrimination, as well as impermissible religious preference. Moreover, the court said, allowing Johnson’s message wouldn’t violate the Establishment Clause, because “Any perceived endorsement of a single religion is dispelled by the fact that other teachers are also permitted to display other religious messages and anti-religious messages on classroom walls.”
I’m inclined to say that this is probably the correct result given what strikes me as the highly unusual policy of the school district, which probably does create a designated public forum for the teachers’ own messages. The breadth of messages, including some that I imagine many people might find offensive and that the school itself wouldn’t endorse, strikes me as particularly telling of a designated public forum.
But if a school did not give its teachers such flexibility, and I expect that most high schools — unlike colleges and universities — indeed do not leave their teachers generally free to express their views on classroom walls, then the school would certainly be within its rights to make sure that only those messages that it endorses are placed on the walls. The only objection to that would be a possible Establishment Clause challenge, if the school-endorsed messages were seen as endorsing religion, or endorsing some religions over others (possible, if a school endorsed the Imagine lyrics but not Johnson’s message), and not a Free Speech Clause challenge.
tvk says:
Maybe the solution is to take out the Buddha and the Lennon song as well, but it seems pretty troubling that the teacher gets to preach his religion to a captive audience of students. By this logic, I am not seeing why it would not also be impermissible viewpoint discrimination if the teacher started praying in front of the class, or inviting a minister to do so.
February 26, 2010, 6:50 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
Preaching a religion to a captive audience would be bad. Banners on the wall, not so much, IMO. I think it’s good for people to learn that they can be around people who don’t think and believe as they do, without flying into bits; or that people who do think and believe as they do about X won’t necessarily be their ally about Y.
February 26, 2010, 7:01 pmArthur Kirkland says:
The school’s acquiesence with respect to other personal messages opened the door to Mr. Johnson’s 35-foot-long homage to God.
Mr. Johnson’s homage correspondingly opens the door to anti-God messages (and it should go without saying that every child should be able to inform Mr. Johnson, without the slightest fear of retribution, that there is no God).
Let’s hope the children accomplish some learning while the teachers joust about religion.
February 26, 2010, 7:02 pmodinbearded says:
preach his religion to a captive audience of students
Seriously? A poster relating phrases that are on our money, in the Pledge of Allegiance, quoted by every president, in our occasionally proposed national anthem, and in the Declaration of Independence, respectively?
Try this logic. Those phrases are in common usage and the children are exposed to them everywhere in life.
February 26, 2010, 7:06 pmtvk says:
odinbearded, I might have agreed with you, except that the Declaration of Independence does not have the word “Creator” in all capital letters, and the quote left off the rest of the bit about “certain inalienable rights.”
February 26, 2010, 7:11 pmptt says:
One wonders how many of the religious posters were together in the same room. Say, for example, if a Comparative Religion teacher had ten posters, each for a different religion. Or if the Gandhi quotes were in a history classroom or the Tibetan prayer flag in a geography classroom.
As for Mr. Johnson, here’s a link to his posters. He teaches math.
February 26, 2010, 7:16 pmJ. Aldridge says:
I had no idea the First Amendment read “No public school shall make no law…”
February 26, 2010, 7:16 pmDangerMouse says:
Ever notice how all of these cases, it’s always the person who is speaking typically culturally American phrases that is attacked by the mindless lib bureaucratic elite?
Who would’ve thought that you’d have to go to court in order to say the American motto, In God We Trust.
Mr. Johnson’s homage correspondingly opens the door to anti-God messages
Actually, it was the Hindu and Buddhist stuff that did that, but thanks for confirming that those things are invisible to an atheist’s wrath.
February 26, 2010, 7:18 pmBumpjon says:
Sounds like someone still needs to “accomplish some learning” or at least work on his reading comprehension skills. The 35-foot-long homage was not to Mr. Johnson’s God but to Buddha and a Tibetan prayer. Mr. Johnson’s display was two 7′x2′ displays. That’s not even 35 square feet, yet alone 35 feet long. And,many people consider Imagine to be anti-religion so it seems that door is already open.
February 26, 2010, 7:18 pmtvk says:
Actually, to follow up on Mr. Kirkland’s very good point, let me modify my hypo. I do not see why, under this decision, it would not be constitutionally impermissible for the school district to discipline a teacher who actively preached Islam and attempted to convert his students.
February 26, 2010, 7:20 pmBumpjon says:
You don’t see how putting posters on the wall is distinguishable from preaching to and attempting to convert student?
February 26, 2010, 7:24 pmodinbearded says:
Yes, emphasizing Creator is a kitschy move. But is it endorsing a particular religion or religion in general? I’ll admit, if we were discussing injecting any religious imagery at all, there might be a case. As for the truncated phrase, it could be easily argued that the important part was left in, “all men are created equal.”
February 26, 2010, 7:24 pmTed says:
Write judicial opinions much?
If you were honest with yourself, you would not ask this question. All of the quotations are from American sources, which, when written, was a predominantly Christian nation. Your question is like reading, “Jesus is Lord,” and wondering if the author really meant that Jesus or whether he really meant Jesus Jorge Gonzales, the land owner. I mean, you never really know, huh?
February 26, 2010, 7:34 pmArthur Kirkland says:
I thought I counted five seven-foot banners. If I miscounted, or if the teacher included more than one message on a banner, I misunderstood.
I can understand why some people believe John Lennon’s lyrics are anti-religion. “Dare To Think For Yourself” probably qualifies, too.
February 26, 2010, 7:37 pmDangerMouse says:
Ted,
Still, it shouldn’t matter. This outcome, while a good victory for free speech, still has to grapple with the idiotic legacy of years of stupid Supreme Court cases in which they are unable to understand what it means to “establish” a religion as the state religion, like it is in England.
February 26, 2010, 7:38 pmArthur Kirkland says:
The decision indicates some of Mr. Johnson’s messages have been posted for 20 or 25 years. Why do you conclude the Hindi and Buddhist stuff was the precipitate?
What causes you do conclude — mistakenly — that I am an athiest?
February 26, 2010, 7:39 pmodinbearded says:
The question is whether or not it is endorsing a religion. (I left out the part where I explicitly say ‘more than any of the other posters’)
The endorsement is the key part here. Straight from Wikipedia:
“It is quite obvious that the national motto and the slogan on coinage and currency ‘In God We Trust’ has nothing whatsoever to do with the establishment of religion. Its use is of patriotic or ceremonial character and bears no true resemblance to a governmental sponsorship of a religious exercise.” Aronow, 432 F.2d at 243.
From the Ninth Circuit(!) in 1970.
February 26, 2010, 7:42 pmSun Tzu's Nephew says:
No posters of Che’? I’m shocked! Shocked, I say!
February 26, 2010, 7:49 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
The lyrics of “Imagine” strike me as much more explicitly anti-religion than “Dare to think for yourself”. Which actually could describe what the daughter of an agnostic friend of mine did, when to my friend’s bewilderment and consternation, her daughter started talking about religion and going to church: “Where did she get that?” my friend said.
February 26, 2010, 8:14 pmsecond history says:
I thought the national motto was: In God We Trust, all others pay cash. I see it all the time in businesses. ;-)
February 26, 2010, 8:23 pmDave N. says:
I was particularly upset that one teacher had a Libertarian Party poster.
February 26, 2010, 8:36 pmRobertF says:
I do not see why it is not not impossible to not write with so many negatives. :-)
February 26, 2010, 8:46 pmShelbyC says:
What is it about Poway and the First Amendment? First the whole “Homosexuality is shameful” thing, now this.
February 26, 2010, 8:51 pmtvk says:
A few people have criticized my triple negative, which may have been bad writing. But it still seems to me that the district court has constitutionally mandated that a teacher may preach Islam without repercussion, since the classroom (or, at least, classrooms in this school district) is now a “public forum.” Once you make that finding, there is no distinction between hanging banners and explicit preaching–pretty much anything goes in a public forum.
February 26, 2010, 9:02 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
tvk, you probably could make that distinction if you spelled it out in the school policy: that a deliberate decision was made to allow banners, so that teachers could express themselves and students could be exposed to a variety of viewpoints; but classroom discussions are to confine themselves to the subject at hand, because there’s barely enough time in the school day as it is to cover math and English and so forth. I think that could stick. JMO, of course.
February 26, 2010, 9:09 pmtvk says:
odinbearded, the question about whether this is “endorsement” is why I highlighted the all capital letters, which I think is pretty revealing. By taking the passages out of their usual context and emphasizing the religious aspect, it is pretty clear that this teacher is conveying a religious message.
Someone writing “Merry Christmas” to me is conveying good wishes. Someone writing “Merry CHRISTmas” is sending a religious message.
February 26, 2010, 9:10 pmtheobromophile says:
ShelbyC beat me to it. My first thought was about Harper (I think was the name of it).
Oddly, this pretty much means that a teacher could put up a poster saying something about how the Bible preaches that heterosexuality and celibacy are the only acceptable ways to live, but a student could not sport the same on a T-shirt.
February 26, 2010, 9:15 pmMark N. says:
This sounds like a strangely unprofessional school on the whole. I think I would’ve been pretty disconcerted if, as a schoolchild, my teachers had various proselytizing posters up on their walls, political bumper stickers, political-party advertisements, etc. Wouldn’t more typical decorations involve a math teacher having a Euclid poster up, a geography teacher having a map of the world, etc.?
February 26, 2010, 9:23 pmMalvolio says:
My daughter’s classroom had a Che poster. I shoulda sued.
February 26, 2010, 9:32 pmodinbearded says:
Once you make that finding, there is no distinction between hanging banners and explicit preaching–pretty much anything goes in a public forum.
That is simply absurd. The court did not rule that the classroom is an open public forum. From the ruling: Teachers are permitted to display in their
classrooms various messages and items that reflect the individual teacher’s personality, opinions, and values, as well as messages relating to matters of political, social, and religious concerns so long as these displays do not materially disrupt school work or cause substantial disorder or interference in the classroom. Because of this policy, practice, and custom, teachers have used their classroom walls as an expressive vehicle to convey non-curriculum related messages.
The court simply held that as long as the school allowed other teachers to express their views on the walls, it must allow Johnson to do the same. The teachers are still expected to teach their subject, and active proselytizing is not allowed, if I am correctly reading the case.
As to the added emphasis, here is the opening to the section on recognizing religion: That God places prominently in our Nation’s history does not create an Establishment Clause violation requiring curettage and disinfectant for Johnson’s public high school classroom
February 26, 2010, 9:40 pmwalls.
Bumpjon says:
And, even if they did create a public forum, that doesn’t mean that the school cannot place non-content-based restrictions on speech, i.e., the school can say you can put up Che, John Lennon, or Christian, etc posters but you cannot talk about anything other than classroom topics.
February 26, 2010, 9:55 pmTatil says:
Appeal courts are very good at legally sounding reasons for their reluctance to make decisions that would be popular for a very small group of people. Did they provide any reasoning behind their claim that “In God We Trust” is somehow patriotic? If it was “In Country We Trust” or “In Constitution We Trust”, sure, but as it is I don’t get it.
February 26, 2010, 10:07 pmorca says:
a Libertarian Party poster
Yet another “Libertarian” living off the public teat?
Do any of them work in the private sector?
February 26, 2010, 10:21 pmodinbearded says:
@Tatil
I’ll let better minds say it.
“It is unsurprising that a Nation founded by religious refugees and dedicated to religious freedom should find references to divinity in its symbols, songs, mottoes, and oaths. Eradicating such references would sever ties to a history that sustains this Nation even today.” Elk Grove Unified School Dist. v. Newdow, 542 U.S. 1, 35-36 (O’Connor, J., concurring).
February 26, 2010, 10:28 pmKen Arromdee says:
The teacher included more than one message on a banner. You misunderstood.
I think that imagining that if there’s no religion people would live in peace already qualifies as anti-religion.
February 26, 2010, 10:52 pmegd says:
I’m pretty sure it reads “Congress shall make no law” with the not-quite-absurd assumption that if Congress delegates its lawmaking authority, such lawmaking authority is similarly constrained by the 1st Amendment.
February 26, 2010, 11:06 pmStephen Lathrop says:
The court, and many Americans, just wanted that result, apparently because at the time the country was obsessed with the threat of “Godless communism.” Politically, “God” could be read to mean “not communist.” But of course religious people, mostly Christians in this case, were delighted for a change they could portray as acknowledging their specific heritage as the heritage of the nation, even though there is nothing specifically Christian in the motto.
Except for the fact that many Christians have lived in the United States there isn’t much at the national level to support the notion of a “Christian nation” historically. There is quite a bit in the historical record against it. However, some states did for a time support established Christian churches, something the Constitution denied to the nation as a whole, and would be read as prohibiting to the states today.
Today we actually have two ideas kicking around that can’t be supported historically, but that many take as historically-based principles of American governance. The other one is the our-capitalist-free-enterprise-system thing. It’s like the Christian nation idea, in that there has been a lot of capitalism in the nation’s history, but there is no way to read it as a founding principle of national governance.
February 26, 2010, 11:19 pmA Rare First Amendment Victory for a Public School Teacher Complaining About Restrictions on In-School Speech | Liberal Whoppers says:
[...] more here: A Rare First Amendment Victory for a Public School Teacher Complaining About Restrictions on In-Scho… [...]
February 26, 2010, 11:38 pmRicardo says:
Go and read Christopher Hitchens’ harsh criticism of the Dalai Lama and Hindu fundamentalists in India. These are invisible to many other Western atheists but that’s because these atheists are ignorant of what actually goes on in non-Western countries (as are most Western monotheists, for that matter).
February 26, 2010, 11:47 pmJohn Moore says:
The problem here is the district’s policy in the first place. The teacher’s political and religious opinions should not be exposed to the students. The students are a captive audience, and the teachers, government employees, are authority figures with real power over the students.
The whole policy is seriously wrong.
February 26, 2010, 11:56 pmRobertF says:
Last I heard Hitchens had wisely backed off his lumping in Buddhists with violent adherents of other religions. And as a Buddhist I will say he’s lucky he did. I was gonna sock him in the mouth if I ever saw him.
February 27, 2010, 12:16 amtvk says:
odinbearded, I think you are drawing a pretty difficult distinction between “active” classroom teaching and hanging stuff on walls. But lets play with it for a moment. Say that a Muslim math teacher decides to post “You Must Believe in Allah or You Will Burn in Hell” and “Christianity is Evil” on his classroom wall; his actual class discussion is not changed. By the district court’s analysis, I am not seeing a way out but to say that is the teacher’s supposed First Amendment right to do so.
You say that the district court held that there was no Establishment clause violation. The court is (a) wrong, and (b) making an irrelevant point. The wrong part is per my capitalized “CREATOR” point above – - this teacher is clearly not focusing on the historical and civic relevance of these passages. Moreover, suppose there is an establishment clause violation in the content of these passages. By finding that the teacher has a free speech right to post them in a public forum, the court has just removed the speech from the control of the only entity subject to the establishment clause – - the school district. You are perfectly free to pray or preach in a public street or park. The entire point of having a free speech right is that the government cannot stop the individual, here including the teacher. The absurdity of this decision is made clear by the fact that the students are compelled to read these posters by the government (since they must attend school), but the court holds that the government cannot control what they are made to read.
February 27, 2010, 12:55 amNick says:
If the kids at this school are learning anything there, it’s contempt for their teachers and for the opinions that these teachers seem to feel they must share.
February 27, 2010, 1:12 amShelbyC says:
Well, if the school wants to avoid an establishment clause violation they can create a policy restricting teacher speech and enforce it uniformly. They can’t just arbitrairly censor speech they don’t like by saying it’s an establishment clause violation, well allowing other, similar speech. For example, if a teacher had a sign on the wall that says, “believe in Allah or you’re going to hell”, sure, that may be an establishment clause violation and the school can create rules to prevent that. But if every other teacher has a sign that says, “believe in Jesus or you’re going to hell”, and they single out the teacher with the Allah sign and tell him his sign is an establishment clause violation, they’re probably violating his first amendment rights. That’s the importance of the designated public forum doctrine. Even in situations where the government can censor speech, it has to do it in a neutral manner.
February 27, 2010, 2:37 amRicardo says:
Do you have a link to where he has backed off of his earlier criticisms? Certainly, I haven’t heard of him letting up on his criticism of the Dalai Lama and Tibetan Buddhism. Hitchens apparently gets death threats pretty routinely so you’d have to get in back of a rather long line of people who want to physically harm him for statements he has made.
February 27, 2010, 4:22 amRobertF says:
http://www.powells.com/authors/christopherhitchens.html
February 27, 2010, 5:49 amFantasiaWHT says:
I find it intriguing that the only people so offended/threatened by a poster that they felt they had to bring a lawsuit were the people offended/threatened by these posters, and not the rest.
February 27, 2010, 9:13 amR. Nebblesworth says:
The outcome of this lawsuit further confirms that my political beliefs are correct.
February 27, 2010, 9:22 amshawn says:
That’s the problem I’ve found with many atheists – they’re incapable of recognizing that a religious message CAN BE a greeting or good wishes, and that there isn’t anything wrong with that. It’s ridiculous that the atheists demand tolerance for everything else, but are completely unwilling to tolerate someone else’s beliefs.
“God bless”, “assalamu alaikum”, heck, even “good bye” has a religious basis (it is based on the phrase “God be with ye”). Think about that the next time you hang up your phone.
February 27, 2010, 9:22 amLaura(southernxyl) says:
If I express an opinion, does the mere fact that I express it indicated that I feel that you must share it?
February 27, 2010, 9:41 amChurch, State, School | Crossroads Arabia says:
[...] (as it did) prohibit the expression of some views while permitting the expression of other views: A Rare First Amendment Victory for a Public School Teacher Complaining About Restrictions on In-School [...]
February 27, 2010, 10:05 amS says:
It is a fine line. It probably is good for students to be exposed to their teachers as people with ideas. On the other hand, the size of these posters in math class are just plain bizarre. I think the school should adopt rules regarding size, etc.
February 27, 2010, 10:06 amricky says:
Indeed. Anti-Christian bigots are by far the angriest and most intolerant people in this country.
February 27, 2010, 10:14 amDesiderius says:
Orca,
“Yet another “Libertarian” living off the public teat?
Do any of them work in the private sector?”
Not if you and yours keep engorging yourselves on ever-growing chunks of it!
Thx for copying and pasting the weekly talking point, tho.
February 27, 2010, 10:33 amPintler says:
Well, the school posters certainly seem to represent a wide range of ideas. I wonder if people would view things differently if the same policy in a school where the faculty all had the same worldview, and so all the posters were from one side of an issue?
(Secondly, I tend to agree with the idea that teachers are hired to do a job, which is to teach geometry or chemistry or whatever; political opinions ought to be played on an instrument with a mute firmly in place, if at all)
February 27, 2010, 10:34 amShelbyC says:
You wouldn’t happen to be government expansionist working in the private sector, would you? That’s gotta be at least as hypocritical, no?
February 27, 2010, 10:39 amShelbyC says:
I guess by your logic someone opposed to communism working in a communist factory must be the lowest of the low, right? Right down there with abolitionist slaves?
February 27, 2010, 10:43 amDennis N says:
Anti Christian bigotry is still not only tolerated, but im many circles, is fashionable.
February 27, 2010, 12:24 pmChris Travers says:
I dunno. I think you would have to define religion first. I think that becomes very difficult especially where someone like Buddha is involved (who is frequently quoted by individuals from non-Buddhist religions with approval).
Modern Hinduism, at least since the time of Ramakrishna, has been relatively non-preachy (Hare Krishnas aside). Remember that Ramakrishna temporarily converted to Islam and then Christianity, and then returned to Hinduism declaring that all three religions were more or less the same. In a lot of ways this provides the foundation for a lot of Ghandi’s work later.
February 27, 2010, 12:25 pmRoger Zimmerman says:
Actually, the fundamental problem is the existence of state-sponsored schooling. As much as the lawyers here can dance on pinheads to square 1rst amendment jurisprudence with publicly funded idea propagation, the contradiction remains. As long as people are coerced into paying for the promotion of ideas that they find abhorrent, there can be no objectively just resolution to “issues” such as this.
We need a complete separation of government from education.
February 27, 2010, 12:30 pmPubliusFL says:
FIFY
February 27, 2010, 1:23 pmRandy says:
Shawn: “That’s the problem I’ve found with many atheists — they’re incapable of recognizing that a religious message CAN BE a greeting or good wishes, and that there isn’t anything wrong with that. It’s ridiculous that the atheists demand tolerance for everything else, but are completely unwilling to tolerate someone else’s beliefs.”
That might very well be true, but writing CHRISTmas is not a message of greeting or good wishes. I’m not at all offended by a Merry Christmas, and happy when people say it to me. But unless I’m absolutely sure that the other person isn’t atheist/Muslim/Jewish or whatever, simple Happy Holidays accomplishes the exact same goal. And if a Christian merely wants to offer greetings or good wishes, the same applies to them.
What is really strange is that they go nuts over Xmas, which is a very traditional way to write Christmas. But some idiots viewed it as some sort of 17th century plot to take Christ out of Chirstmas, which simply isn’t true.
Ricky: ” Anti-Christian bigots are by far the angriest and most intolerant people in this country.”
Really? Intolerant of what exactly? Unlike many Christians, I don’t anyone suggesting that that believers should be put to death, jailed for their beliefs, prevented from marrying one another, or propose laws to discriminate against them.
February 27, 2010, 1:39 pmChris Travers says:
Maybe we can draw a line depending on the interaction of religious belief and the content?
“No one comes to the Father except through me” is surely different from “Consider how the wild flowers grow. They neither work nor weave, but I tell you that even Solomon in all his glory was never arrayed like one of these!”
I am not certain that it would be impermissible to quote the Bible in such posters. I think each power though would have to be looked at independently.
February 27, 2010, 1:47 pmChris Travers says:
(Kudos to anyone who picks out the Buddhist overtones of the second Jesus quote.)
February 27, 2010, 1:48 pmShelbyC says:
True, and keep in mind that however many lawyers you have dancing wherever you want, you still can’t square the first amendment with public education. That’s why courts have invented the notion that schoolchildren have limited first amendment rights (and fourth amendment rights, and constitutional rights in general). Still not sure why the exceptions to constitutional rights in schools don’t allow for things like school prayer, though.
February 27, 2010, 2:08 pmArthur Kirkland says:
Does the widespread pro-Christian bigotry — toned down a bit in recent decades, but still present, and in numerous contexts endorsed by law and the government — trouble anyone?
February 27, 2010, 2:14 pmJoseph Slater says:
The victomology of the modern right is impressive. On the “false claim of rape” thread the other day, we learned that women in great numbers falsely accuse men of rape, domestic violence, and other crimes, and get away with it because of the feminist-infected court system. Here we learn that anti-Christian bigotry is the worst kind of bigotry in the U.S. and that it’s “fashionable.” What IS a WASP male to do these days?
Having said all that, this case seems to have turned out the right way, IMHO.
February 27, 2010, 2:59 pmChris Travers says:
Joseph Slater:
I thought that everyone in this country got ahead by arguing that they are bigger victims than anyone else… I further thought everyone on the left and on the right played that same game…
One would almost think being a victim would lose it’s charm after a while. Evidently there is something very attractive about being a victim that I just don’t understand.
(BTW, despite the fact that I generally don’t like Justice Thomas’s jurisprudence, one thing I greatly respect about the man is his ability and willingness to state that we as a society have come to value victimhood too much.)
February 27, 2010, 3:43 pmThrobert McGee says:
I’m shocked and disappointed that any self-respecting high school graffiti artist would be able to resist the temptation afforded by the truncated phrase “all men are endowed.”
P.S. And the teacher is even named “Johnson,” for cryin’ out loud! What’s the matter with kids these days?
February 27, 2010, 3:58 pmRandy says:
Ryan Waxx :”Got anything to say about the victimology of the modern left, which actually goes so far as to organize itself by victim groups.”
Such as…?
[OK Comments: Please do not respond to Ryan Waxx: He is a banned commenter who trolls around occassionally until his comments are deleted.]
February 27, 2010, 4:29 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
MRAs are part of the modern left? Wow. I learn something every day here.
February 27, 2010, 4:30 pmThrobert McGee says:
Um, it seems perfectly obvious to me — self-evidently true, even — that capitalizing the word “Creator” can serve the purpose of highlighting Jefferson’s Deism. In other words, the man who authored the Declaration pointedly avoided writing “endowed by the LORD God“, which might’ve seemed a far more natural turn of phrase to a devout Christian. Jefferson’s word choice here is rather typical of Deists — some of whom might’ve preferred an even more abstract term such as “Providence”.
Placing “Creator” in all caps draws attention to the historically relevant point that some of the influential Founding Fathers were emphatically not Christians, at least not in the sense that they sincerely believed the basic tenets of the Nicene Creed, for example.
Now, it may be that Bradley Johnson’s real intention was something quite different from what I suggest above, and that he’s just your Garden-variety anti-evilutionist loon, stupidly trying to “prove” that the Founding Fathers endorsed Young Earth Creationism, or whatever.
But the linked story certainly doesn’t justify jumping to conclusions about Johnson’s specific beliefs and motivation here.
February 27, 2010, 4:47 pmShelbyC says:
Er, basic logical flaw, no? He didn’t say all victims rights groups were part of the modern left.
February 27, 2010, 5:20 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
Shelby, I just thought I’d contribute another logical flaw to the ones flying around here already.
Joseph can point out things he sees in the modern right without that being negated by the fact that he didn’t call out Ryan’s concerns about the left. For my part, I’m used to seeing that in the left and dismayed to see people on what I thought was my side buying into the victimization mindset.
February 27, 2010, 5:23 pmThrobert McGee says:
Fixed that.
I tend to see the “Cult of Victimhood” as an invention of the left, but many on the right have long since jumped on the bandwagon with both feet.
And the only hope of changing things, in my view, is for righties to deplore the habit in other righties, and for lefties to scold other lefties. Nagging across the aisle rarely works, because people need to hear it from those they respect as peers.
February 27, 2010, 5:25 pmLaura(southernxyl) says:
Yeah, between the two of us, you are the one who doesn’t toe the political line of either side.
February 27, 2010, 5:50 pmChris Travers says:
Maybe. I thought Justice Thomas’s speech on what it means to be an American (mentioned on this blog some time ago) was quite impressive. I am not generally a fan of Thomas’s jurisprudence but I gained a LOT of respect for the man listening to that speech. One thing I noticed at that moment and did not pay enough attention to was that Thomas spoke of a cult of victimhood in society but seemed to avoid tying it to the left or right.
February 27, 2010, 11:42 pmricky says:
“And the only hope of changing things, in my view, is for righties to deplore the habit in other righties, and for lefties to scold other lefties. Nagging across the aisle rarely works, because people need to hear it from those they respect as peers.”
As long as the Cultural Marxist zeitgeist persists, the moral authority will be held by whoever can prove themselves the most victimized. Self-policing in an arms race is just setting yourself up to lose. In other words, it’s idiotic to expect people to drop the victimology rhetoric on their own when it’s obvious that it still works.
February 28, 2010, 1:33 amS says:
But we hold that people of reason and good will can distinguish the victim from the victimizer. It may not be fashionable among blog comments, but grown-ups still cleave to this.
February 28, 2010, 8:48 amLife.Liberty says:
The learned Judge’s characterization of Gandhi as “Hindu leader” and his teachings as “Hindu messages” is like calling Obama a Christian Leader and his administrations agenda as Christian agenda.
Gandhi was assassinated by a Hindu extremist for being too secular(or Muslim lover in Hindu fundamentalist lingo). Gandhi was a practicing Hindu. But, his teachings are not religious teachings.
Disclaimer: I was born in India and I do not practice any institutionalized religion.
March 1, 2010, 6:31 pmSheila says:
The Establishment Clause, like every part of the Bill of Rights, was intended to prohibit the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, not the individual citizen, and not the states. That is why the amendment begins with “CONGRESS shall make no law” … . The soul intent of the clause was to prevent the FEDERAL CONGRESS from ever establishing, or setting up a national DENOMINATION. That is it … that is all it was meant to do. Not once, in the annals of Congress, in the months they were framing the Bill of Rights (including the First Amendment), June 1789 through September 1789, did they ever mention the phrase “Separation of church and state”.
Today, this amendment has been twisted and perverted to limit the individual’s rights (in school and otherwise), when it was intended to restrict the government’s rights and embolden the individual’s rights. As stated before, the establishment clause was written to prevent a national denomination (which had been so common in Europe, and even in the individual colonies until the 1770′s and 1780′s).
In addition, the restriction on a teacher OR a student’s right to talk about God, pray or read the Bible is a continual violation of the following clause – “or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”. (This particular violation has not been perpetrated by Congress, but by our courts misreading and bad interpretation of the original intent of the law). Limiting a teacher’s speech is also a violation of their freedom of speech, whose guarantee is given in the same amendment.
The very Congressman who wrote the First Amendment (Fisher Ames) strongly called for the Bible to be utilized as a textbook in schools. (so did many other founders) None of today’s insanity was being practiced or encouraged by the men who framed the First Amendment.
Removing God from schools has been very much to our detriment, not to our delight. And it is based upon bad re-writing of history.
“We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” -John Adams
March 2, 2010, 12:58 pm