Oresta

Coming at this sideways, I believe much that is religious music and of aesthetic value is okay in school concerts. We sang Handel's Halleluja chorus at my high school holiday concert, the only place I would ever have that marvelous experience. In other words, the litmus test is culture at two levels: tradition and art. The Lord's Prayer as a song fails on both counts. As pointed out by Bill Snedden, "...songs performed at graduation ceremonies are simply not analagous" to a musical tradition, and at the second level The Lord's Prayer song is wretched music.

Bill Snedden

Absolutely. That's exactly the point I was making in the second half of my post.

The ACLJ is attempting to draw an analogy between ANY sectarian music and ANY celebration or secular observance. The parallel is simply invalid. The ACLJ most likely doesn't care if they're using a valid analogy or not; they're not concerned at all with religious freedoms, merely with promoting their narrow, sectarian viewpoint.

Bill

Godless Dave

(emphasis mine) Anyone else see the irony here?

[ May 03, 2002: Message edited by: Godless Dave ]</p>

Oresta

If God had intended for school-sponsored prayers on Easter and Christmas, She wouldn't have given us Thomas Jefferson et. al.

Gar

Wow. Its good to see people standing up for their beliefs. That's got to be pretty tough being outed in Iowa. Good for them.

Daggah

Dave, yes, I do, and as someone who respects Thomas Jefferson a great deal, it makes me sick.

Goliath

No, it's illegal because it violates the Wall of Separation between church and state. It is also illegal because it allows intolerant xian bigots to force their dogma onto others.

Sincerely,

Goliath

GaryP

There is always some way for the courts to justify this type of activity.

It can be called a "promotion of culture" of course. But in the vast majority of communities, it is the ONLY "culture" which is consistently promoted and it just happens to be the majority "culture".

It is true that some kids may not have the opportunity to sing/play some classic pieces anyplace else but could that not be handled by the tax-free churches who buy $30,000 pipe organs?


In many places, there is a written on perhaps unwritten rule that schools will not have any thing going on on Wed. or Sun. nights. That would be plenty of time to practice and perform hymns at the churches with people who want to be there participating.

Krieger

In the "Public Pulse" section of the Omaha World Herald's website a bunch of redneck-dumbass-xian-fundies were raving about this.

Bill Snedden

Ho! Do you really know where I can get a pipe organ for $30,000? That barely buys an electronic one, nowadays...

Good pipe organs are usually upward of $100,000 (with the exception of chamber instruments). It's not at all unusual to see larger ones run in the $300-700,000 range and higher.

I play regularly on a small chamber instrument (2 man + ped, with about 10 stops total) that ran about $35,000, and that was 8 years ago.

It's simply amazing the huge amounts of money that most church folk will cough up to buy a musical instrument or build a new building and the relatively small amounts they'll set aside to feed the poor or clothe the hungry.

Bill