Thursday, September 13, 2012

ACLU TX Releases Report: Texas Schools Routinely Violate Studentsʼ Religious Freedoms

This page at aclutx.org contains a link to a downloadable .pdf of the report, At the Mercy of the Majority: Attacks on Religious Freedom in Texas Public Schools in the Decade after Santa Fe v. Doe. This is an ongoing problem nationwide, not just in Texas. Take a look. You know at least one person (I am a UU), and probably many more, who are members of minority religions, so do not think for even a moment that this isn't important to you.

AFTERTHOUGHT: I just read the whole report, and it is depressing.

Seldom have I been shown with such clarity the frequency with which districts, schools, administrators and teachers deliberately, premeditatedly, probably with good intentions, blatantly violate the First Amendment and applicable federal and state law enforcing it.

These well-meaning people are criminals in every sense, but there is simply no enforcement mechanism, except what the ACLU, the ACLU of Texas, Texas Freedom Network, Freedom from Religion Foundation, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and similar org's do on a case-by-case-by-tedious-case basis.

There is scant difference between violations, which fall into fewer than a half dozen categories, within which the incidents are almost identical in detail. The particular behavior can often be brought to a halt in that instance, but the same behavior sprouts up in another nearby district or school within a year.

And there's no way to punish violators of the Establishment clause of the First Amendment: an attempt to fine a school district or official for noncompliance would simply make martyrs of them, and Christians in particular long ago learned to use martyrdom to their advantage.

But if religious freedom is to mean anything at all in America, the above-named org's must continue the daily grind of stamping out violations one by one. Please consider helping out one or more of those org's; in my case, it's the ACLU, but all of them do good work.

2 comments:

  1. Texas Students Revolt Against Mandatory RFID Tracking Chips, by Paul Joseph Watson, Infowars

    Spy tags track kids even after they leave school
    Students and parents at two San Antonio schools are in revolt over a program that forces kids to wear RFID tracking name tags which are used to pinpoint their location on campus as well as outside school premises.

    http://www.pakalertpress.com/2012/08/31/texas-students-revolt-against-mandatory-rfid-tracking-chips/

    ReplyDelete
  2. Enfant, thanks for understanding that America is different in the exceptional diversity of its population... racially, culturally and in matters of religion. We have, as the saying goes, "a tough row to hoe."

    How anyone can read the Fourth Amendment to our Constitution, the one that asserts the right of "the people" to be "secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects," and not see a right of privacy entailed in those words, is beyond my comprehension. But many conservatives, especially the religious radicals, are strident in declaiming that there is no right of privacy in the Constitution, and that children (are they not people?) have no constitutionally protected rights.

    Hence they can easily talk of chipping a student the way we might chip a pet cat, thinking the consequences are irrelevant compared to the advantages of being able to track the student. Do not believe for a moment that all Americans believe in our fundamental rights and liberties, even the ones enumerated in the Bill of Rights, let alone the implied ones. We have a shipload of de facto Nazis among us these days.

    I wonder what will happen when people who are implanted with RFID chips start turning up with cancer near the implantation site when they are a bit older. Big lawsuit, anyone?

    ReplyDelete

USING THIS PAGE TO LEAVE A COMMENT

• Click here to view existing comments.
• Or enter your new rhyme or reason
in the new comment box here.
• Or click the first Reply link below an existing
comment or reply and type in the
new reply box provided.
• Scrolling manually up and down the page
is also OK.

Static Pages (About, Quotes, etc.)

No Police Like H•lmes



(removed)