I found myself caught up in a bit of the hyperbole after this story was posted on a message forum I often frequent. I'm having to go back and edit now because the original poster changed from one link to another, but the original link was from here. The title really says it all: "School Forces Child to remove 'God' from Veterans Day poem: Separation of Church and State" (of course in great big letters with all caps and everything on the site); not sure why the original poster changed the link to the former when even the forum post title was from the latter ...since more facts have been coming out, the original hyperbolic articles have become significantly shorter for some reason though. The forum topic ran 14 freakin' pages before a moderator shut it down.
In a nutshell (the original and slightly less hyperbolic article by the local paper that started the whole shitstorm is here): West Marion Elementary school (in North Carolina) hosted some sort of school-sponsored Veteran's Day event, and a 6 year-old girl had written some kind of awesome poem in honor of her grandparents who served in Vietnam ...so they asked her to read it at the assembly. Problem was, it contained the lines "He prayed to God for wisdom, he prayed to God for peace" within, and some evil atheist secular progressive homosexual asshat with bad-breath (and possibly the bubonic plague) threatened to sue because he would be offended by hearing the word "god" or "prayer" recited in front of impressionable children.
Oh wait ...but as more facts came out (why in the world they waited until after Thanksgiving to release a story about a Veteran's day event escapes me, but we all know how sensationalism sells), there was no person complaining in the first place; in fact, the little girl was never even asked to recite it. They simply wanted to print it on the program-bulletin for the event (the details of who if anyone WAS to recite it is unclear, but you can bet if it were truly the 6-year-old girl, it would be the headline on every right-wing rag on the internet this morning). The school super remarked that he was concerned about the establishment clause in the printing of that phrase so he asked the principal, who simply suggested that it be changed to "He prayed for wisdom, he prayed for peace" if he was concerned, they signed off on it and probably didn't give two thoughts to it until the TRUE "offended party" reared their ugly head(s). It would appear that in this particular case, the feared "PC police" weren't the evil secular progressives after all, but rather ...the Christians (insert dramatic *gasp* here)!
When I first read the forum post ...honestly, I mostly just wanted to be a Devil's advocate since virtually every responding post was screams of outrage over the censorship. I didn't hear a single person defend the hyperbolic insinuation that with malice, the school blatantly and flagrantly censored the girl; some asked why it was such a big deal that "God" be in it in the first place, but virtually everyone (including myself) agreed that the girl should have been able to read it just like she'd written it. I wasn't bothered so much by what the article said so much as what it didn't say.
The original complaint (and presumably the ones who went to the press with the story), were a school employee Chris Greene, Greene's father and one other resident, Esther Dollarhyde. From the original article:
“On Nov. 8, 2012 West Marion held their annual Veterans Day program in the midst of a lot of drama,” Greene said. “We had one parent concerned with the use of the word God in this program. This parent did not want the word God mentioned anywhere in the program. When the demand from this person was heard, the rights of another stopped. It did so by hushing the voice of a six-year-old girl.”There was a followup article in the same local paper yesterday, and it seems to be overlooked that the "one parent" probably didn't even exist according to the statements given (or maybe they wasn't mentioned in fear of retaliation from the apparently rather large group that was being "persecuted" by him/her).
“There has been some misinformation out in the public, and I appreciate the chance to relate the truth and facts of this situation,” Kirkpatrick said to those present. “Upon returning from a medical leave, I was approached by staff to approve of a printed program for an upcoming assembly. The printed program included religious references, and I was concerned about it being distributed in the written program and read at a school-wide assembly.”
Kirkpatrick explained that after speaking with School Superintendent Dr. Gerri Martin about the program over the phone, it was decided that the religious writing should be modified in part. The program was then approved and the poem was printed on the program without reference to a specific deity.
That part alone is pretty telling when you consider the whole pesky 9th commandment thing; most of the original articles have been pretty heavily edited now to reflect the new information at least. It seems that just about everyone was caught up in the incorrect "recitation" aspect that turned out to be untrue; now it's more a matter of a school document rather than free speech. I developed a little bit of trouble with the whole thing after this little tidbit from Greene in the initial article:
“My question is this, when do the rights of one outweigh the rights of another? I believe that this little girl’s rights were violated and that those who worked so hard to prepare this program should receive an apology.”
While I would tend to agree that asking her to remove the word "God" would have been an infringement had she been asked to read it (it was probably even overstepping slightly to take it out even in the written form), but what I *do* have a problem with is why in the world Greene should think that the people who wrote the program were owed an apology instead of the girl whose rights were allegedly violated (?!). I have a sneaking suspicion that Greene may well be one of those planners, but that's just idle speculation on my part. When I see statements like this:
“Let me add here that those prayers worked, because he went on to serve two tours in Vietnam,” Greene said.and this:
“We need to keep in mind what was our country founded on,” stated Dollarhyde. “It was founded on God and Jesus Christ, and our veterans went out and fought for us so we would have a free country, but if we aren’t allowed to honor them the way that the children want to then America is getting lost.”As for the first: if a prayer for peace earned me two tours, I might want to start reconsidering my choice in deities (but I guess one out of two ain't bad ...and yes, I know they were probably talking about "inner" peace, but why mess up a good punchline?). The second has more issues than I'm going to touch on, but since just about every war including the American Revolution was fought against other Christians, I'm not so sure that it's a point to be proud of.
The crux of the entire conflict was answered in the follow-up article though, but as of yet I can't see that anyone else seems to be noticing what ought to be one of the more relevant parts of this entire fiasco:
To clarify how the poem came about, the mother of the little girl, Renata Crawley, with the support of her husband, Greg Crawley, spoke to the board and those at the meeting about their feelings concerning the incident.
During the public comment portion of Monday’s meeting, Crawley explained that her daughter was assigned to write about her grandfathers -- who both served in the armed forces -- for the school’s Veterans Day program.
She stated that after her daughter was assigned to write the poem, the youngster became frustrated. To help ease some of that tension, Renata, along with the rest of the family, helped the young girl construct the poem.
“My daughter struggled writing about her grandfathers when writing this poem,” stated Renata. “She is 6 years old and does not know much about war or the armed forces.”
Crawley said the family worked together on the poem, with her 6-year-old daughter assisting with rhyming words to make the poem “her style.”
While creating the poem, the family decided to write about the little girl’s grandfather, Bud, who carried a prayer stone to Vietnam with him, which inspired the now controversial lines that would later be censored.
“He prayed to God for strength, he prayed to God for peace,” the poem was supposed to say.
For those who have trouble reading between the lines on this one ...THE SIX YEAR-OLD GIRL DIDN'T WRITE THE POEM!!! ...at least not without a shit-load of help from her family. Even if we skip over the fact that they knowingly allowed the lie about it being a public speaking engagement to propagate unchecked, the family STILL voiced no offense at it being edited (apparently the people who printed it were the ones with a problem). The initial mis-information is staggering though. In the original article the newspaper contacted a first amendment specialist, Ken Paulson, about the school's right to do what they did and he had this to say to the paper:
“Courts have consistently held up the rights for students to express themselves unless their speech is disruptive to the school,” stated Paulson. “When the little girl wrote the poem and included a reference to God she had every right to do that. The First Amendment protects all Americans. She had every right to mention God, (but) that dynamic changed when they asked her to read it at an assembly.” (emphasis mine)So even HE wasn't given the whole story. When I followed the specialist they consulted for that statement, even Mr. Paulson seemed slightly bewildered in his own statement:
Clearly the school was trying to avoid being sued, but its best bet was to let the young lady speak her mind. The likelihood of being successfully sued in this gray area was minimal; the likelihood of being decried as hostile to God and freedom of religion was pretty much guaranteed.I guess this is what happens when you don't get the whole story. I still chaff a bit over a statement by a minister at the meeting as recorded by the update:
“As a pastor, as a parent and as a man of God I am disappointed,” stated Manuel. “I am disrespected and it hurts me. What really hurts me, I understand the laws about church and state, but this is a child.” (emphasis mine)
Manuel went on to state that “maybe if we put God back in schools, maybe we won’t have the problems that we currently have, like babies having babies and kids laying out of school, this is a disgrace.”
First of all, how in the name of Jesus, Mary and Joseph was the PREACHER disrespected by this?! I'd think if he had to feel disrespected, it ought to be about the fast and loose 9th commandment interpretations being applied in the matter. As far as the second half ...when he gets around to talking the other 29, 999 denominations (not to mention the +/-20% that don't buy it at all) into excepting which version and how to implement it, he can get back to us ...because we've always had babies having babies and drop-outs. Your politicization of your religion is the disgrace sir; thank you for putting it on public display though!
I'm sorry, the school may well have erred on the wrong side of this, but the true "PC police" in this matter aren't the "godless liberals" like me. If people insist on being offended by other people attempting to be less offensive then perhaps you need to remember that golden rule a little bit, because given the level of hostility towards what appears to be a non-existent offended person ...your perception of what you're receiving appears to be exactly what you're dishing out.
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