Public school flies Christian flag alongside Old Glory

originally posted by: AIC4ME
a reply to: Krazysh0t

I disagree. The school should be allowed to fly whatever flag they want and you get to decide if you want your kid to go there or not. I think it's BS that we have to be sensitive to everyone's feelings all the time. People need to grow a backbone.

Parents don't decide on what schools they send their kids to when it comes to public schools. They go to the school that services their district.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

I know that. I think they should be though. Was just my opinion.

I guess you could move to a school district of your choice, but not everyone has that option and it's a pain in the butt.

I'd like to see this talked about more and something voted in that would allow you to pick a public school of your choice.

a reply to: AIC4ME

If you did that, wouldn't that just result in all the best schools becoming overcrowded and all the worst schools becoming dangerously low in enrollment?

I would ask that anyone go back and read the letters between Thomas Jefferson and the Danbury Baptists where the phrase "separation of church and state" first appear. As most everyone knows, that phrase is not in any founding documents regarding the first amendment. Yet the courts use it as interpretation. We can debate whether court interpretations are right or wrong in another thread, that won't be the point of my post.

My point is to revisit the history of the Bill of Rights and what the Constitution actually meant. There is a common misunderstanding of these documents simply because we do not live in the 18th century. The Constitution is a blueprint for how the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT operates, it was never meant to "grant" rights to the People. The Bill of Rights were a list of rights (granted by god, the Founders believed) that government was NOT to infringe upon. Not all rights were listed simply because the list was inumerable. The 10th amendment affirms this thought.

Just for a little pretext, the Pilgrims that fled England left because they believed the Church of England as well as the Catholic Church had fallen away from the teachings of Christ. This put them at odds with church officials and King James I and he tried to have them arrested. One could not function within English society unless you recognized the teachings and rituals of the Church of England. You could not trade, you could not bank, you were ostracized and arrested. The Pilgrims fled to Holland where there was religious freedom, but they had trouble integrating into Dutch culture. So, they left for the New World... America.

Now we fast forward to the creation of the first amendment and the philosophy behind it. Because James Madison had helped draft the "Virginia Plan" eleven years prior the Constitutional Convention, the plan was the basis for the new Constitution. Madison had developed his zeal for religious freedom during the Virginia Plan. He thoroughly believed that the state should not have a say in man's conscience beliefs. The entire thought behind the religious freedom of the first amendment was that beliefs were between man and his conscience. There was to be no established national religion, no religious tests for national office, and no taxes appropriated to sustain one church over another. The Founders believed that if the state were to meddle in religious domains, then the state could co-opt the religion or impose religious tests in order to maintain "freedom". The "wall" was not to suppress religion, it was to meant to be a barrier to keep government from interfering with it. Many churches utilized court houses during the infancy of the country. These churches didn't have the money to build quite yet and they didn't have enough room for a congregation in any patron's home. Local governments allowed congregations to use the large courtrooms for service. Not just one, but all religions that requested. This never equated to establishing a religion. The government's role was to facilitate free practice of religion on public property, not suppress it.

Compare that to today's idea of "freedom of religion." We are arguing over a flag that violates no one's rights nor violates anyone's conscience. A group that fights to not have ANY symbols of religion are not fighting for freedom at all. They are fighting to suppress the free exercise thereof.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t

originally posted by: burdman30ott6
a reply to: OrdoAdChao
(Oh, FYI... there is nothing in the Constitution granting freedom from religion, it is specificially freedom OF religion. Yes, there's a world of difference.)

That's fair. Then that school needs to fly a flag of every religion in the world.

That's the problem. Although i am not religious i prefer Christianity and Judaism is ok since they don't bother anyone.

I don’t know where the media and people ever got the idea that possible nuclear war or WW3 could never happen again.Or big maybe that the U.S.could go to civil war which is highly doubtful.
Also the idea economies crashing could never happen again and ruin the world economy causing WW3.Guess Hollywood and elitist been brainwashing us for far to long.
So fly your Christian and American flags high fellas if the world turns into WW3,life is not a joke tp play around with.
Also other flags if you believe in freedom.

originally posted by: AIC4ME
a reply to: Krazysh0t

I disagree. The school should be allowed to fly whatever flag they want and you get to decide if you want your kid to go there or not. I think it's BS that we have to be sensitive to everyone's feelings all the time. People need to grow a backbone.

Grow a backbone?? Please. Because Christians would have no issue at all if they flew a Satanic flag, right? Christians would RIOT if it was an Islamic flag or Satanic flag. Funny how that backbone statement only applies when it's not your people being treated unfairly and unconstitutionally. I'm honestly tired of that hypocrisy. Everybody is an over sensitive triggered snowflake, until it applies to them.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
If you did that, wouldn't that just result in all the best schools becoming overcrowded and all the worst schools becoming dangerously low in enrollment?

That's why teachers should be paid according to how good they are and the good ones should be incentivized to teach at more difficult schools.

originally posted by: burdman30ott6

originally posted by: Krazysh0t

originally posted by: burdman30ott6
a reply to: OrdoAdChao

That's fair. Then that school needs to fly a flag of every religion in the world.

How so? We live in a society of majorities... not everybody is going to experience the same degree of representation and appeasement of the majority, that's simply mathematics of economics. If this was a school in a majority Muslim community or majority native or majority Hindu, then the flag could easily be something from their cultural beliefs.

Easy, appropriately sized flags of all religions Christian, Pentecostal, Jewish would probably get Perkins sized mammoth flags Islam, Buddhist might get a flag the size of a normal flag, Rastafarian, Hindi, might get a flag the size of a antenna flag for parades, religions like Dudeism and Church of the SubGenius get a Lego sized flag

originally posted by: OrdoAdChao
a reply to: burdman30ott6

I forgot my eaten retort to your parenthetical FYI:

As an atheist, I could care less if the majority of people around me believe in an invisible sky fairy that knows your every thought and action. I think it's nonsense.

It's also fun to note that anyone who screams "NOT FREEDOM FROM RELIGION" is the first to call atheism (or science) a religion.

Would you feel better if the Spaghetti monster were put on a flag outside of the local high school?

So, a school being a place that take fed and state monies is a government building and therefore is restricted from any display of any religion...Or maybe display them all...
Is a welfare familyin a section 8/HUD house that gets state and fed welfare (housing and food) under the same restriction?

With all the real problems in this country any group wasting time on this as an issue I suspect is part of a deeper problem. If you see this as an attempt at indoctrination then your likely looking for something to attack and I envy the free time you must have to champion an issue that hurts nobody and fixes nothing in a sea of issues that crush people of ethnicity and poverty.

That being said, a few things

There are hundreds of christian flags, about the only one that can be considered established universally is the red cross, which became a war icon early in the century. The rest are fairly indicative of the era and location they were created outside of a few select religious orders still in operation.

Jefferson and the founders goal was to protect religious freedom while balancing the religious zealots of the several denominations they lived with. They were also fine treating woman, non-white and poor people like second class citizens at best. Quoting them for moral high ground is shaky at best so remember what they stood for, who they were and the era they lived in before you use them to support political arguments of the current era.

Flying a flag is not protected by the first amendment If your a public school collecting federal money, you have to uphold the laws and statutes set in place by the Supreme court of the US. The fact that they continued to fly the flag without incident for this long is because nobody noticed in this small community and it probably wasn't a big issue to them.

Public schools cannot display any religious iconography ie: no crosses, no flags. It's that simple.

a reply to: kobalt7

Quoting them for moral high ground is shaky? I fully understand you have issues with their character flaws, but these men founded the country. Their view for religious freedom was embraced by the colonies. The only reason I bring up the founders is simply because their view is still embraced today for current political arguments. The first amendment has been upheld time and time again. This isn't an old era vs current era kind of argument. Their view of "establishment of religion" meant that there had to be an act of federal legislature codifying an official state religion. Flying a flag doesn't even come close to that. Furthermore, to keep citizens from feeling disenfranchised, the first amendment allowed for any and all freedom to exercise their personal beliefs on federal grounds. In the infancy of the country, many denominations didn't have the funds to build a church. Municipalities used to allow the many denominations access to public courthouses in order to facilitate the free exercise of religious beliefs. Of course, times have changed and the law has been interpreted differently by different courts. All I'm saying is that the original intent of 1A would have never allowed for a group in Wisconsin to sue a public school in Texas over such concerns. Flying a flag violates no one's rights nor violates their conscience.

Yeah, people aren't quoting the founding fathers for moral high ground. They are quoting them because they are the ones that set up the constitution and came up with separation of church and state. Many people don't realize this, but the whole salem witch trial fiasco was a prime influence on the founding fathers for setting that up. They didn't want to see that type of religious abuse happen again, because they directly saw the harm that state sponsored religion can cause.