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South Carolina Public School Hosts Evangelists at Assembly Who Preach to Students

W

woolfe9999

Diamond Member
This story is from September but I didn't see anything posted about it.

Summary: South Carolina public middle school invites a "Christian rapper" and other evangelists for school assembly. Students are preached at and asked to sign up for church membership on school grounds. One evangelist is on tape essentially saying he doesn't give a shit if it's unconstitutional because Jesus is more important.

Although this is reported by the ACLU, the link contains a video of the event made by its organizers:

http://www.aclu.org/blog/religion-belief/shoc-king-disregard-constitution

According to the ACLU, the same group is planning on going on tour to various schools in the region.

What is the appropriate remedy for this sort of thing? A court cannot enjoin an event once it has already taken place. Perhaps the school administrators who approved this should be fired, but that doesn't feel like an adequate remedy. The people doing the preaching can't be punished since the First Amendment places no restriction on them, only on the public institution that invited them.
 
eskimospy said:
Not much you can really do other than fire the officials responsible.
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Yeah, I suppose that is correct. However, this strikes me as an especially egregious violation of the Establishment Clause, much worse than most of the anecdotes that have come up in the past. It just doesn't sit well with me.
 
woolfe9999 said:
Yeah, I suppose that is correct. However, this strikes me as an especially egregious violation of the Establishment Clause, much worse than most of the anecdotes that have come up in the past. It just doesn't sit well with me.
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I agree, I just really don't know what other remedy a court could provide. Free de-jesusification programs for the kids?
 
eskimospy said:
I agree, I just really don't know what other remedy a court could provide. Free de-jesusification programs for the kids?
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I suppose some atheist parents, backed by the ACLU, could sue the school district for violating their child's Constitutional rights. However, I can't see any monetary damages so there's no real remedy. It doesn't seem like there's much you can do about this kind of thing unless someone who objects becomes aware of it long enough in advance to get a court injunction. I wonder how often this kind of blantant evangelizing occurs in our public schools.

Take a look at the video. In one segment, an evangelist who appears to be addressing the faculty says, you can teach evoluton all year long, but just give me 30 minutes to preach and it won't matter because the message of Jesus is so much more powerful. Barf.

LOL@ "de-jesusification."
 
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On that basis, I suppose that a Protestant, Catholic, Muslim, Shintoist or Budhhist preacher\cleric\priest\monk would also be ok, no?

As a parent, I would not want any religion specific preaching\selling at school.
It would be no different, in a way, than going and selling only coke or pepsi. (No offense intended).

How about an ethics and a religion class at school. The religion class would teach about all religions and not try to sell a specific one. That is what I had in school in South America and the country I moved from is mostly Hardcore Roman Catholic. I had the choice to not go to Catholic mass in school if I did not want to.
 
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woolfe9999 said:
I suppose some atheist parents, backed by the ACLU, could sue the school district for violating their child's Constitutional rights. However, I can't see any monetary damages so there's no real remedy. It doesn't seem like there's much you can do about this kind of thing unless someone who objects becomes aware of it long enough in advance to get a court injunction. I wonder how often this kind of blantant evangelizing occurs in our public schools.

LOL@ "de-jesusification."
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I wonder that too sometimes. I know that my school was very careful not to do that but we had a large Jewish population which probably helped with some awareness. I sadly feel like it might be more common than we think.
 
woolfe9999 said:
If he's suggesting that the ACLU and/or people in this thread would not find this disturbing had it been Muslims, I think he's seriously mistaken.
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Although JStorm's rationalization is telling.

Preaching Christianity is a breach of constitutional rights
Preaching Islam is "exposure to a different culture".

Shrug.
 
Atreus21 said:
Although JStorm's rationalization is telling.

Preaching Christianity is a breach of constitutional rights
Preaching Islam is "exposure to a different culture".

Shrug.
Click to expand...

Jstorm was attempting to interpret what another poster wrote. He wasn't offering his own opinion.

Do you agree with public schools inviting people to preach at students on campus?
 
woolfe9999 said:
This story is from September but I didn't see anything posted about it.

Summary: South Carolina public middle school invites a "Christian rapper" and other evangelists for school assembly. Students are preached at and asked to sign up for church membership on school grounds. One evangelist is on tape essentially saying he doesn't give a shit if it's unconstitutional because Jesus is more important.

Although this is reported by the ACLU, the link contains a video of the event made by its organizers:

http://www.aclu.org/blog/religion-belief/shoc-king-disregard-constitution

According to the ACLU, the same group is planning on going on tour to various schools in the region.

What is the appropriate remedy for this sort of thing? A court cannot enjoin an event once it has already taken place. Perhaps the school administrators who approved this should be fired, but that doesn't feel like an adequate remedy. The people doing the preaching can't be punished since the First Amendment places no restriction on them, only on the public institution that invited them.
Click to expand...

To paraphrase "Forget it Jake, it's South Carolina".
 
Infohawk said:
Really? I'd like some clarification from JStorm on that one.
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Sure, I'd invite him to clarify as well, but look at the post he was responding to, and what that post, in turn, was responding to, and note his use of question marks after each sentence. As in, he was guessing at what Doc Savage Fan meant. Seems pretty clear.
 
Atreus21 said:
Although JStorm's rationalization is telling.

Preaching Christianity is a breach of constitutional rights
Preaching Islam is "exposure to a different culture".

Shrug.
Click to expand...

Are you saying Christianity is the foreign religion to these people? No. Youre a fucking idiot.

There should be a mandatory class in all public schools teaching about every religion on the planet. But there isnt and so we get numskulled fat fucks like you.
 
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