Tag: public schools

January 9, 2013
screencap of woman who was booed at school board meetingWoman who spoke out against the Jesus Portrait was booed by crowd

Tuesday evening almost 300 people witnessed the Jackson Ohio school board agree to be sued over an unconstitutional portrait of Jesus hanging in a lobby of the middle school. The story had more typical Christian privilege talking points and actions including booing a person who publicly voiced opposition to the portrait. Stay classy Jackson.

WBNS 10TV in Columbus had the story during their 11 PM newscast. The school board meeting was where the Jesus portrait issue was discussed. They had received a letter from the Freedom from Religion Foundation informing them that the portrait, that has hung in the middle school for 65 years, had to be removed or the school district could be sued. This story continued to highlight the typical Christian privilege talking points and actions we see in these church and state battles.

January 8, 2013
screencap of Jesus Portrait in Jackson Ohio Middle SchoolJesus Portrait in Jackson Ohio Middle School

A story, at the top of the 6 PM newscast on WBNS 10TV in Columbus, about a complaint over a Jesus portrait hanging in an Ohio middle school hit all the false talking points over religious symbols in a public school. The report missed or ignored an opportunity to give accurate information on the 1st amendment and instead spent a majority of time trying to defend an obvious illegal act.

WBNS 10TV is the top ranked news station in Columbus Ohio. It’s owned by the company that also owns the only print newspaper in town, The Columbus Dispatch. 10TV gave 3 minutes at the top of their premiere 6 PM newscast, on Monday 01/07, about a complaint lodged against a portrait of Jesus hanging in the public area of the middle school in Jackson Ohio. Chuck Strickler, who is also an anchor at the station was the reporter on the story. The fact they gave the story 3 minutes of time on the primary newscast and had one of their veteran anchor/reporters doing the story shows how important 10TV believed the story to be.

January 7, 2013
image of a little girl praying

The new year begins much like the old year ended with unnecessary calls for “returning” religious prayer to the public schools. Indiana State Senator Dennis Kruse (R) introduced a bill, on the first day of a new legislative session, to force children in public schools to pray at the start of each day. Not only would such a law violate the 1st amendment, it simply isn’t needed. Prayer wasn’t removed from schools, only forced recitation is prohibited.

July 17, 2012
image of Secular Student Alliance logo

On Monday July 16th, JT Eberhard, campus organizer and high school specialist for the Secular Student Alliance (SSA), posted about a letter SSA had received where an uninformed teacher had gloated about preventing students at the high school where he worked from forming a chapter of the SSA. Eberhard posted the contents of a letter he e-mailed to the administration of that high school and it points out in detail why the teacher’s actions are illegal not to mention bigoted. Just image the uproar if the teacher had done what he did to students wanting to form a religious group.

July 6, 2012
image of Proselytizing Ohio teacher John Freshwater
Proselytizing Ohio teacher John Freshwater

John Freshwater, the Mount Vernon Ohio public school science teacher who was fired for proselytizing to his students will get a hearing on an appeal in the Ohio Supreme Court. I’ve been following this story since Freshwater burned his first cross in a student in 2008. He has lost in every court yet this case will not go away.

August 27, 2011
Holy Bible

In July, the Republic Missouri school district voted to ban two books from the school district libraries and from the classrooms. The two books were “Twenty Boy Summer” by Sarah Ockler and “Slaughterhouse Five” by Kurt Vonnegut and they were banned for language, sex, and violence. I think if that is the reasoning then one needs to ask if it time to ban the Holy Bible as well. The Bible has some real nasty bits that I wouldn’t want any children to read.

The Bible has a lot of sex in it: