The Girl’s Alright With Me
by Gabe Downey
High school, probably more than any other time in your pre-adult life, is a time where you really come to discover who you are and what you belive. And besides not even being close to “the best years of your life,” high school does offer you the opportunity to begin asserting your independence and following whatever course of action you deem best. Rarely however, do your decisions make national news. This isn’t the case for Jessica Ahlquist.
Jessica goes to school in Rhode Island, at Cranston West, and hanging in the school for god knows how many years (you’ll be roaring at that pun in a moment) is a prayer banner. Now, obviously this banner has no place in a school that is run by the United States Government, we all know the importance of the separation of church and state. And much like when Josh and I argued with the school board vice president to get a catholic based abstinence presentation changed from mandatory to optional at our high school, Jessica took on the responsibility personally to change something that wasn’t right. She fought long and hard, created a Facebook group to get her message out and finally she took her fight to the court system. And, she won.
So, the good side won. This matter is over, right? Jessica can go back to being a normal high schooler, right? Wrong. What has come up in the short time since her decision is an HORRIFIC backlash of the religious zealots in this country and their response to Jessica. So overwhelmingly horrible are this comments that you can see how seriously these people take themselves as Christians. In lieu of posting these comments here, instead I invite you over to JESUSFETUSFAJITAFISHTICKS who’ve done a great job amassing them as screenshots. These people are sad examples of human decency and perhaps the most disappointing thing is that considering the source, it’s not so surprising.
And worse than their defense of their religion is that they clearly have NO understanding about what our rights are as Americans. We are lucky to have been born in this country, and these people take the ability to speak freely for granted. The constitution and bill of rights are there to protect the interest of the minority AGAINST the majority, not the other way around. We stand up for what is right in this country, even if we are standing alone. Jessica stood up for what is right, but she isn’t alone. She stands with the forefathers of America who believed that her voice mattered as much as the powerful Christian wing of this country. Having a prayer banner in schools is wrong, and regardless of how many threats you make against the brave girl who decided to do something about it, it won’t change that fact.
If I were a real Christian, I would be embarrassed at how these people are furthering the notion that hypocrisy, not morality, reigns supreme in religion. Jessica earns the win not only for the removal of the prayer banner, but also for exposing these people for what they really are: self serving, ignorant hypocrites who threaten a young girl with violence and eternal damnation. Lovely.
At the risk of sounding like a religious zealot I would like to point out that your representation of the 1st Amendment is nowhere near accurate by the writ of the Constitution.
What about,”CONGRESS shall make no LAW respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” restricts a school from posting an innocuous, non-threatening prayer? I’m pretty sure that your toenail grasp of the text betrays no clear understanding of true American rights.
I don’t personally care if the sign was taken down, and I do not support any backlash whatsoever on the young lady, but of all the things we have to assail, is this really the most important?
First of all, I never mentioned the first amendment. Although even if I had, my argument stands. By posting that banner in a government run school, it’s essentially an endorsement of the religious text. And using the language of the first amendment, that is a clear violation of the rights of someone who doesn’t believe in that prayer, and it prohibits Jessica’s free exercise of her beliefs. Jessica should not have to go to a school where something that hangs on the wall makes her feel intimidated or outcast. She wasn’t asking to put an atheist banner up instead, she just wanted the religious banner taken down. Not so the school reflected only her belief, but so it reflected everyone’s belief equally. This whole thing goes beyond the specific language of the constitution anyway, and into the intent of the forefathers (which clearly favors the separation of church and state).
And to answer your question, yes. This is the most important thing to assail and here’s why. People like to say that the banner has been there so long, why attack it now? Well, wrong is wrong, regardless of if it’s been in place for 50 years or not. Did people tell the suffragettes “Why bother trying to get the right to vote now? you’ve already not been voting for 100 years”? This comparison is to show the danger of that type of thinking. Wrong is wrong, regardless of time period, or pending “importance of other things.” I understand that you don’t agree with the decision, but that doesn’t make it wrong or unimportant. It’s quite the opposite.
Yes, Phil, you’re vehemence is quite out of line: you’re simply mistaken about the meaning of the establishment clause.
Taxpayer funded government (which, by hierarchy of legislative authority, is roughly equivalent in meaning here to “Congress”) is not allowed to pass any law (or to dispense funding or supply resources per the dictates of its laws) which makes a distinction between religious establishments. In this case, either ALL “religious” perspectives must be represented in the same way as the prayer banner representing Christianity was, or NO religious perspectives may be represented, and that includes atheism.
It’s the familiar problem of the creche on the courthouse lawn. It’s only legal if they let the giant menorah go up too, and the pagan candles, and the secular solstice tree, and… well, you run out of room. Since it is impractical or impossible to guarantee that government support for expressions of religious belief will be distributed equitably among all religious perspectives, government simply says, okay, NO religious views will be presented.
As for whether this was the most important cause to be championing at this time — that’s a non-starter. One charitable act doesn’t preclude another.
Why not simply ask the school to remove it? Was there any petition to the School Board, the District? It’s pure tokenism and legal posturing.
As for the 1st Amendment, isn’t it strange how my post includes the actual text, plain as day, without any attempt to extrapolate “intent” or to obfuscate “Congress” to mean “any part of the government?” By the writ of the actual document you have no credible argument. It says — Congress, as in >>the legislative body of the federal goverment<<. Not the state, not the county, and certainly not the school district. The meaning of the text was written so a third grader could interpret it. It took a handful of frantic, anti-religious "zealots" to impose it otherwise.
Finally, as to vehemence. This is my indoor voice.
Jessica did take it to the school, and eventually the school board and they voted 4-3 to keep the banner (It’s literally said that in just about every article concerning this issue). So it’s not “pure tokenism and legal posturing.” She took the correct avenues and we should applaud her for sticking with it.
And in terms of your comment about the language, not everything that is up for debate can be subject to the exact language of the constitution. That is the purpose of these high courts and judges, they are there to interpret the meaning of the language as to how it applies to these specific instances. In this case, the judge got it right.
The high courts exist to interpret the meaning of proposed legislation and matters of civil jurisprudence. They were not established to REWORD specific passages of the Constitution.
The text is plain, the meaning easily derived. Anything we have via interpretation is simply anathema to the Constitution.