Sharing

[woodchip]

So a mom puts little passages from the bible in her sons lunch. Son shares the verse with classmates and pretty soon classmates are asking for copies. School finds out and tells the boy to stop and he can only do it after school and outside the school gate. The child complies. Then child is told there is now a ban on verse sharing and he will have to do so on the public sidewalk. The child complies. The next thing the parents know, there is a sheriff knocking at their door:

“The deputy sheriff said he had been sent by the school,” Liberty Counsel attorney Richard Mast told me. “The deputy went on to tell the parents that the school was worried that someone might be offended by the Bible verses.”

So now the school is in intimidation mode because they are worried someone might be (notice no one made a complaint) offended. Did these highly educated PC educators stop to think perhaps the parents and the child might be offended? Well school is now facing the prospect of a lawsuit by the parents. So who's side are you on and why?

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2016/06/ ... cmp=hplnws

[callmeslick]

in the absence of any complaint, I think the school is in the wrong.

[vision]

And gullible woodchip stumbles into the outrage machine once again.

So who's side are you on and why?

I side with the school 100% and not because I'm an atheist. Whenever I see outrage porn like this my first thought is "there is more to the story." So let's look at the story from beginning to end.

First, this is an opinion piece on Fox News written by a man who authored a book about the decline of religious values in the USA. Second, the article is littered with hyperbole. Third, this story is only being reported on by Christian news outlets, probably in an effort the fuel the outrage machine since this is a non-issue. But wait, there is more. The legal organization representing the parents specializes in evangelical Christian litigation. That's a key point. The family is evangelizing.

Even the Fox News article hints that the parents are proselytizing through the child: "The principal told the boy and his father to move to a public sidewalk." Why is the father and son handing out religious material on school property then continuing to do so on the sidewalk outside the grounds? Just pick your kid up and go home like everyone else. And this brings me to why this case will never go to court. You can't hand out religious material without first establishing a religious club and following the school's guidelines. Separation of church and state, baby.

Public schools have to be careful, but when it comes to religion it's always better to err on the side disallowing it until proper accommodations can be made. And of course, the easiest test of all for discovering wrongdoing is to ask yourself how comfortable you would be with your kids coming home with verses from the Qur,an, Dhammapada, Bhagavad Gita, Talmud, Dao de jing, or Analects?

[woodchip]

Outrage porn...so visionesq. Yes it must be bad because it appears on Fox News. How enlightened. Lets read hyperbole into it where there is none.

[Spidey]

I would have to side with the school, as it pertains to school property, but off of school property they have no say whatsoever. (I would have to give the school sidewalk to the school)

And it would be nice if they were consistent, in regards to all kinds of distributed literature including all things not religion such as politics and philosophy etc.

[woodchip]

I wonder where vision was when a school had the kids dress up as muslims and recite verses from the koran

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government ... slim-oath/

http://nationalreport.net/arizona-schoo ... one-month/

[vision]

Outrage porn...so visionesq.

I did not coin the term.

Yes it must be bad because it appears on Fox News. How enlightened. Lets read hyperbole into it where there is none.

Here are some instances of hyperbole in the article.

From the attorney handling the case:

“It was outrageous and should shock the conscious of every freedom-loving American,” Mihet told me. “Apparently all the real criminals have been dealt with in Palmdale – and now they’re going after kids who share Bible verses during lunch time.”

“I would expect something like this to happen in Communist Romania – where I went to elementary school – but cops don’t bully 7-year-olds who want to talk about Jesus in the Land of the Free,”

From the article's author:

"It appears to me that the deputy sheriff was dispatched to the home as part of a strategy to intimidate the Zavala family."

[vision]

http://nationalreport.net/arizona-schoo ... one-month/

Holy crap, do you EVER fact check anything you read or just regurgitate links? Advertisers and politicians must love how easy you are to manipulate.

[Ferno]

Oh goodie, another manufactured outrage non-topic from our resident knee-jerking lunatic.

[woodchip]

Outrage porn...so visionesq.

I did not coin the term.

Yes it must be bad because it appears on Fox News. How enlightened. Lets read hyperbole into it where there is none.

Here are some instances of hyperbole in the article.

From the attorney handling the case:

“It was outrageous and should shock the conscious of every freedom-loving American,” Mihet told me. “Apparently all the real criminals have been dealt with in Palmdale – and now they’re going after kids who share Bible verses during lunch time.”

“I would expect something like this to happen in Communist Romania – where I went to elementary school – but cops don’t bully 7-year-olds who want to talk about Jesus in the Land of the Free,”

From the article's author:

"It appears to me that the deputy sheriff was dispatched to the home as part of a strategy to intimidate the Zavala family."

So the hyperbole in the article makes what happened less true?

[woodchip]

http://nationalreport.net/arizona-schoo ... one-month/

Holy crap, do you EVER fact check anything you read or just regurgitate links? Advertisers and politicians must love how easy you are to manipulate.

No I don't check if a supposed news outlet is real or not. My fault there. The other link still applies.

[Tunnelcat]

Well, this is the only other "legitimate" source for that story I could find, if you could call it legitimate.

http://www.inquisitr.com/3169795/school ... le-verses/

But back to the point. Woody, what would your reaction be to someone's child handing out Koran verses at his or her school? Say that child's father came and helped him in front of the school? Do you think the school's reaction should be the same as it was for the child and his father in your original story?

[vision]

So the hyperbole in the article makes what happened less true?

No, but it should make you deeply suspicious about what you are reading. There is clearly another side to the story. Again, don't let the outrage machine steamroll you.

No I don't check if a supposed news outlet is real or not. My fault there. The other link still applies.

I looked into that other link and found out the situation is rather complicated. The school defends the exercise and their reasoning is both legally sound and sensible. If they handled it any other way people would accuse them of codling or creating "safe-spaces."

[Tunnelcat]

I see any response by woody would only tie him into twisted knots.

[Ferno]

That or he'll call you a leftist, vision a moron, top gun something-or-other (if he chimes in) and me whatever the flavor of the week is.

[woodchip]

That or he'll call you a leftist, vision a moron, top gun something-or-other (if he chimes in) and me whatever the flavor of the weak is.

Fixed it for ya

[Ferno]

That or he'll call you a leftist, vision a moron, top gun something-or-other (if he chimes in) and me whatever the flavor of the weak is.

Fixed it for ya

there it is, right on cue.

[Foil]

Yep, we're done here.

[Feel free to start another thread on the topic, without the pot-shots.]