Religious freedom

[hnumpah]

I'm sorry , which amendment is it that says citizens must be sensitive to the feelings of others?

Which one states you can't yell 'Fire!' in a crowded theater?

[sirs]

I'm sorry , which amendment is it that says citizens must be sensitive to the feelings of others?

Which one states you can't yell 'Fire!' in a crowded theater?

So, now the effort is to equate the possiblilty of hurting someone physically, in a riot made by yelling fire in a theater, possibly even the loss of life, to hurting someone's feelings??  Yea....that's it, they're analogus       

[hnumpah]

Point being no one is FORCING them to do anything or believe anything.

You're not paying attention - didn't I  just say the kid was forced to sit in class along with everyone else while this was going on? They may not have been forced to pray or recite the Bible reading, but they weren't allowed to leave, and the rest of the class certainly didn't go somewhere else for their devotional.

At NO TIME was there ANY effort to make ANYONE believe ANYTHING outside of what 2+2 was

If the only thing the kids in your school knew was that 2+2=4, I'd say they were a pretty ignorant bunch. Though the activities I've mentioned were done in class - why was that if it wasn't an effort to teach the students or get them to believe what they were being told?

What you are missing is that I don't have a problem if an individual student, or a group of students, wants to pray or read Bible verses (or from the Quran, or whatever) outside of class, even if it's somewhere else in the school building during their free time. But in class, students should be learning those subjects they need to get along in life - grammar, spelling, science, math, blah blah blah - and not religion. Save that for their parents to teach them, or their church. That way, their parents can be sure their kids are taught as they would want them to be taught.

Think of it like teaching birth control in school. A lot of folks make a stink about that because all they want their child to know about is abstinence, so they raise hell if mention is made of any other form of birth control or disease prevention. The difference is, not learning birth control and disease prevention can actually have serious consequences for the kids. Not learning the daily Bible verse in school, well, like I said, there's always mom or dad or Sunday school.

[hnumpah]

So, now the effort is to equate the possiblilty of hurting someone physically, in a riot made by yelling fire in a theater, possibly even the loss of life, to hurting someone's feelings??  Yea....that's it, they're analogus   

They are, if you're talking about constitutional amendments for either one.

Or did you miss that?

[Xavier_Onassis]

Assigning students to write about some hero is okay, and if this is the assignment, I don't see anything wrong with writing about some religious figure.

I am not sure why the teacher has to have students pick a hero, though. There are an infinity of topics that could be assigned that would cause students to think about how to write an effective essay.

When I went to school, we had some sort of prayer in Elementary School if the teacher wanted to say one, which was not always the case. We always had the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag. I cannot recall that these prayers had the teeniest bit of effect on me, one way or the other. I don;t think my feelings for the flag were affected much, either. I would never burn a flag in protest, though I can see where this is a valid form of expression, and it does tick me off when some moron business, especially used car lots, fly a flag day and night in weather both fair or foul, until the thing disintegrates into a fluttering assortment of pink, white and blue tatters.

I think that I am more pissed off about such ignorance of flag etiquette more because I was a serious Boy Scout and Explorer than anything I learned in school.

If everyone could agree on a common prayer, that would be just fine. But this is highly unlikely. So the best thing to do is to leave the manger scenes up to the Chamber of Commerce or some other civic group, and let kids pray silently when they feel the urge in school. I seriously doubt that commandeered mass prayers have any effect on anyone. Exceptionally long mass prayers mostly caused me to daydream.

[BT]

Which one states you can't yell 'Fire!' in a crowded theater?

There isn't one. Why should it be protected anymore than calling you a sonofabitch be protected? And last i heard that wasn't.

[sirs]

So, now the effort is to equate the possiblilty of hurting someone physically, in a riot made by yelling fire in a theater, possibly even the loss of life, to hurting someone's feelings??  Yea....that's it, they're analogus   

They are, if you're talking about constitutional amendments for either one.

Which of course there aren't for either one.    One's, again, a public safety issue while the other is simply bad manners as perceived by someone else.  Or did you miss that?

As Bt already asked, care to highlight the Constitutional amendment that claims one has the right not to be offended??

[Stray Pooch]

Assigning students to write about some hero is okay, and if this is the assignment, I don't see anything wrong with writing about some religious figure.
I am not sure why the teacher has to have students pick a hero, though. There are an infinity of topics that could be assigned that would cause students to think about how to write an effective essay.

You're right.  I think the topic is a good one, though.  One of the good things about literature is teaching moral values, and that is usually associated with a person (fictitious or otherwise) who exemplifies such things.  As such the topic would seem valid.  The restriction is the problem.  It would be equally wrong to assign a topic that required ALL students to write about a religious hero figure.  Many children have religious heros - many do not.  Asking a student to consider the persons who have influenced their lives and moral values is a good thing.  Dictating whether that influence has a religious significance or not is a bad thing.

When I went to school, we had some sort of prayer in Elementary School if the teacher wanted to say one, which was not always the case. We always had the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag. I cannot recall that these prayers had the teeniest bit of effect on me, one way or the other.

When I was in the first grade (I had no Kindergarten) we said the Lord's Prayer along with the pledge every morning in Chestertown, MD.  When I moved back to Baltimore I noticed our day started without the Lord's Prayer.  I suggested to my teacher that we should say it (I was a pretty religious kid).  Her face clouded over and she said "We can't do that anymore."   I went home and told my mom, who then explained to me who Madeline Murray Ohare was.

I don;t think my feelings for the flag were affected much, either. I would never burn a flag in protest, though I can see where this is a valid form of expression, and it does tick me off when some moron business, especially used car lots, fly a flag day and night in weather both fair or foul, until the thing disintegrates into a fluttering assortment of pink, white and blue tatters.

Yeah.  It's good to be patriiotic, but it's ridiculous to put a flag out and then watch it disintegrate.  I also hated that our local Kroger store flew a gigantic flag (almost a third of the size of the flagpole).  Patriotism is one thing - gaudy showiness is another.

If everyone could agree on a common prayer, that would be just fine. But this is highly unlikely. So the best thing to do is to leave the manger scenes up to the Chamber of Commerce or some other civic group, and let kids pray silently when they feel the urge in school. I seriously doubt that commandeered mass prayers have any effect on anyone. Exceptionally long mass prayers mostly caused me to daydream.

There is an issue of discomfort.  We have Weekday Religious Education here.  Children are taken out of school, put on a school bus and sent to a separate location for private Bible training during school hours.  My youngest (who is a senior in HS now - Yay for empty nest syndrome!)  came to me after the first day of school down here and told me I had to sign a form so she could go to Bible school during the day.  I explained to her that I didn't think that was appropriate, since the sponsors of the program did not necessarily agree with our beliefs.  (This, btw, is a difficult thing for a third grader to get her mind around.  The Bible, after all, is the Bible and the idea that thousands of different sects can come about from the same book is hard to understand at that age.)  It made her feel bad, because "everybody else was doing it."  I just explained to her that she didn't always have to do what everybody else was doing.  This is one of the reasons I personally oppose mandatory school prayer.  It can be pretty tough on a kid trying to fit in and can indeed cause ostracism.  Still, I took no action to protest the WRE program.  I think that the kids who participated had as much right to their religious expression as my daughter did to hers.  Children - religious or otherwise - have to learn that other people are going to disagree with them on a lot of things.  They have to learn to deal with people who don't like them.  It's a tough lesson, and many people have a more difficult time learning it than others.  But it has to be learned and it is better to learn it early on than go through life thinking everything is roses and then having to face the real world.  That's also a reason I disapprove of home schooling.