Church and State Sitting in a Tree--K.I.S.S.I.N.G

This is one of those areas where the laws of this country are being "broken" and reset (as one creates a Bonsai tree) to reflect an understanding those laws never had--the doctrine of one religion allowed to set standards for nonbelievers in America.

What do I mean?

Besides atheists, there are religions that do not believe life begins at conception as well as adherents to religion who make that decision personally. Let's see one of them allowed to distribute pamphlets and have Freedom Days to celebrate all those women who responsibly chose their own free and good will to abort unwanted pregnancies.

Liberty Alert August 28, 2006: "Atlanta, GA - In a unanimous decision, a federal court of appeals has struck down an antireligious school board policy that banned students from distributing religious literature within the Lee County School Board, located in Florida. The students in the lawsuit were represented by Liberty Counsel.

While in seventh grade in Cypress Lake Middle School, Michelle Heinkel sought permission to distribute religious and pro-life literature about the Day of Remembrance, which was a day to remember unborn children who lost their lives through abortion. The Day of Remembrance was sponsored by Freedom to Learn.

Stop me if I'm wrong here but how old *is* a seventh-grader? TWELVE??! Are you kidding me? What am I missing here? How does a twelve-year old get interested in a clearly disguised campaign to recognize the "deaths" of cell clumps? I want to know--when these kids think of those unborn clumps--do they visualize babies or the truth--cell clumps they could not be seen on the dot at the end of this sentence? Or worse--were they the size of pencil erasers? GASP--Oh NO!

Too bad those twelve-year olds aren't shown the pictures of ten-year olds working in mines to produce food for their sisters or brothers, who live in countries where their mothers could have had abortions instead of twelve kids they have to set to slavery or prostitution, where religion *is* government. Too bad Michelle's parents don't love her enough to tell her the truth about why abortion exists--about material poverty and how it is created by slavish devotion to myths about God and country that don't work to do the only thing they promise *to* do, set people free.....

However, Superintendent James Browder denied the request. The school board policy prohibited students from distributing literature that is political, religious or proselytizing. The next year, Browder again denied Heinkel's request, along with the request of Nate Cordray, a student at Riverdale High School. The federal district court upheld the policy, but the court of appeals found it unconstitutional.

In its unanimous decision, the court of appeals ruled that the policy's ban on all political and religious literature was an unconstitutional content-based restriction. The court also ruled that the policy gave too much unrestricted discretion to school officials to deny speech. The court struck down the entire policy as a violation of the First Amendment.

Erik Stanley, Chief Counsel of Liberty Counsel, said, 'Public school students have a right to free speech, which includes verbal or written speech, before, after or in between classes. A school's desire to squelch speech because of discomfort with the message is unconstitutional.'

Mathew Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel, who argued the case before the district court and on appeal, commented: 'Religious and political speech are twin sisters, without which we have no freedom. Freedom to accomplish what? Freedom to proselytize and therefore infringe on the rights of other's to avoid solicitation? Do we now need to put "No Soliciting" signs on our chests to avoid this mockery of human thought--indoctrination into religion?

Public schools may ban obscenity and libel, but religious and political speech does not stop at the schoolhouse door. Banning religious speech sends the wrong message that religion is taboo or second class,

Only if you think other forms of speech are second class--a false argument if in fact speech *is* free--meaning the speaker is free to voice opinion with OR about any topic including those requiring what appears to others as obscenity or slander--to accomplish making the point.

How thin-skinned the religious are when it comes to truly "free" expression! It is clear that in their minds expression is only "free" to express things about which they agree, not all or actual things including the idea that God may in fact, not exist and that abortion is a safe medical procedure that kills nothing independent or alive. Not free to express one's whole identity if that identity offends those who believe such identity is unwholesome by that religion's standards.

Nothing here is new--religion brings it's hypocrisy back to the open stage--fine. Lets have it.

"...which proposition neither this court nor the Constitution is willing to tolerate. Educators need education about American history and the Constitution.'"

And Liberty Counsel needs to be outed for what it is--an organ of anti-Constitutional scholars whose sole intention is to make the state an instrument of their church. They are in short, Christocrats.