New church-state controversy

#1
lawgator1

lawgator1

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#1
Jerry Buell Facebook: Attorney for Mount Dora High teacher Jerry Buell says school district claims he violated church-state clause. - OrlandoSentinel.com



From the article:

His syllabus also offered this warning to students: "I teach God's truth, I make very few compromises. If you believe you may have a problem with that, get your schedule changed, 'cause I ain't changing!" On a separate document, he also said the classroom was his "mission field."



I think he can post whatever he wants on FB, but the commentary in the syllabus is a non-no.
 
#3
#3
"There's a thing in this country called the First Amendment," he told the crowd of a few hundred. "I firmly believe in the right to express my opinions passionately."
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Seriously, when will the liberals and conservatives actually understand what the First Amendment means?
 
#4
#4
That's dumb. What does this even mean?

Fighting back tears, he said: "I'm a social studies teacher, and I knew I what the heck I was doing.
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Oh, a social studies teacher! By all means, give him free reign to teach whatever he wants.
 
#5
#5
I like the idea of separation of church and state, but the first amendment is applied too widely. It was never intended to regulate a HS in Florida. If public education didn't have a monopoly we wouldn't really hear about this sort of thing. There would be a lot more private schools where this guy could speak his mind.
 
#7
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Velo Vol said:
That assumes that he does not want to create a public brouhaha. Some people do.
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Putting it into the syllabus, then saying I know you will be offended, tough, deal with it, does seem like maybe he was itching for a fight.
 
#9
#9
just think, if this teacher was like utgibbs and put,

"I am a Marxist and proud apologist for Castro and Che Guevara. If you don't like to hear rhetoric of the Revolution, get over it. It is my fervent wish to the the US' capitalist system overthrown and replaced with a true workers' paradise."

into his syllabus, he would be praised as a champion of free speech.
 
#10
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MG1968 said:
just think, if this teacher was like utgibbs and put,

"I am a Marxist and proud apologist for Castro and Che Guevara. If you don't like to hear rhetoric of the Revolution, get over it. It is my fervent wish to the the US' capitalist system overthrown and replaced with a true workers' paradise."

into his syllabus, he would be praised as a champion of free speech.
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no doubt, gotta,love govt indoctrination centers
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#11
#11
MG1968 said:
just think, if this teacher was like utgibbs and put,

"I am a Marxist and proud apologist for Castro and Che Guevara. If you don't like to hear rhetoric of the Revolution, get over it. It is my fervent wish to the the US' capitalist system overthrown and replaced with a true workers' paradise."

into his syllabus, he would be praised as a champion of free speech.
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I am sure if he had written that in there the protest from parents would have been much, much broader and he'd have been disciplined for that, too.

At any rate, the two are not comparable for obvious reasons.
 
#14
#14
Rasputin_Vol said:
I'm a simpleton, I guess. What are those obvious reasons?
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One is religious dogma, the other political. The First Amendment discusses the former with an affirmative bar on the mixing of church and state, and that has long been recognized to explicitly include overtly religious commentary by teachers in public schools.
 
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#15
lawgator1 said:
One is religious dogma, the other political. The First Amendment discusses the former with an affirmative bar on the mixing of church and state, and that has long been recognized to explicitly include overtly religious commentary by teachers in public schools.
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there is no "affirmative bar" in the text of the 1st Amendment

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
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Jefferson's "wall of separation" appears no where in the text of the Constitution and was never intended to be interpreted in the way it is today.
 
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MG1968 said:
there is no "affirmative bar" in the text of the 1st Amendment



Jefferson's "wall of separation" appears no where in the text of the Constitution and was never intended to be interpreted in the way it is today.
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It has long been held to be an affirmative bar. You may disagree, but you have no vote in the matter.
 
#17
#17
lawgator1 said:
It has long been held to be an affirmative bar. You may disagree, but you have no vote in the matter.
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neither do you, but that's beside the point.

amazing how fundamentalist liberals get with the Constitution when it involves the 1st or 2nd Amendments, but when that whole "general welfare" thing comes into play you can justify nearly any item of government largesse.
 
#18
#18
MG1968 said:
neither do you, but that's beside the point.

amazing how fundamentalist liberals get with the Constitution when it involves the 1st or 2nd Amendments, but when that whole "general welfare" thing comes into play you can justify nearly any item of government largesse.
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when suites their fancy
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#20
#20
lawgator1 said:
It has long been held to be an affirmative bar. You may disagree, but you have no vote in the matter.
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Did you know that Connecticut had a state church until 1818 or so? A lot of other states had them as well. Up until about 1833 Massachusetts required everyone to belong to a church and pay a church tax. Interesting that the people who wrote the first amendment didn't think it applied to the states. Not even Jefferson thought it did.

The Supreme court first incorporated the ban on state promotion of a particular religion in 1947 I think. It was some school case, don't remember which one right off the top of my head. Did it via the 14th amendment as a violation of due process and equal access, not as an establishment of religion case, per se as I recall.

Actually, since we get to elect our senators and president, and they get to pick our court justices, then we do get a say in the matter. Just indirectly.

Now, don't get me wrong. I think the government has absolutely no business whatsoever in religious matters. I don't want to see prayers promoted by the schools or something. That doesn't change the fact that it has not been that long that this has been considered binding on the states. We probably have several posters here that it wasn't the case for their entire lives. Within living memory, the establishment clause did not apply to the states.
 
#22
#22
lawgator1 said:
It has long been held to be an affirmative bar. You may disagree, but you have no vote in the matter.
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Gonna have to disagree. In my mind, there's good reason for complete separation, but in the mind of a Christian, their life is ruled by the Bible and so should everyone else's. It's pretty ambiguous and should really be clarified.
 
#25
#25
VOLatile said:
Gonna have to disagree. In my mind, there's good reason for complete separation, but in the mind of a Christian, their life is ruled by the Bible and so should everyone else's. It's pretty ambiguous and should really be clarified.
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I'm a christian.

While I know you like to speak for me ... you are wrong.

Could care less if you follow my religion.

Wanna go 2 out of 3?
 
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