New testaments being handed out at a public middle school. I wondered how that could be done during class time. It was a very conservative Teabagger area they were talking about so I didn't doubt it .just wondered how it could be allowed in a secular school. Maybe I am naive and it happens all the time and is OK

when I was a student, back in the 80s, it was something I dreaded being harassed with and was NOT ok. Yes, they do that in smaller towns like mine.

It is overwhelming here for those of us who are not religious. We learn not to hold our heads up or make eye contact. That makes them corner us. NEVER make eye contact if you want to escape without having to listen to their preaching. See, here, they don't just hand out Bibles, they corner you and preach at you too and there isn't anything you can do about it. School staff agree with it and let them do it.

and only encourage them more

Also by "OK" I just meant legally allowed to be done in school, of course it is not really OK at all

get a crazy eyed look at them while I told them I was Satan's daughter and would be in charge of their punishment in Hell. I told them to wait for me when they get there or if I get there first, I'd wait for them. Daddy has a lot planned, I would tell them. THAT was what finally backed them off of me. They feared me after that, except that one girl, who grabbed a shovel in horticulture class and held it to my throat. I was going to tell her what the song Darling Nikki said when played backwards. She didn't want to hear it. Hell, after she did that, it turned everyone against her. Even a lot of the Christians in class were on my side during and after that physical confrontation. It wasn't pretty, but I still defied her and refused to back down...and finally won one. Must have been "daddy's" help.

Why did Satanists have to step up to the plate? Where were the non-Bible thumpers Christians?

I would like to see all religions and atheists/agnostics get into the act.

Backed up by soul denying non-believers.

Freedom of religion does not just mean freedom of Christian religion.

And the separation of church and state is there for a damned good reason.

Well played, Satan...well played! And atheists too!

I think the children should have had the opportunity to see different opinions. This could be a good opportunity for Islam to get out their message, atheists, agnostics, Unitarians, Jews, Wiccans, Satanists ...

Open it it all up! Oh wait, it was only supposed to be an opportunity for the bible to be handed out. Oops! Well we can't have that

How dare they let other people proseltyze too!

[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]That one had me going, "WTF," too.

BRING BACK PROOFREADERS - but then I clicked on the link:

-snip-
The FFRF [Freedom From Religion Foundation] also plans to hand out copies of a pamphlet titled “An X-Rated Book: Sex and Obscenity in the Bible,” which includes an image of a Bible sexually assaulting a woman who is trying to escape.

According to Andrew Seidel, an attorney for FFRF, the pamphlet is far less inappropriate for high school students than anything that’s in the Bible.

I think if you look at the content of that brochure and what is actually in the Bible, and some of the things that are in the Bible in terms of sex and compare that to the cover [of the pamphlet], the cover is pretty tame compared to anything that is in the Bible.
-snip-

IMHO this makes no sense and doesn't help the cause.

[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]It's a pretty bad measure of overkill.

The image is too much. I like the idea of the pamphlet, though, as it's absolutely true, and makes a really good point. The number of seriously screwed up things that happen in the bible is mind-boggling, and if you're going to allow that to be handed to children, there's a whole lot of other stuff that should be allowed as well. How much you want to bet that the school district has banned some books in their libraries?

In Judges 21, He orders the murder of all the people of Jabesh-gilead, except for the virgin girls who were taken to be forcibly raped and married. When they wanted more virgins, God told them to hide alongside the road and when they saw a girl they liked, kidnap her and forcibly rape her and make her your wife!

http://www.evilbible.com/

along with incest, murder, adultery, etc. All really good "moral" values.

I wish they would do that all over the country, challenge every single one of the ones who are only allowing Christianity to be spread in the schools. Either allow all religions and atheists and agnostics to pass out literature/pamphlets too, or don't allow any.

to hand out Korans. Really get their freak on.

said it was OK to use public schools as indoctrination chambers for rightwing religion way back in 2000.

that made that ruling worth something. If the Good News Club can do it then constitutionally the Bad News Club can do it too, or should I say The Better News Club? I really don't know the specifics of that ruling but I remember when it happened and if its ricochet hit the right spot then maybe the magic works.

(I realize it was the article's title and not your wording)

They didn't surrender to the satanic temple. They did the opposite. They stood up to it and said you can't distriute your religious material at a public school. In doing so they were forced to do the same with the chrisitian groups as well - but that hardly qualifies as surrendering to the satanic temple.

...adults in the school system explicitly invited the bible thumpers in and when objections were raised by the FFRF, the school system "accommodated" the FFRF by letting them distribute some of their materials. However, it wasn't until the satanic temple got involved that the school system realized why the concept freedom of religion is <> freedom from religion, and learned to embrace the value of the Separation of Church and State.

Oh, and they were indirectly reminded that this is not a "christian nation".

The US may be a nation dominated by christians, albeit in ever decreasing relative numbers, but it is not a christian nation.

I applaud what the satanic temple people did - I think it is brilliant.

My only point was that the headline of the schools surrendering to the satanic temple seems rather inaccurate. They were certainly outsmarted by the satanic temple - but it was the very fact that they would refuse to allow the satanists to distribute literature, even if it mean stopping their own christian buddies that forced their hand.

I'm reasonably sure the ST knew how their bid to put literature in the schools was not going to fly and what the result would be.

But I still don't look at it as the school board surrendering to the satanic temple. The school board was forced to uphold the separation of church and state.

Many countries in Europe think we have gone nuts, I agree most of the time.

Can't go somewhere you're already at.

a group of parents and some students got together by the flag pole and had a prayer circle. Then, as students entered the building the group handed out little prayer flags to the students. The prayer was something along the lines of having God protect our school and lead us in the right direction. I contacted our state ACLU office but never heard back.

I love this so much

promoting the prayer breakfast in Washington will be visited by the Satanists and atheists?

Nor soon enough, what an insult to Americans.

never.

They wouldn't let them in. They should, but I very much doubt they would.

to read the bible. Full of rape and murder!!

Song of Solomon. "Thy belly is like an heap of wheat... thy alabaster spheres..."

It also includes the c-word, though it's spelled with a "qu"--as it was in that dialect back then. And then there's the little prank a pretty married woman plays on a stalkerish clerk who badgers her for "love." She finally agrees to kiss him through her window in the dark, but hangs her butt out the window instead, so he ends up frenching her bum and wondering why he had never noticed how heavily whiskered she was.

A lot of what we recognize as great literature is full of such naughty bits. Some kids actually discover literature by accident because they start out browsing for the naughty parts, like boys who used to "read" National Geographic because their friends told them they could see bare breasts in that magazine.

... many readers went insane. The National Geographic article was a beach photo (from France I think), and the Popular Science article was about saunas.

This happened in the 'seventies.

Both the Satanic Temple and Freedom from Religion foundations should press on.

The county public schools allowed the handing out until these groups wanted to join in. The PUBLIC schools should NOT be allowed to just cancel all because they don't like the ones who want to join in. Nobody should be allowed to shut down the first amendment completely just because they don't like the views of those who are adding to the voice.

They set the precident of allowing the bibles to be given out they should be held to the task to allow the other groups to also hand out their materials.

As an attorney, but not one that works in the area of constitutional law, I will call on my law school background to respond.

When the school district allowed Christians to distribute Bibles, those that didn't like the practice could have filed suit. The best remedy would have been to file an emergency petition for an injunction to prevent the Christians to do it. Even after they had distributed them they could have pressed to obtain an injunction to prevent any future distributions. I don't know if any of that was done or not.

But now you have the school district that weighed allowing more Christian speech and decided if they would have to allow Satanic speech and "no religion" speech, they wouldn't allow any. That is in fact what they should have done before they allowed the original Bible distribution. Their decision to deny all groups the opportunity to distribute their materials was most likely based on their desire to avoid litigation. It should have been on respect for the freedom of and from religion that is embodied in the 1st Amendment.

Just because the Christians distributed Bibles last year doesn't mean the other groups get a free pass to distribute their material this year. None of these groups should be distributing materials to public school students.

We love Satan, and we hate God.

This, maybe?

we also don't understand the seperation of church and state

Too bad the powers that be cannot understand separation in the first place.

Every kid, even if not from a religious home, has grown up in a "Christian Nation". This means seeing prayers in schools, at sporting events, political events. As well as Bible quotes used by public figures etc.. The organizers know full well that despite many of the Christian right crying "persecution!", it is the dominant religion and anyone can easily get their hands on Bibles and many other Christian material that supports that belief system.

But it is way more difficult, and discouraged by most of their parents, as well as the generally cowed public, to find, attain, and read any books or pamphlets that are aesthetic or anti-Christianity.

So basically, the organizers weighed on the importance of handing out Bibles, which are highly available anywhere, and then also having to allow any dissenting publications which would expose the students to material they would never have seen otherwise (and may just expand corrupt their little minds)....or just cancelling the whole thing to shut those dissenting publications out to never see the light of day.