Monday, June 11, 2012
Minnesota student banned from wearing rosary beads to school
If you act like a gang member, it's going to be likely that you'll be treated like one. Rosary beads are an aid to devotion, not bling
A Minnesota high school student who wears rosary beads to school in support of his cancer-stricken grandmother was ordered to pocket them by school district officials, who said the beads could be a symbol of gang membership.
Jake Balthazor, 15, of Coon Rapids, a northern suburb of Minneapolis, was told Wednesday by Coon Rapids High School officials that he could no longer wear the black and silver rosary honoring his grandmother, who was recently diagnosed with breast cancer, his father told FoxNews.com.
“He was told not to wear it again,” Chad Balthazor said Thursday. “He was upset when he came home from school. A teacher sent him down to the office, but the reason he was wearing it was for his grandmother.”
The school district’s policy forbids any “apparel, jewelry, accessories or matter of grooming which by virtue of its color arrangement, trademark or any other attribute denotes membership in an organized gang,” Mary Olson, director of communication for the Anoka-Hennepin School District, told FoxNews.com.
Olson said Coon Rapids police informed the district in early May that some local gangs, namely the Latin Kings and the Surenos, do use rosary beads as affiliation symbols.
Balthazor was told he could bring the beads to school if kept in his pocket, Olson said.
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9 comments:
If similar beads are indeed used by aggressive gangs, and this child is genuinely merely wearing genuine RC rosary beads only in memory of his genuine grandmother then they could be worn inside his clothing out of view, and then no confusion will arise.
"the cretins who run this indoctrination camp believe Christians are a gang! "
The Crystal Cathedral, in Garden Grove, Calif., was sold to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange for $57.5 million.
Apparently a rich gang.
But i,ll bet theyll allow for pentigrams,ahnks and STAR and CRESENTS
Oh you wacky religionists. Maybe if you cast aside your delusions, you *might* help this be a better world.
A school has the right to impose a dress code - end of story. Students and their parents have the right to find another school or even an exclusively religious school that suits their wishes better.
Courts have already dealt with this issue -- and the school board should expect to pay up when and if the kid sues.
http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/students-should-be-free-to-wear-rosary-beads
By the way -- gangs also wear Dallas Cowboys, Oakland Raiders, and other athletic team apparel to indicate affiliation. They also wear certain colors. Schools don't ban the colors blue and red for that reason, and so should not be banning rosaries either.
@Dean, you are correct in your depiction of the Sikh religion. Anon 4:07 should have said, "bomb vests" and "box cutters" in his characterization of Muslims. Sorry for the confusion.
Rosary beads are meant to be used as prayer aids, not as jewelry or adornment. The student should be educated as to its proper use. Praying for one's cancer-stricken grandmother is noble and without fault. But wearing a rosary to draw attention to one's self or one's cause is disrespectful at best.
Hey Anon 3:10, that's fine, as long as they don't have to pay for that school if they aren't using it. Sadly, that part isn't true. If they are forced to pay for the school and its illegal policies whether they use it or not, then they don't have to back down or attend another school on their own increased cost.
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