Missouri: Sedalia's Latest Religious Controversy

We read:

"Smith-Cotton High School is stirring up controversy over the separation of church and state once again.

This time, it's not about what they won't allow, but what they will allow. A school alumnus donated a bronze tiger statue to the high school that displays the Jewish Star of David.

You might remember just last month when the school caused national and even overseas controversy when it decided to ban a T-shirt designed for the school's band. The shirt used Darwin's famous drawings of the evolution of man to show the evolution of brass instruments over the years. Now, many critics are accusing school officials of being hypocrites and of using separation of church and state to keep science out of classrooms while prominently displaying religious symbols.

Sedalia's superintendent of schools, Harriet Wolfe, says the two situations are completely different. She says officials banned the shirt because it was a group shirt and could have been forcing evolution on a student who didn't support the theory. But she says the statue doesn't force a belief on anyone and that the Star of David on its plaque is like the signature of the donating group.

The man responsible for donating the statue for Sedalians of Jewish Faith, Jack Isgur, says that the statue's plaque is being taken entirely out of context and isn't displayed for religious reasons at all, but actually for historic ones.

Underneath the Star of David, the statue's plaque reads, "Sedalians of Jewish Faith (1860-2009.)" Earlier this year, Sedalia's Jewish organization relocated to Columbia. Isgur says the plaque is simply a remembrance of part of the community that had existed since the 1800s and is now gone.

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