uprise

A freshman in a public school in west michigan, I have been against a christian group called Campus Life since I have known of them. What caught my eye at first was the way they (20 year old college students that did not go to the school)were allowed to come in during all lunches and pass out flyers with the "word of God" on them, inviting the readers to a "fun filled night" with games, food, and discussion about a topics, such as sibling rivalry. At the bottom of the flyer would be verse from the bible they would be focusing on for the evening. The flyers were one thing, but when you have your lunch rudley disrupted by people pressuring you to join, it turns ugly.

After taking the initiative to talk to an member of the liberal "church" I attended, I was referred to Charles Haynes, ACLU worker in Washington DC. I mailed him a letter and got a quick response, telling me this was violating the separation of church and state. I brought this to the principal, who said they were allowed to because if they let one group, like Boy Scouts, in the school, then they must let any group in the school. I don't know if I should start my own group, let it go, or pursue the violation of church and state with the administration.

{edited by Toto for quote tags}

[ May 28, 2002: Message edited by: Toto ]</p>

Orestes

Well, why not use the School's defence of letting these goobers pass out flyers against them?

Make Freethought type flyer, and instead of buy-bull quotes, use quotes from Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, Robert Ingersoll, etc. If they are from the local college, see if there is a freethought or atheist group there that you could set this up with. Maybe even set up a Freethought group at the school?

[ May 28, 2002: Message edited by: Kenadorn ]</p>

RufusAtticus

Your principal just showed why the Boy Scouts should not be allowed in public schools.

Although the Scouts are slightly more subtle, it is clearly wrong for a school to allow outsiders or authorities to prothelyze to their captive audience.

I think you should generate your own freethought flyer or simply one that politely "bashes" the "Campus Life" group. Since you are a student in the school, you have even more right to distribute your material to your classmates. If any teacher, administrator, student gang acts to stop you, they have violated set policies and demonstrates that the Equal-Opportunity excuse is BS.

~~RvFvS~~

Arrowman

Which is why they shouldn't let any group in. The interesting thing about this is, we're not talking about an organised talk "today our guest is from..." - which would be a different kettle of fish - but the school allowing a group to come on campus during lunch hour and hand out their material.

While it may be arguable that "allowing people to hand out material" is not school endorsement per se (but of course as others have suggested, would they apply the same tolerance to non-Christian groups?), I think any school should be very restrictive on allowing any outside group to intrude on campus and use a "captive audience"; students have the right to be free of such things while they are on campus. I don't care if it's CCC, KKK, PETA, Greenpeace, Amnesty International or whatever. If the school just adopted a "noone comes on campus to hand out flyers, no matter how worthy their cause" they wouldn't have a problem.

In fact in some ways I'd have less of a problem if the school allowed this group to come on campus, occupy a classroom for lunch hour, and speak with whoever chose to come in the door. That would probably be a C-S breach (giving them use of school facilities) but at least it would be voluntary for students to listen to them.

funydirector

If you're near Grand Rapids, you might try contacting the <a href="http://www.freethoughtassociation.com/" target="_blank">Freethought Association of West Michigan</a>, to see if some of their members would be interested in coming to your school to hand out some of **THEIR** literature, as a test case.

[ May 29, 2002: Message edited by: funydirector ]</p>

Oresta

Uprise and funydirector,
Welcome to II! I look forward to your future posts.

Bad Religion

Uprise- you can get some (I think) free tracts from this website:

<a href="http://www.berkshire.net/~ifas/wa/" target="_blank">http://www.berkshire.net/~ifas/wa/</a>

I think they are titled "Why I am not a Christian"....I couldn't find it quickly on thier website, but you can email them if you want to hand out some freethought stuff.

Good luck.

uprise

I contacted Freethought Assosiation of West Michigan a few minutes ago, I am working on some flyers right now. Thanks for the support- I will keep everyone posted on what happens with it.

brighid

Oh and to be a real shit about it, I would contact other religious organizations like the Muslim community in your area – I know Detroit has a large population of Muslims, any Pagan organization, and Jewish organizations and ask them to test the limits of this “equal” opportunity access bullshit. I would be willing to bet money these groups would not have “equal” access as the Christian Groups do. They should not be able to “recruit” during school hours. They should drop off their literature with the principal and it should be made available to those students who are interested in it. People should not be allowed to walk around this school freely simply because they belong to a religious organization and free access to children. This is a public school and if parents wanted their children to be subjected to religious propaganda they would send them to a parochial school!

Brighid

uprise

Exactly. While I was in a meeting with the principal, I asked if a buddhist or muslim group could be started to increase religious awareness. He said it would be questionable because of the recent terrorist attacks.