Sunday, November 29, 2009



3rd Circus Outlaws Christmas music in NJ schools

We read:
"Singing "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" might be okay in Maplewood-South Orange schools. But "Silent Night" and "Oh Come All Ye Faithful" are still out.

A board of education policy that prohibits celebratory religious music in district schools was upheld today by the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. The three-judge panel said there was "no constitutional violation" in the policy because other constitutional principles require public schools to remain strictly secular environments.

"Those of us who were educated in the public schools remember holiday celebrations replete with Christmas carols, and possibly even Chanukah songs, to which no objections had been raised. Since then, the governing principles have been examined and defined with more particularity," Judge Dolores Korman Sloviter wrote for the court.

The judges said public school administrations can discern which songs are most appropriate according to those constitutional guidelines because schools already are charged with the responsibility of creating a secular "inclusive environment" for students every day.

Source

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

I wonder if this ruling includes the songs praising Chairman Odumbo that NJ school children were "made" to sing.

Bobby said...

"schools already are charged with the responsibility of creating a secular "inclusive environment" for students every day."

---I guess insulting 90% of the people is being "inclusive" to this judges.

Anonymous said...

And which part of the Constitution gives the schools the responsibility to create a secular environment?? I just don't recall reading the word secular anywhere in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights.

Anonymous said...

Get rid of winter break, Easter break, summer vacation, and thanksgiving holidays. This picking and choosing is deeply hypocritical. It may be good advice to never subject children to the cesspool that is public education.

Anonymous said...

These are the same judges that have people put their hands on a Bible in a public court..hypocrtical bastarts,, we need term limits on federal judges.

Anonymous said...

we need term limits on federal judges.

We need expiration dates on conservatives.

Anonymous said...

We need to put bounties on leftists. Say, $.50 a head?

"I just don't recall reading the word secular anywhere in the Constitution or the Bill of Rights."

It's on the same page as abortion.

Anonymous said...

But surely we can all agree that banning religious carols is one thing and simply not choosing to include religious carols is quite another...?

Wes said...

I heard someone recently state that if the government is not going to promote any particular religion then there should be no Christmas or Thanksgiving holiday for federal or state workers and they should be at work on those days providing service to the public which pays their salaries. Sounds resonable to me. Do you think the unions would go for that?

Anonymous said...

Re: But surely we can all agree that banning religious carols is one thing and simply not choosing to include religious carols is quite another...?

Okay, so we can certainly agree that banning people of a specific race from a place of employment is one thing and simply not choosing to include them is another?

Remember that religious expression is protected. The school can't simply choose to not include anything religious since that is a ban on religious expression and thus, illegal.

Robert said...

...we need term limits on federal judges.

I would settle for legislators that would impeach and remove from office federal judges that ignore the law as written (assuming the law is not blatantly unjust) in order to impose their personal political agenda from the bench.