Ohio Teacher Refuses to Remove Bible From Students' View
By Verv

Thu Apr 17, 2008 - A pretty simple ordeal is at hand. This from Fox News:
John Freshwater said Wednesday he agreed to remove a collage from his classroom that included the Ten Commandments, but that asking him to remove the Bible on his desk goes too far.

Officials with the Mount Vernon School District say they don't oppose religion but are required by the U.S. Constitution not to promote or favor any set of religious beliefs.
These things always get blown out of proportion.

The guy has a right to have a religious book of his choice on his desk, whether it is the Koran or the Bhagavad-Gita. Everyone is entitled to have their reading material with them and what is so offensive about differences?

Aren't we trying to teach students to accept differences -- isn't that part of our educational plan?

A Bible could be offensive, I suppose, as it is a mere sign of a person's religious attire. So another question would be whether or not we have to ban any expression of religion at all from within a school (hey, it worked for the French!). And that would mean that other folks who are generally not the targets of liberals would also be subjected to as much -- just as the Bible is a symbol of our religion, is not a Turban, a requirement for Sikhs, also quite a symbol? Also, Yamukkahs... Beads... Jewelry.

One of the ironies of living in a multicultural society is that when trying to seem so politically correct we often end up sending a message of intolerance towards free expression.




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Comments : 2 Comments

VRWC commented, on April 17, 2008 at 10:53 a.m.:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; so lets get this straight, in an off the wall attempt to enforce the establishment, we step all over the second part for the individual. so i dont see the bible on his desk as congress establishing a religion so this is just a prohibition of free exercise thereof,,,,ok got it,,,i think

VRWC commented, on April 17, 2008 at 10:56 a.m.:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; the public school system must see how easy it is to rewrite it 8)