crazyfingers

This press release from the FFRF mentions that their display last year was stolen.

<a href="http://www.ffrf.org/news/solsticesign.html" target="_blank">"Equal Time" Winter Solstice" Greeting Returns to State Capitol for 7th Year</a>

beejay

[ <a href="http://www.ffrf.org/news/defaced.html" target="_blank">And defaced this year</a>

LLaurieG

(Laurie) Thanks for the news and the opportunity to raise some conciousnesses. Just forwarded this news link to three new in-law family members, all broadminded professional people who hail from Madison. By Midwestern standards, Madison, Wisconsin is and has long been a bastion of liberal enlightenment, which makes this story doubly sad. Hope they catch the jerks.

hezekiah jones

Even so there are several "prominent" wingnut christians in the area that regularly go out of their way to badmouth the FFRF specifically. I would bet a pound of WI cheddar that the vandals were regular listeners to WVCY radio in Milwaukee.

simian

Don't know if it strictly falls under vandalism, but...

As somebody somewhat active with the non-believing portion of the community, I am aware of one e-mail address that has been hit with somebody attempting to send a virus 4 times in the last year. 3 times in the past month. From 3 different e-mail addresses, each putting up a fake "reply-to" address. Yes, these attacks have been reported.

Simian

Viti

My Grandmother was a Southern Baptist from East Texas...they were forbidden to dance because of Jezebel or some such shit.

My Mom snuck off to a dance when she was in high school and her brother walked into the gym, picked her up, threw her over his shoulder, and carried her home to Grandma for a beating. Scary shit that, wonder why Mom ain't a Christian??

Godless Dave

LadyShea that sounds more like assault than vandalism. Scary story!

Jessi

I took a lot of shit in high school (last year) for lots of things; I can't pin it directly on being non-Xian, but I suspect that wasn't helpful. Lots of graffiti on my locker, stickers torn off my car, locker, and backpack, threats, obscene phone calls, flattened tires, keyed car, chewed gum on my lock, a condom stretched over my lock, etc. Worse, the school never did jack about it, and I narrowly avoided having to pay for the damage to my locker, and did have to pay for 2 or 3 new tires. It was really pathetic to read the newsletters the school would send out about tolerance, then see them totally ignore my complaints and insinuate that this was my fault. But that's what you get at a rich-kid school for being outspoken and not a sheep. And not rich.
If anyone's interested in reading it, I can post an article I wrote for a local magazine about the whole thing.

The Admiral

Jessie

I'm interested, post it.

The admiral

Jessi

The Price of an Opinion

I am an animal-rights activist. I believe that animals do not “belong” to people; rather, we all exist to help each other.
Sounds peaceful, right? Well, the students at my school have not taken non-violent protest in the pacifistic spirit it was intended.
At the beginning of the school year, I was shocked to learn that my school has donated tens of thousands of dollars to the March of Dimes. The March of Dimes’ animal experiments are criticized by many doctors, scientists, and organizations as useless. Most animal-rights organizations are opposed to the March of Dimes because their experiments are of so little value to humans or animals and cause so much pain to the animals they use as test subjects.
So I boycotted the offending fund-raisers, and told anyone who asked why I was doing so. I wore a sticker reading “Stop The March of Dimes’ Animal Tests. <a href="http://www.marchofcrimes.com" target="_blank">www.marchofcrimes.com</a>" and put one on my locker. I wrote a letter to the editors of the school paper, explaining the facts about the March of Dimes without going into graphic detail, and outlining my complaint about the school’s financial contributions to them. Not only was my letter never printed by the newspaper staff, it was never returned or acknowledged.
I receive verbal harassment in relation to my opposition to animal tests almost daily. Students ask questions such as, “What, should we test on people instead of rats?” Although it’s obvious from their rude and sarcastic tone that they don’t care about the answer, I explain some of the alternatives to animal experiments if time allows, or give them a small leaflet printed by People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals with the same information in it.
My car’s tires have been flattened, my locker sticker torn off and “X”ed out with permanent marker (I replace it), my locker vents kicked shut, which knocked off and broke a picture frame inside, and the phrases “YOU’RE A FUCKIN DIKE (sic),” “March of Dimes RULES,” “I (heart) FUR,” “FUR RULEZ (sic),” “DUMB ASS,” etc. written in pencil and permanent marker all over my locker. Also, every few weeks I find chewed gum stuck on my lock, and once a condom (unused, I hope) was stretched over my entire lock.
I do report these incidents to the school administration (as time allows), and it would be unfair to say they do nothing about it-- but anonymous vandals are hard to catch, and the prevailing sentiment is that I bring it upon myself for expressing an unpopular opinion at school.
I don’t blame the school, the teachers, the security (or lack thereof), or the administration-- I blame the people who harass me; especially the vandals, who I sincerely hope get caught and are made to pay to repaint my locker and replace my tire.
If I were a younger, more impressionable person, learning from this experience, what would the lesson be? “Don’t have a strong opinion, especially if it’s unpopular, and don’t visually or verbally express it at school.” Well, thankfully I’m a senior, so I’ve only had to endure one hellish year because of this, and I’m too old to let it really get to me, but is this really what my school wants to impress upon its students? Is having no dissenters from the majority opinion really a sign of a productive school? I would like to think that the school wants a vibrant, diverse community, and they certainly profess to wanting one-- but I can’t help but think that having no dissenters makes the administration’s job of disciplining people a lot easier. And, the really scary part is, I never thought this could happen at my school. It makes me wonder how many other schools, with administrations that don’t know how to do their jobs correctly, might be discouraging kids from expressing their opinions.

{edited by Toto to fix URL}

[ December 22, 2002: Message edited by: Toto ]</p>