Posts tagged school
married to trouble
How did your brain even learn human speech? I'm just so curious.
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Louisiana's War Against Queer Students
As if adolescence wasn’t already hard enough, LGBT students in Louisiana have a new reason to fear for their existence.
In a 5-1 vote on Thursday, a state Senate committee overwhelmingly approved bill 217, which if passed into law would give publically funded charter schools the right to refuse to admit students based on sexual orientation, among other irrational and vile reasons such as English language skills.
The Advocate (not the LGBT publication of the same name) reports:
“State Sen. A.G. Crowe [pictured left], R-Slidell, said his bill is designed to ensure that executive branch agencies and local governments stop including bans on discrimination against characteristics not listed in state law as a condition for private companies to do business with their agencies… On the other side, state Sen. Ed Murray, the only “no” in the 5-1 vote by the Senate Labor and Industrial Relations committee, said the possibility of SB217 becoming law and negating the anti-discriminatory prohibitions in charter school contracts is “really scary.”
Though Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal refused to comment on the matter, his press secretary, Frank Collins, wrote in an email (or rather, his Tea Party propaganda machine): “We’re against discrimination, but we don’t believe in special protections or rights.”
Ah Louisiana. Only you could be racist and heterosexist all at once and call it non-discrimination.
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Well shit, I wonder why.
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SEUSS ARMY KNIFE
(via baconbeernboobs)
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Alabama schools continue in unlawful prayer
The Freedom From Religion Foundation has yet to receive a response from Superintendent William Valentine regarding Lauderdale County School District’s sanction of illegal prayer before athletic events. FFRF wrote two letters on behalf of a concerned Lauderdale County School District resident and Alabama members of FFRF.
Local complainants confirm sectarian prayers that invoke “Christ” continue to be broadcast over the loudspeaker at Brooks High School football games and “micro-midget” elementary school football games, despite FFRF’s warnings that these acts are in direct violation of the First Amendment.
“It is coercive and inappropriate to ask students to listen while a prayer is delivered at athletic events. This is especially disturbing given the young age of these students,” said FFRF Staff Attorney Stephanie Schmitt.
Public school events must be secular in order to protect the freedom of conscience of all students. Prayer before football games establishes an unconstitutional government endorsement of religion, turns students who are non-Christian into outsiders and confers the school’s seal of approval on adherents.
“It is a tenet of the First Amendment that the State cannot require one of its citizens to forfeit his or her rights and benefits as the price of resisting conformance to state-sponsored religious practice,” as stated by the Supreme Court in Lee v. Weisman. In Edwards v. Aguillard the Supreme Court noted, “[the] State exerts great authority and coercive power…because of the students’ emulation of teachers as role models and the children’s susceptibility to peer pressure.”
“We ask that the school district commence an immediate investigation into the complaints alleged and take immediate action to stop any and all prayers occurring before any school-sponsored event,” wrote Schmitt in a final appeal to Valentine.
“What makes this situation particularly egregious is that violations are occurring in elementary schools. The District is imposing illegal prayer upon the youngest and most impressionable students, and this must stop,” said FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor.
From Secular News Daily
~Mooglets
Oh, Alabama.
What are you doing, Alabama?
You got the rest of the union to help you along.
What’s going wrong?
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Thank you for the message. As someone who gets told “I’ll pray for you” a lot it can be annoying. The thing is that we realize what they are doing is essentially pointless. They can gather together in their circle and chant all they want but the only thing they are really doing is annoying you and further demonstrating to you how openly intolerant they are of your choice. It is really not something that you can make them stop doing because they are free to pray for whatever they want no matter how pointless.
There are a few options you can go with though to at least try to get them to lay off of you. You could try to just ignore it and stop giving them any reaction. Pretend as if it just doesn’t matter to you and give it as little acknowledgement as possible. Chances are they will get bored with it before long and move on to something else. If you continue to give them a reaction though it will likely encourage them to do even more. I think this is likely the best option.
The other option, may sound a bit odd but I can relate it with a personal story. When I was in high school my school was endorsing a prayer meeting, announcing it during the school announcements each day to invite everyone to pray around the poll or whatever it is they do. I thought this was clearly the school endorsing religion and took issue with it. Our principal at the time was an extremely conservative Christian and we had several disagreements in the past. He once gave me the book “Homosexuality and the Christian Faith”, I am not entirely sure as to why, but he wasn’t above crossing lines apparently.
I went in and talked to him about how I felt that it wasn’t right to give Christianity an endorsement each day. He tried to dismiss it as being something that anyone is open to attend to “regardless of what religion they are” (my ass) and that he thought it was fine. My count offer was that I wanted to make a student club that was religious in nature and start doing an announcement. He seemed to be considering it so I told him that we would have a monthly goat sacrifice and fire dance. I will announce it every day to try and make sure everyone can attend “regardless of what religion they are”. I was entirely serious, not a hint of joking, he told me that he would talk to the students doing the prayer announcements and I never had to hear them again. This gentle reminder that pushing religion into the spot light means opening the gates to all religions was enough to get my point across.
In the end that whole situations probably caused me more issues than it really solved. The harassment I received was mostly from adults in the town and it only increased after that, not because they honestly believed I would sacrifice a goat but they realized I was willing to stand up to them and be different. With something entirely mundane like people praying for you I think the best thing to do is let them have it. It’s mental masturbation and they’re pulling you into a fantasy three way with God. Know you’re living rent free in their mind, simply because you are different than them. That probably scares some of them but deep down there is probably a few of them that admire it too.
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In Godless We Trust: Prayer Rally Dwarfed By Texans Who Flock To Nearby Convention Center, Desperate For Free School Supplies
Houston’s biggest gathering on Saturday didn’t see national television news crews. It didn’t draw out protestors. It didn’t spark its own Twitter handle. And the event — which attracted an estimated 100,0000 people to a convention center just seven miles down the road from Gov. Rick Perry…
And of course the need wouldn’t be there if Gov. Perry did less praying and more governing HA LIKE THAT’S GONNA HAPPEN
