A school in Midlothian, Texas, has angered local residents by submitting to the demands of the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) and covering up a pair of dedication plaques at two elementary schools. The superintendent of the school district, Jerome Stewart, said the plaques were covered due to their “questionable constitutional nature.” The content that generated a threatening letter from the FFRF was a pair of crosses and the words “God” and “Holy Christian Church.” Oh, the horror!
The plaques were posted at the Mt. Peak Elementary School and Longbranch Elementary School in 1997. The text of the plaques reads: “Dedicated in The Year Of Our Lord 1997 To The Education of God’s Children And To Their Faithful Teachers In The Name Of The Holy Christian Church – Soli Deo Gloria.”
Stewart says both plaques are currently covered and will eventually be replaced. Might I suggest that the new plaques be dedicated in the memory of the First Amendment right to freedom of religion, because with people like Stewart rolling over for the FFRF the right might as well no longer exist.
I’ve written several posts now on the FFRF and the assault on religious liberty that the heathens are launching from their headquarters in Wisconsin. They have been in the news recently for suing the IRS to compel them to investigate churches, threatening a diner in North Carolina for offering a discount for praying over a meal, threatening a pizza restaurant in Arkansas for giving a discount for bringing in a church bulletin on Sunday, and objecting to a high school football team in Florida that dared to pray over an injured teammate.
Their latest threat to the Midlothian school district has brought about some interesting information about the FFRF. When commenting on the letter the FFRF sent to the district, the director of litigation for the Liberty Institute, Hiram Sasser, told Todd Starnes of Fox News that the FFRF doesn’t have a leg to stand on. He said unless there is a parent with a student who is attending the school and is offended then there is no one with legal standing to file a lawsuit. He then said the FFRF sends out about 1,000 demand letters a year but only has the budget to back up about a dozen with an actual lawsuit. With that in mind, “No school should ever take action based on an FFRF letter,” he said.
With wimps such as Stewart in charge the FFRF can achieve success at stifling the free expression of religion in another state with the tiny cost of a postage stamp.
Stewart and other spineless administrators should take some direction from the folks in Gainesville, Georgia. The American Humanist Association (AHA), another heathenistic atheist group, sent a letter to school officials demanding that the football coaching staff stop participating in team prayers and that they remove all biblical references and religious messages from team documents. Although it appears that no one associated with the football team complained, the atheists said that was irrelevant and pointed to the Establishment Clause.
Parents of football players were incensed at the atheist meddling, as were members of the community. Local radio stations received many calls supporting the coaches and the team.
And the school superintendent Will Schofield was also supportive. Although he did say that the school would investigate the claims of the atheists he also said that there was “an awful lot in that letter that I don’t think has any legal basis. There are some things we do need to look at so we are sure we are doing things the right way and do this in a very defendable manner.”
As Todd Starnes said, “Finally! A public school official with a back bone!”
Atheist groups such as the FFRF and the AHA have nothing better to do than spend their time mailing threatening letters and filing a few lawsuits. People of religious conscience in this country would be well advised to not give in to intimidation tactics and voluntarily relinquish the First Amendment right to free expression of religion. People of faith need to stand up to the heathens or wake up one day to find that there is no religious liberty left. It will have all been surrendered to people with a bunch of postage stamps.
If more people knew the real meaning of the 1st Amendment, they’d tell these atheist assholes, as well as the illegitimate courts to go pound sand where the sun don’t shine. We’re losing Liberty and Freedom because of stupid cowardly people.
When the left and the media all tell people about this mythical ‘separation of church and state,’ people aren’t educated enough to know that’s not in the Constitution. Ignorance is destroying freedom and people are willingly giving up their 1st Amendment rights.