crazyfingers

Interesting bit of disinformation from the Christian Right

Note these two stories.

First this one from the WorldNetDaily regarding a lawsuit where students were suspended from school for distributing candy canes with religious messages. They quote Falwell as saying:

""Students have just as much right to speak on religious topics as they do on secular topics – no matter what the ACLU might propagate," wrote Falwell. "Quite simply, school officials may not censor religious or Christian messages solely because another person might be 'offended.'"

So they quote Falwell railing against the ACLU.

Notice if you open the link above that the WorldNetDaily quoted from a Boston Globe story on the same subject.

However, read the actual Boston Globe story :

"William C. Newman, an attorney in Northampton who represented two South Hadley students in the mid-1990s in a successful freedom-of-expression claim, said the Westfield students have a strong case.

''Students cannot be punished for exercising their rights of free speech unless that speech causes material disruption in the school,'' said Newman, also director of the western Massachusetts office of the American Civil Liberties Union, which wrote to McDowell on the Westfield students' behalf earlier this month."

So the WorldNetDaily quotes Falwell railing against the ACLU when they know that in fact the ACLU sent a letter to the school supertendent and principal telling them that the students have the right to distribute the candy canes.

What do the 10c's say about false witness?

Here is a topic on the same lawsuit on the ChristianForums .

hezekiah jones

Simple, cf. Falwell is in the porn business and every time he mentions the ACLU he gives the Religious Reichsters a boner.

Speaking of the vile and reprehensible Falwell and his bum buddy Marion Robertson, here's a (tragically) funny This Modern World:

The CBN meets al-Quaida

Philosoft

The story that appeared in my local paper this morning indicated that the stated reason for preventing the students from passing out candy was a school policy against independent student activities that don't have anything to do with the curriculum. There was no mention made, at least from the POV of school officials, of preventing potential 1st Amendment issues, although it appears the lawsuit includes some language to that effect.

I imagine the school policy would also prevent things like selling candy bars for fund-raising. If there are documented instances of students being punished for such actions, the school district appears to be on solid legal ground, hyperreactive religious bleating notwithstanding.

lisarea

This is one of the topics that has actually caused me quite a bit of problems, personally. I don't want to become some all-around bigot, but this crap doesn't do anything for my attempts to respect Christians.

I'm a longtime ACLU member, and I used to have a bumpersticker on my car. Now, this is a pretty conservative, Christian suburb, so I realized that my support of the ACLU wouldn't be popular, but I was shocked at the attitudes to something that I think should be pretty uncontroversial. I was flipped off, tailgated, called names, and almost run off the road a few times. I even had some loser put a note IN MY CAR saying something like, "The ACLU doesn't support Christians!"

So I did a little research on the web, on terms like aclu christian and so forth. What I found was disgusting. Apparently, Christian preachers often refer to a relatively recent case in which a school told a student he couldn't bring his Bible to school anymore, and the ACLU defended the student and won. Except they get it backwards, and claim that the ACLU (apparently patrolling the halls of our public schools) sued the child for bringing his Bible to school. Seriously. They get it 100% backwards. Worse yet, people apparently take their preachers' words at face value, never bothering to look up the source or check the facts before they go trying to run innocent people off the road, or breaking into cars.

You know what? I would NEVER do that. I would never base such a harsh judgement against someone on a single verbal citation. Research is easy. It is completely trivial to discover the real facts of the case, but they don't bother. What kind of sheeplike idiots can't even be bothered to look up something they feel so strongly about? Christian sheeplike idiots, that's who.

I know, I know. All Christians aren't idiots, and all idiots aren't Christians. It's just that there seems to be a pretty strong correlation sometimes, in certain areas of idiocy.

Allkholollick

lisarea wrote:
Yeah, thats exactly what happens. It is much easier for them to simply swallow what they are told rather than think for themselves. Plus, I don't think that fundamentalists really want the sheep to do much thinking on their own. They might start getting ideas.

Nira

To take your advice not to take things at face value, I clicked your links. I also clicked the link to JF on WND, and found that the quote about ACLU was not about the candy case in particular.

The question then is if it’s intentionally vague or not. I would imagine that deliberate misrepresentation or not striving to convey the whole truth would fall under one of the 10 commandments in some way or another.

Yes they have, and the ACLU fights for those rights.

Yes no matter what the ACLU _ might _ propagate. No matter what Christians _ might _ propagate as well. Are you saying that it is what the ACLU actually _ does _ propagate?

Maybe God accepts creative misrepresentations that is not factually wrong, but that gives a wrong impression?

crazyfingers

I suggest that you read the story again more closely.

There are two paragraphs. Read the second paragraph related to the ACLU.


McDowell is the school superintendent in the candy cane case. Westfield is the town that this took place. The second paragraph is clearly about this candy cane case because the letter was sent earlier this month whereas the first paragraph talks about something that too place in a different town in the mid-1990s.

I don't think that there would be any doubt that the second paragraph is about this case.