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When State And Church Don’t Get Along

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Law, Religion

Sometimes the state goes too far.

I think this is one of those times.

New York, Oct. 21, 2005 (CNA) – 5-year old Antonio Peck had no idea when he turned in his homework assignment–a poster about protecting the environment–that it would land him in federal court.

Peck, then a kindergarten student at Baldwinsville, NY’s Catherine McNamara Elementary School, originally turned in his poster-assignment to his teacher in 1999. It featured, among other things, a cut out picture of Jesus–something he reportedly thought applicable to the environment, and the assignment.

School officials however, felt otherwise. The rejected a first version of the poster and folded Antonio’s second attempt in half, in order to obscure the image of a kneeling Jesus they thought to be too religious in nature.

In 2000, a New York federal court ruled that the school had the right to censor the poster on the grounds of separation of church and state.

Jesus…


This entry was posted on Sunday, October 23rd, 2005 and is filed under Law, Religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

5 Responses to “When State And Church Don’t Get Along”

  1. Rafique Tucker Says:
    October 23rd, 2005 at 9:29 pm

    This smells like straight-up censorship to me. What authority does the school have to tell kids they can’t even mention Jesus, under their own volition? Even the most hardened civil libertarians will have to oppose this foolishness, in fact, every self-respecting civil libertarian (which I am one) ought to take up young Antonio Peck’s cause.

  2. Phillip J. Birmingham Says:
    October 24th, 2005 at 8:45 am

    Yeah, that is ridiculous, but I don’t expect it to stand.

    I agree with Rafique Tucker; this cause belongs to every self-respecting civil libertarian.

  3. RA Says:
    October 24th, 2005 at 3:58 pm

    The first amendment say congress shall make no laws prohibiting or establishing religion. The framers should have said the same thing for judges. Its the corrupt ACLU judges who are legislating hate against all things christian.

  4. michael reynolds Says:
    October 24th, 2005 at 7:32 pm

    First of all, of course free speech doesn’t apply to elementary kids in school. Good grief. Do you have kids?

    That having been said, I’m both an atheist and a contributor to the ACLU, and I don’t have a problem with the kid putting Jesus on a poster — so long as we all accept the fact that any school assignment may be graded, and Jesus may fairly be judged to be irrelevant to the assignment. In other words, by all means include Jesus, but if his inclusion is silly or gratuitous teachers should be able to judge that fact as they would any other element of the assignment, without having to automatically tug a forelock in Christ’s direction.

  5. Ser Says:
    August 7th, 2006 at 1:04 am

    Good job.

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