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That is not how constitutional rights are determined. The constitution protects everyone from someone or some group imposing their religion on them.
The Constitution bans the government from imposing a state religion and guarantees Americans the right to exercise their religions. A trip to see Santa does not impose a religion and does not restrict anyone from exercising a religion. A child could decide not to go. A child could not sit on Santa's lap. A child could sit on Santa's lap and not ask for Christmas presents.
(Almost every single non-Christian I know celebrates Christmas in some way.)
A field trip to partake in a Christian celebration should not be part of the public school curriculum. It doesn't matter if the kid could stay home. What kind of an alternative is that?
Perhaps not. I live in the bible belt where the second question is what church do you go to. I have never heard anyone, child or adult, tell someone they were going to hell or being made fun of or shunned for not being a Christian. The only people "in your face" about accepting Jesus are fundamentalists, which thankfully are few and far between.
I live in a suburb of Houston, TX and....
My granddaughter who is not Christian (her mom is Hindu) was proselytized at the school bus stop when she was 5 and starting kindergarten. The neighborhood moms thought it would be a good idea to have a prayer circle to try to convert her. We put a stop to that by telling them if it continued, then she would not be going on the bus, but would be driven to school instead (they had the prayer circle inside one of the homes after that).
That grandchild is now in 8th grade and our other Hindu neighbor was told by a boy in the cafeteria that she was going to hell because she did not pray to Jesus.
We have a very diverse neighborhood with Muslims, Catholics, Protestants, Hindus, Jews, etc., but the evangelicals who live here are very in your face.
I never said It doesn't happen, I never said Jewish person. Here let me help you. This is what I said: "Perhaps not. (In reference to these people being fundamentalists) I live in the bible belt where the second question is what church do you go to. I have never heard anyone, child or adult, tell someone they were going to hell or being made fun of or shunned for not being a Christian. The only people "in your face" about accepting Jesus are fundamentalists, which thankfully are few and far between.
Show me where I said it never happened? Show me where I said Jewish people.
The point of the statement is that I find it odd one would find this behavior common in places such as Michigan. I would think it would be more common in bible belt states but yet I have not encountered it. This would make me think they were fundamentalists.
Well, they may have been fundamentalists, but you have not encountered it because you are NOT Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, or any other minority faith.
Expecting someone to quit their job(s) and move away is a p*ss-poor solution to the problem. Where they live is their decision. Or do you think we should go back to the days of "de facto" segregation, where people of certain races/religions were "steered" to certain parts of town, or, in the case of your suggestion, out of town altogether? I'm sure there are other Jewish families in San Jose, if not any with kids in this child's class. In fact, San Francisco/San Jose has the 13th highest Jewish population in the world. 0.68% of San Jose's population is Jewish, and while that does not seem like a lot, it is about the national average, and higher than the Lutheran population. The Bay Area has the third largest Jewish population in the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish...by_urban_areas
Moderator cut: link removed, linking to competitor sites is not allowed Bay Area's growing Jewish scene - Israel Jewish Scene, Ynetnews
See below, from a previous post in this very thread, posted on this very day:
You can argue that the teacher and other staff would be paid no matter what they were doing, but that is how costs are figured. In addition, there are a lot of "behind the scenes" costs to a field trip. Getting the permission slips out, getting them back, etc, etc. They're not free.
That is not how constitutional rights are determined. The constitution protects everyone from someone or some group imposing their religion on them.
You covered the worst arguments against this trip. The biggest one is that the trip violates constitutional rights. I don't think you or any other anti-trippper have given a single court case to support that repetitive false claim. In fact, the NYC principal who wanted to ban Santa from coming to her school was quickly se straight by the school board and DOE. Santa isn't a banned figure, he showed up.
The Religious Freedom Center said about the field trip:
"This assignment is inappropriate in a public school. What is legal is not always right. At the very least, this is ill advised."
Why not stick to the inappropriate, not right, ill-advised stuff rather than the constitutional violation nonsense.
^^I was responding to that "majority rules" comment. That's not the point in constitutional issues, and I will point out that it was the SCOTUS that ruled prayer in schools unconstitutional in 1962, 1963 and 1971, not to mention the Supreme Courts of Wiscosin in 1890. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_prayer
Even though we lived in one of the poorest congressional district for urban area. When I went to public school, trips were never funded by the school and parents had to pay for the trips. If not the school paid for partially or the PTA would have fund raisers so that money can be acquired so that students can attend trips. This was about 20 years ago and trips cost about $5 per student. It wasn't cheap.
As for this whole Santa Fiasco? The school should have parents flip money for the trip or held a fundraiser for the trip, or host the trip during none school hours.
As for the Jewish woman? If you're religious minority in a particular area, it would be best to be in an area with lots of your religious minorities around congregate. If I was her and I don't want my child to be isolated because he is the only Jew. Wouldn't be best to move to NYC, South Florida or the LA area where lots of Jews congregate and hold sway, aswell as sharing the same traditions? Believe me. If I was a person of a religious minority, I would prefer to live in an area with people similar to my faith, so that me and my family wont feel alienated by the community.
We should just stay with our own kind? Thanks! First you're assuming he was the only Jew. Second there were other kids of other religions in the class too.
We should just stay with our own kind? Thanks! First you're assuming he was the only Jew. Second there were other kids of other religions in the class too.
In one of the newspaper articles it was stated that the child was the only Jew in the class.
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