{"id":395965,"date":"2010-03-06T03:13:06","date_gmt":"2010-03-06T08:13:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.szone.us\/f95\/imagine-no-god-our-nation-s-classrooms-40463\/"},"modified":"2010-03-06T03:13:06","modified_gmt":"2010-03-06T08:13:06","slug":"imagine-no-god-in-our-nations-classrooms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/395965","title":{"rendered":"Imagine No God in Our Nation?s Classrooms"},"content":{"rendered":"
On 03.05.10 03:30 PM posted by Colleen Kaveney<\/p>\n

\n<ahref="http:\/\/blog.heritage.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/InGodWeTrust.jpg">\"\"<\/p>All high school math teacher Bradley Johnson wanted to do was honor our nation\u0092s history and religious heritage the same way he always had. <ahref="http:\/\/www.signonsandiego.com\/news\/2010\/mar\/02\/judge-sides-teacher-god-banners-display\/">For twenty five years, a red, white and blue-striped banner adorned his classroom walls with national maxims such as \u0093In God We Trust,\u0094 \u0093One Nation Under God, \u0093 \u0093God Bless America,\u0094 and \u0093God Shed his Grace On Thee.\u0094 A second banner accompanied it, containing an excerpt from the Declaration of Independence, \u0093All Men are Created Equal and They Are Endowed by Their Creator.\u0094<\/p>\n

But displaying a portion of the Declaration of Independence and other national mottos was just too offensive to the Poway Unified School District in San Diego. It ordered Johnson to remove the banners from his classroom because they \u0093over-emphasized\u0094 God \u0096 one school official said it might \u0093offend\u0094 Muslim students. Fortunately, Johnson went to federal court to fight this absurd order (represented by the <ahref="http:\/\/www.thomasmore.org\/default-sb_thomasmore.html?988880910">Thomas More Law Center), and even more fortunately, given that California is in the 9th Circuit, the most liberal appeals circuit in the nation, a federal judge found on February 26 that the school board\u0092s actions violated Mr. Johnson\u0092s constitutional rights.<spanid="more-28223"><\/span><\/p>\n

Judge Roger T. Benitez did not allow the censorship because \u0093it has been clear for over 90 years that teachers do not lose their constitutional rights inside the schoolhouse gate, and that government may not squelch one viewpoint while favoring another.\u0094<\/p>\n

It turned out that the school district allowed teachers to display other posters promoting controversial political issues such as gay rights and global warming, and banners showing other religious preferences such as Tibetan prayer flags, Hindu leader Mahatma Gandhi\u0092s \u0093Seven Social Sins,\u0094 and John Lennon and the lyrics of his song \u0093Imagine,\u0094 which opens with lyrics about no heaven, no hell, and no religion. The school district just seemed to have a problem with Christian religious and American patriotic sentiments.<\/p>\n

No student, parent or school administrator had ever objected to Johnson\u0092s banners \u0096 until January 23, 2007, when the entire school board ordered Johnson to remove the posters which \u0093conveyed a Judeo-Christian viewpoint.\u0094<\/p>\n

Judge Benitez was scathing in his denunciation of the school board, which apparently feared that \u0093students are incapable of dealing with diverse viewpoints that include God\u0092s place in American history and culture.\u0094 The fact that \u0093God places prominently in our Nation\u0092s history does not create an Establishment Clause violation requiring curettage and disinfectant for Johnson\u0092s public high school classroom walls.\u0094 The board not only failed to comply with the long-standing policy that \u0093a teacher\u0092s classroom walls serve as a limited public forum for a teacher to convey non-curriculum messages,\u0094 but also went so far as to silence Johnson\u0092s speech.<\/p>\n

Judge Benitez cracked down on the board\u0092s bias, concluding that \u0093by squelching Johnson\u0092s patriotic and religious viewpoint, while permitting speech promoting Buddhist, Hindu, and anti-religious viewpoints, Defendants clearly abridged Johnson\u0092s constitutional free speech rights.\u0094 An \u0093imaginary\u0094 Islamic student was \u0093not entitled to a heckler\u0092s veto on a teacher\u0092s passive, popular or unpopular, expression.\u0094<\/p>\n

This is a common-sense decision that hostility towards our nation\u0092s history, its religious heritage, and expressions of patriotism will not be tolerated in our public school classrooms. Hopefully, other school boards around the country will take notice.<\/p>\n

Colleen Kaveney currently is a member of the Young Leaders Program at the Heritage Foundation. For more information on interning at Heritage, please visit: <ahref="http:\/\/www.heritage.org\/about\/departments\/ylp.cfm">http:\/\/www.heritage.org\/about\/departments\/ylp.cfm<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n

http:\/\/blog.heritage.org\/2010\/03\/05\/…ns-classrooms\/<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On 03.05.10 03:30 PM posted by Colleen Kaveney <ahref="http:\/\/blog.heritage.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/InGodWeTrust.jpg"><\/p>All high school math teacher Bradley Johnson wanted to do was honor our nation\u0092s history and religious heritage the same way he always had. <ahref="http:\/\/www.signonsandiego.com\/news\/2010\/mar\/02\/judge-sides-teacher-god-banners-display\/">For twenty five years, a red, white and blue-striped banner adorned his classroom walls with national maxims such as \u0093In God We Trust,\u0094 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4292,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-395965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4292"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=395965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395965\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=395965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=395965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=395965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}