Liberty Counsel Encourages Students to Pray During Public School Graduations

Cloak, not clock!

The loophole is the tyranny of the majority. The loophole is saying if you are not in the majority you are not welcome at your own graduation.

I would suggest those ACLU cases are not well known BECAUSE they were defending Christians. It’s when the ACLU questions Christian actions that the conservative media goes nuts promoting the event.

By and large, the ACLU operates according to very predictable and fair principles. It’s a pity this goes unappreciated by so many people in our society who only care if ‘their’ side is being defended or challenged.

Sooo “freedom of speech” is cool as long as it’s either positive towards, or neutral to your god? Anything else is not? Doesn’t sound very “free” to me.

The problem is that this smells less of “remember you’re allowed to pray unofficially” and more of “hey school officials, you get in trouble for picking a pastor, but you could *incidentally* and *totally unintentionally* pick people who just happen to choose to pray and it’s all good!”

The loophole here isn’t that students can pray, it’s that school officials can in fact push prayer into the graduation ceremony by simply acting as though it wasn’t arranged.

I entirely agree with your first paragraph, However, I haven’t heard that anyone is insisting that there should be no mention of God at a graduation. What Hemant is objecting to (if I may be so bold) is that an organization is attempting to establish a de facto Christian ceremony within graduations by playing the system, and that they would not be supportive if the result was anything but Christian.  He is merely trying to point out hypocrisy.

I wasn’t objecting. It’s legal. But would these groups defend non-Christians who took advantage of the same opportunities?

That would absolutely be acting in bad faith (har har) and should result in a lawsuit if there’s good evidence of intent.

Okay, so friends, teachers, and family helped, but explicitly still not God. Would that be better?

I would imagine that Christians would object. I often imagine the intensity of the outcry and sheer hatred that Christians would have if a Hindu led a prayer at a high school graduation.

Anyway, I was listening to Mike Huckabee’s radio show today (for some odd reason) and this very subject came up. Huckabee inferred, as most fundamentalist Christians do, that there is a battle being waged by the left and atheists to prevent students from praying in school. I just groaned. I wanted to call him up and inform him that Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, etc., are allowed to pray; it’s just school-sanctioned prayer that is illegal.

I wish fundies would get this through their collective skulls.

Ask them directly. Ask Liberty Counsel to put it in writing on their website that they would be just as supportive of featured students or invited speakers exercising their freedom of speech at graduations if they were to express atheist ideas, or Muslim beliefs and prayers, and not just Christian prayers. 

Ask them to certify publicly that they really are behind freedom of speech for everyone, not just more exercising of the privilege of the majority.

That’s not true at all. I’ve been to many graduations that have not had a prayer. In fact, most of the graduations that I’ve been to have not had a prayer. The majority of my class was Christian, but everyone was of course welcome.

I’m a Christian, and I would not be offended at all if someone of a different faith gave a prayer. I’ve traveled to Muslim areas of the world on many occasions and have even been prayed for by others to a different God than who I follow. It was a sincere effort on their part and showed how much they cared for me. Why would that offend me?

 That has nothing at all to do with what Gordon Duffy wrote. Of COURSE most graduations don’t involve breaking the law or the spirit of the Constitution these days. But since the issue is well-understood now, every time one does, it means that people are violating the Constitution -on purpose- so they can feel extra special at the expense of others.

I’ve heard this before, that the ACLU only pays lip service to defending religion. While individual members have opinions on religion all across the spectrum, the ACLU itself always acts in keeping with its stated mission. You’re spouting a conspiracy theory. It requires the claimant to possess psychic powers to know what people are “really” thinking that in no way aligns with their actions. It’s odd how often Conservatives seem to be psychic.

The ACLU doesn’t get as many cases defending Christian rights because A) Other groups assist on their behalf like the Alliance Defense Fund (groups that you NEVER see defending Separation or atheists), and B) You’re all been told over and over that the ACLU is something that it is not, so you never ask them for help.

Your last sentence is nonsensical, comparing other people with “God” and asserting that both rate credit and that not giving any to a deity is like insulting the others in your life. I assume you’re referring to Hemant’s “God never helped me study” comment. That isn’t what he said.

“Artificial and contrived” describes religious constructs, not atheism, thanks.

 Your experiences =/= general Fundamentalist, Evangelical thought in the U.S. Anecdotes are not data. We see how they act and react every single day, and it is childish, tyrannical and privileged.

I know that religion is bull, and it doesn’t offend me when Christians pray on my behalf*. People possess empathy as a result of evolution and natural selection. Of course they care about me.

*It offends me when they pray for me to “see the light”. That’s ignorant, arrogant and condescending. It means they don’t have an actual argument, aren’t able to own up to it, and aren’t mature enough to just walk away.

Forgive me if I didn’t notice your reply on the relevant threads, but I can’t say I noticed your vocalised exception on the threads pertaining to Jessica Ahlquist  (the 16yr old threatened with rape, death, bodily harm to her + her family for abiding – and asking others to – to American law). Did I not notice your sincere efforts, or did you not make them? Would you care to ask me why I would find that offensive, or why I find the idea of ‘Xtian ethics’ less than persuasive in the situation of real life?

Thank you in advance for your reply, although I will warn you that I may find ‘Oh, I replied once about how they weren’t REAL Xtians’/’I did lip service once to how that was wrong, but rape/death/bodily harm threats don’t really concern me’ to be unconvincing in the face of ‘But not allowing public prayer is totes wrong!!!’ And I comment on all those threads!!!’, and slightly disingenuous. Links to my opposition would be lovely, and necessitate a proper apology from myself too. 

I’ve found a less partisan summary of the first amendment law regarding school prayer. Note that to permit student led prayer, the school must create a “limited open forum” permitting a broad range of views. The corollary is that the school may choose not to create such a forum. While schools can rig things to permit student prayer at graduations a) it opens the door to a lot of other speech, including the type suggested by Hemant; and b) we should remind schools that they don’t have to do this and encourage them to stand up for religious freedom by limiting the subject matter of graduation speeches.

 Exactly.  My mom said something (years ago) to that same effect.  “Well, we took a vote and the majority want Christianity taught in public school, so therefore it should.  I would be okay with it IF the majority was Muslim, but, you know, they’re not so they’ll just have to suck it up.  MAJORITY RULES!!!!”

I told her that was likely true, that she likely felt she would react that way–right up until I skipped home with my lunch pail and informed her that anyone who believes Jesus was God or was the Son of God or anything but a prophet of Allah would burn in torment for eternity in hell, and also Jesus never died on any cross.  Then she’d put on her best suit and hat and march right down there, infuriated that the school is telling her kids that the primary tenets of her religion were wrong and evil and hell-worthy.  She didn’t like what I said at the time, but didn’t argue against it, and after that she changed her tune about forcing religious belief into public schools and their events.

They’re trying to create any situation where they can force their religion where it really doesn’t belong–and then start driving the wedge right in from there.  They know damn well that an atheist would either be outright stopped or they would “take a vote” to make his/her silencing seem “constitutional” (because tyranny of the majority is a-okay, donchano?), or they would turn a blind eye to the inevitable bullying and persecution that would happen to the atheist student in the hopes he/she would be scared out of speaking.  Of course, knowing what kind of hell lies in store for an atheist who takes advantage of a rule that was intended for Christians only, they tend to hope that the problem will resolve itself before it even shows up.

Like they did with…was it Damon Fowler?  I’m having a hard time keeping these cases straight, it seems like there are so many of  them, but was that the case where they made a pathetic attempt to legitimize it by having a student recite the prayer, as if just giving an official platform to student-led religious posturing is somehow different in a graduation ceremony than having a teacher or administrator read it?  They’re always trying to pull some crap like that.

 I would also suggest that the other cases become more high-profile because the person being defended is not in the “desirable” group and that riles up the people in the privileged position, that one of “those” people is having the temerity to challenge their privilege and that damnable ACLU is having the temerity to stand up for them.  The media isn’t as likely to focus on a “Christians vs. Christians over some minor detail” story as something a lot more rabble-rousing and therefore ratings-heightening, like something involving atheists or muslims or gays or what have you.

The ACLU’s defense of some Christian groups is not a smokescreen.  It’s just that in a country where Christianity in general is an overprivileged majority group you’re going to have fewer cases where someone in that overprivileged majority group is being oppressed or persecuted or generally screwed over, and it’s usually going to involve a detail issue between subsets of that majority group, which isn’t as controversial as “should Muslim women be able to wear headscarves” or “should atheists be allowed to exist openly”.

 I just made that case too!  🙂  Let me say that if atheists got into a majority and Christians lost their privileged status totally, I’d still want an organization like the ACLU to be around.  When you have any majority there is a good chance of privilege to form, both overt and subconscious–even with atheists–and I would always want the minority to have recourse to justice even if I am part of the majority.  I would like to think that atheists would be more successful than Christians at that!*  😉  But even if that turned out to be the case, humans are humans and we would still need a great organization like the ACLU to keep us honest and act as a vocal and visible conscience that reminds us of where we are slipping.

That day sounds like it’s a long ways away though, and I don’t know if I’d live to see it much less enjoy it.  But if it did, I think the ACLU would remain just as important as it is today.

*Note for those who don’t read and comprehend:   I said “I would LIKE TO THINK” and “even IF that turned out to be the case”.  This is not a statement that atheists will be more successful, just that it’s something I would hope would be true but probably wouldn’t because there is no magic bullet to make a society perfect–especially not a magic view-on-religion bullet.

 Not to mention we have seen what happens to non-Christian students who don’t shut up and tow the line.  Let’s not pretend there is anything akin to a choice there–or if you think there is, then if I put a gun to your head unless you give me your wallet, I can’t be charged with armed robbery because “you had a choice”.  Or if your landlord says “If you keep going to church I will change your locks and dump your belongings on the curb,” he should be exempt from any discrimination charges because, after all, you had a choice.

 Exactly.  Same as when that Hindu gave a prayer at the Capital, and all the “oh, I wouldn’t mind IF” turned into a whole bunch of arguments about why that particular religion doesn’t count because it’s polytheistic, because the majority of Americans are Christian, and so on and so forth.  They say they wouldn’t mind, but the moment it happens they have a thousand and one excuses why this particular person should be prevented.  If it was an atheist, you’d get the same stuff we’re hearing here: “Well, I don’t mind if someone explicitly promotes their own religion or some ‘higher power’ or just leaves it neutral, but any expression of atheism should be barred because it’s just an insult to all the religious people and in this case the offense experienced by students in the audience should trump free speech–though when we get another Christian student, all this will be reversed and free speech will be the priority.”

Because on a regular basis, posts to this very blog are made which demonstrate how Christians get up in arms almost every single time someone makes a demonstration that there is any other kind of belief out there, from atheism to Islam. Look at the signs being taken down, vandalized, or forbidden to be posted at all. Look at the atheists receiving death threats and worse.

And then you ask “Why would you ever think that this might offend someone?”

Because obviously it does, or these hateful responses to mere indications of an atheist’s existence wouldn’t be so commonplace?

Whether the ACLU defends a Christian’s right to free speech or right to exercise religion on occasion is really not the issue.  They are clearly in opposition to other Christian beliefs and that is the reason why most Christians would not use them or support them.  

Who is misrepresenting the argument? If someone giving a speech starts calling out people who didn’t help them, it sounds negative. Period. Why even go there? Adam said in his version that God explicitly did not help. I’m assuming, maybe a bad assumption, the explicit part means that he would have mentioned God, but it would be under a negative light. 

If a speaker thanked God, then THEY must have a reason to think that He helped them and THAT is what mattered. Quite frankly it matters because they are the speaker and you are not. 

If they mentioned and thanked their best friend are you going to get offended if you happen to dislike the mentioned friend too? 

Yes, I am mentioning God as if He exists and is doing something. That’s because I believe that. For a group that cries foul over censorship you really like to censor things that  are against your own beliefs. 

The point is, as long as the prayer is not planned by the school and is student led you don’t have a leg to stand on to stop them. While you may not like that, and I can see why b/c if the tables were flipped I wouldn’t like it either, it’s legal.

 So what if there is an organization that is out there telling students what their legal rights are?  FFR does the exact same thing when they support people making a fuss over prayer banners, etc. They help students know what their rights are and support them in taking stands. 

It’s not as is the Liberty Council is raising money to pay for student’s college expenses for those students who pray during graduation expenses are they?

 There’s plenty of evidence about Dawkins’ behavior out there that refutes your claim. Being “pretty sure” when libeling someone based on your own made-up idea of him doesn’t make it so.

 And now you’re crying censorship specifically because I don’t treat God as a real person.

Pathetic. Not even worth refuting the rest after that. Whine Persecution more, please.

He  said at y’alls big conference that you (inclusively speaking) should go out of your way to mock and ridicule Christians. If he doesn’t do the same given a public platform, then his message loses all credibility. 

Clearly you are missing my point. You are the ones trying to censor. It’s legal to pray if it’s not planned by the school and is student led. You are the ones trying to stop it and complaining about a student-led prayer by a student who happens to be a Christian. 

We aren’t being censored, although you wish you could shut us up 🙂 It’s just funny (in a sad way) that you whine about free speech and not getting your way, but as soon as a Christian interprets the law fairly and it allows room for something religious then you cry foul. 

Try taking it and dishing it out sometime.

The Allliance Defense Fund are god’s ambulance chasers. A truly despicable organization if you look a bit into what they do

Please explain why you think this about the Alliance Defense Fund?

If you earned valedictorian, then you should be allowed to thank God, Allah, Thor, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster as much as you wish. No US tax dollars were used to unfairly get you that spot. You earned it.