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Prayer Bill Praised By Free Speech Advocates
May 21, 2010
A bill aimed at encouraging school prayer is drawing praise from an unlikely pairing of free speech advocates and social conservatives – even as some warn it could make it tougher for school administrators to discipline students.
The legislation (HB 31) grew out of a longstanding dispute in the Panhandle’s Santa Rosa County, where the ACLU got the school district to sign a consent decree restricting prayer and religious activities by students at school events. The measure also bars school officials from preaching or promoting prayers during school functions and organizing school-sponsored religious services.
But several Panhandle lawmakers, angered by the consent decree restrictions, fought back this spring – successfully getting the Legislature to approve the measure prohibiting school officials from infringing on the free speech rights of students or teachers, unless they agree to the limits in writing.
“This bill says that just because you’re a student or work for a school district, it doesn’t mean you check your rights at the door,” Rep. Brad Drake, R-Eucheeanna, sauid Thursday.
The Santa Rosa consent decree remains under attack in court. The Liberty Counsel, a conservative advocacy organization based in Orlando, filed suit this month saying the consent decree makes a “mockery of the First Amendment.”
First Amendment advocates say the legislation — expected to be sent soon to Gov. Charlie Crist — clearly enhances free speech. But they point out that it could also include consequences supporters failed to envision.
Frank LoMonte, executive director of the Student Press Association in Washington, D.C., said the legislation may unshackle student newspapers from the usual oversight of school administrators, effectively putting Florida among seven states – none in the Southeast – which have passed laws endorsing free expression for students.
Student papers running frank discussions of sex on campus, drug-use, and other provocative topics usually face few restrictions in the states that have approved such laws, LoMonte said.
“This bill certainly leaves an open question about what the standard in Florida is going to be for student newspapers,” said LoMonte, a former Tallahassee reporter with the Florida Times-Union.
Similarly, because the legislation also safeguards teachers and other school personnel, it may blunt sanctions by school administrators against personnel for speech and dress code, experts said.
“The focus of the bill may have been about freedom of religion,” said Barbara Petersen, executive director of the First Amendment Foundation, an advocacy organization funded by news organizations, including the News Service of Florida. “But it’s very broad and seems to open the door for free speech, whether it be a T-shirt that says `George Bush Sucks’, a Confederate flag, or students wearing head scarves to school.”
But Rep. Greg Evers, R-Baker, a sponsor of the legislation, disagreed, saying the measure would have “no impact on school discipline or long-standing rules.”
“What cannot happen under this law is a teacher cannot stop a student from bowing his or her head in quiet, silent prayer before the FCAT (test) begins, as long as it does not obstruct the health, safety and welfare of the other members of the class,” Evers said.
He added, “Similarly, no child can stand up and start saying the pledge loudly during the FCAT because, again, the health, safety and the welfare restrictions established by years of First Amendment case law still apply.”
by John Kennedy, The News Service Florida
Comments
8 Responses to “Prayer Bill Praised By Free Speech Advocates”
Thanks, John.
Y’all note that religious people here will simply repeat what we’ve all heard many times from them. It’s the spouting of propaganda, after all. That’s because they’ve been indoctrinated, programmed, brainwashed, whatever you prefer, in their belief system. (Fear of Hell, promise of Heaven). They cannot see reality any more. They ignore facts and fail to engage skeptics, saying only…in time you will meet your judgment and other such junk. I too was indoctrinated by a Christian Science oriented mother and church exposure. But dad called himself an atheist and had “escaped” from the Catholic church. It hurts to overcome religious indoctrination, reinforced every Sunday, but it is NECESSARY to achieve happiness and be other than a hypocrite. If you have a computer, you can find all kinds of good counter propaganda to put you in a more moderate place where reason can operate within you. In my day, I only had books by authors like: Ayn Rand, Kurt Vonnegut, Philip Wylie, Robert Heinlein and others. More recently, Sam Harris and other “militant atheists” have been popular among people fighting this delusion called religious dogma, and trying think free and clear.
REGARDING:
“Religion has been in our Schools since this Country was founded.”
Our schools weren’t in our schools when the country was founded.
What? There weren’t a bunch of public schools throughout the nation at the time. It wasn’t felt to be the duty of the government to educate the children, partly out of fear of government indoctrinating the children the wrong way.
Sure glad THAT turned out not to be the case.
David for freedom by a hands-off approach
Bottom line is: I am going to pray when I feel like praying! I will pray at church, in my car, in the store,on a bus,at work, at the beach, post office, in a parking lot, in the library, in the lunchroom, in a class, at a ball game, at a concert, bathroom, hospital, PTA, NRA, ………..and really,…………… NOT one person can stop me.
Religion has been in our Schools since this Country was founded. Over the 40+ years we have slowly removed those teachings. We need to get back to One Nation Under God.
Thinker…I like the way you write and think. Good job!!
The free expression in school newspapers thing, is good. Christians think their message is always good and that Bible reading is the answer. Anyone who has ever read the Bible fully, knows better. Now they want free expression of religion in schools. You can’t allow freedom of speech for the non-academic, superstitious, fantasy stuff that religion promotes, without also allowing discussion and promotion of other whims of life like drug use, free sex, etc., etc. But that’s what freedom of speech is all about. Ironic isn’t it? The founding fathers saw humans as basically good, capable of rejecting bad ideas (in school newspapers, etc.). Christians see us as sinners who need a God to guide us It’s the oldest confidence game on earth because then the Christian community appoints leaders to “guide” us instead, reaping financial rewards and protection from taxation which they use to build huge church edifices while people starve, banning condoms in countries where people are dying from AIDS, and training leaders that both rape our children AND nurture us, but always keeping their “flocks” dependent, manipulated and deluded. And so it goes…
Here’s a famous quote on free speech that says it in fewer words:
“If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.” ~Noam Chomsky
One day, all who have rejected prayer and Jesus will come to a place where they will cry out for someone to teach them how to pray! They will cry out, but it may be too late! Death is final. No more chances to make things right. This world we live in is a complete opposite of the one I grew up in. In the 1950’s, EVERYONE honored prayer and God. We didn’t have nearly the amount of moral decay we see these days. Now, people spend great amounts of money and time to try to stop anyone from praying in whatever places they want. Look at the headlines. Don’t you think a little more prayer may have helped those who are now embedded in drugs and porn and murder?? Thank GOD that I was taught how to pray! And NO ONE will stop me from praying wherever I desire! That’s not a freedom given to me by the Constitution, it is given to me by GOD Himself!!
School is for school, church is for church. If you want to pray to yourself quietly you can do so all day!
I don’t come to your church and teach science , so don’t come to my school with your religion