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RE: Middle School Teacher's Memorial
February 18, 2015 at 2:00 pm
(February 17, 2015 at 6:59 pm)SteelCurtain Wrote: A Religious Memorial Honoring a Middle School Teacher is Altered after Atheists Point out Constitutional Problems
Hemant Mehta Wrote:In 2004, Ravenswood Middle School (West Virginia) teacher Joann Christy died in an accident. It was obviously devastating to the community and the school built a memorial in her honor.
The problem is that the memorial included several Christian crosses and images of angels:
![[Image: Hgho9h0.png]](https://images.weserv.nl/?url=i.imgur.com%2FHgho9h0.png)
![[Image: LyFKJn2.png]](https://images.weserv.nl/?url=i.imgur.com%2FLyFKJn2.png)
The Freedom From Religion Foundation, when told about the problem, faced a tough dilemma: Should they ask school officials to alter the monument and remove the Christian symbols on principle, even if it led to emotion-driven backlash from people in the area?
I am torn on this. On one hand, I understand the issue here. You can't have Christian symbols at a school. The crosses were removed, not the angels as they're not really Christian symbols.
I just think this one is a little petty. It's a plaque for a beloved teacher and community figure on the sidewalk. I feel the same way about the roadside crosses that FFRF was asking to be taken down. It seems petty.
On the other hand, there are no degrees in this. You can't have religious symbols on school property. I am sure that a beloved teacher who was an satanist and whose family wanted to honor him with a pentagram sidewalk plaque would get rejected instantly. But that hasn't happened, so we can't really know, can we?
Torn.
First things first. Not every teacher who dies gets a memorial at the school. So we can question whether or not this one should get one. Second, no memorial is going to reveal everything about the teacher. So leaving things off about the teacher is necessary. In such an instance as this, the teacher's religious views (if, indeed, the memorial accurately depicts them, as many memorials represent the views of the relatives) should be irrelevant to the teacher being a good teacher. In other words, it is not the place for discussions of the teacher's religion, if any. If the teacher should have a memorial at the school, it should be about being a great teacher, not about something irrelevant to what should be going on in the classroom. So religious symbols are entirely inappropriate at the school and should never have been installed.
Additionally, you are quite right that "I am sure that a beloved teacher who was an satanist and whose family wanted to honor him with a pentagram sidewalk plaque would get rejected instantly." We all know that the Christians would all scream about that. And, indeed, they would be right to object, because the school is not the proper place for religious symbols. Which means, there should be no religious symbols on any teacher's memorial at a public school.
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence."
— David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Section X, Part I.
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RE: Middle School Teacher's Memorial
February 18, 2015 at 2:44 pm
Here's the thing. I agree with all of that.
I just think this particular battle does more harm than good.
"There remain four irreducible objections to religious faith: that it wholly misrepresents the origins of man and the cosmos, that because of this original error it manages to combine the maximum servility with the maximum of solipsism, that it is both the result and the cause of dangerous sexual repression, and that it is ultimately grounded on wish-thinking." ~Christopher Hitchens, god is not Great
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RE: Middle School Teacher's Memorial
February 18, 2015 at 3:00 pm
(This post was last modified: February 18, 2015 at 3:02 pm by robvalue.)
Still very tricky. Technically, it should go, for sure.
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RE: Middle School Teacher's Memorial
February 18, 2015 at 3:20 pm
(February 18, 2015 at 2:44 pm)SteelCurtain Wrote: Here's the thing. I agree with all of that.
I just think this particular battle does more harm than good.
Maybe. But as you correctly notice, that is a separate issue from whether or not it belongs there as it is.
The older I get, the more inclined I am to think that religionists need to be fought whenever and wherever one can fight them, when they are trying to shove religion down everyone's throats. Of course, I may be mistaken on that, but it is my inclination.
I might as well add, it will be a bit difficult to measure the precise effects on people, overall, of this particular action. It affects not just people now, but people who see the memorial, for as long as it exists. So I somehow doubt that we are going to be able to convincingly prove this second matter one way or the other.
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence."
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RE: Middle School Teacher's Memorial
February 18, 2015 at 3:52 pm
Technically, for me, the monument shouldn't ever have had Christian symbols on it at all, and I fully agree with Pyrrho that whether this teacher was Christian is irrelevant to whether they were a good teacher and it would have been more appropriate for the monument to reflect that this person was a teacher.
With that being said, I'm torn about modifying the monument.
On the one hand I would say leave it and let it stand as precedent for when the satanist teacher dies and their memorial includes a pentagram.
On the other hand, how likely is that to happen and does that implicitly privilege Christians in the meantime?
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RE: Middle School Teacher's Memorial
February 18, 2015 at 4:43 pm
(February 18, 2015 at 3:52 pm)Clueless Morgan Wrote: Technically, for me, the monument shouldn't ever have had Christian symbols on it at all, and I fully agree with Pyrrho that whether this teacher was Christian is irrelevant to whether they were a good teacher and it would have been more appropriate for the monument to reflect that this person was a teacher.
With that being said, I'm torn about modifying the monument.
On the one hand I would say leave it and let it stand as precedent for when the satanist teacher dies and their memorial includes a pentagram.
On the other hand, how likely is that to happen and does that implicitly privilege Christians in the meantime?
The practical outcome of that would be, no satanist teacher would ever get a memorial, no matter how great of a teacher the teacher was. When deciding whether or not there will be a memorial, they are going to take into consideration what will be depicted on the memorial. So allowing the current one to stand is giving a privileged place to Christianity, and will most likely give Christianity a privileged place in perpetuity.
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RE: Middle School Teacher's Memorial
February 18, 2015 at 5:09 pm
I realize the necessity to keep public grounds neutral, but given the heavy influence religion has in politics and education, surely the FFRF has better things to do, no? Not only does this seem like a poor use of resources, it's going to come across as extremely petty to the public. It's one thing to win a legal battle, but it will be all for naught if atheists can't win the PR battle, either.
Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cozy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigor, and the great spaces have a splendor of their own - Bertrand Russell
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RE: Middle School Teacher's Memorial
February 18, 2015 at 5:12 pm
(This post was last modified: February 18, 2015 at 5:16 pm by SteelCurtain.)
(February 18, 2015 at 4:43 pm)Pyrrho Wrote: The practical outcome of that would be, no satanist teacher would ever get a memorial, no matter how great of a teacher the teacher was. When deciding whether or not there will be a memorial, they are going to take into consideration what will be depicted on the memorial. So allowing the current one to stand is giving a privileged place to Christianity, and will most likely give Christianity a privileged place in perpetuity.
The problem with this line of reasoning is that you are taking the liberty of assumption that, if the roles were reversed, we wouldn't let stand on these boards.
You have a little more on your side as far as precedent, but until the school board declined a satanist memorial, there really is no preference being given.
(February 18, 2015 at 5:09 pm)Faith No More Wrote: I realize the necessity to keep public grounds neutral, but given the heavy influence religion has in politics and education, surely the FFRF has better things to do, no? Not only does this seem like a poor use of resources, it's going to come across as extremely petty to the public. It's one thing to win a legal battle, but it will be all for naught if atheists can't win the PR battle, either.
But the FFRF always acts on behalf of a citizen in the community. If someone asks them to represent them on this, should they say no?
I agree the PR thing is important. But are we ever winning hearts and minds with this stuff? Is FFRF, by asking to have monuments, crosses, etc removed ever not going to be polarizing? And---ask yourself this: aren't instances like this even more impactful when it comes to future policy making? Next time that school board makes a decision about about book handouts or sponsors at the baseball game, don't you think they'll be a little more apt to take this into account, and by proxy and media attention, other school boards/districts?
"There remain four irreducible objections to religious faith: that it wholly misrepresents the origins of man and the cosmos, that because of this original error it manages to combine the maximum servility with the maximum of solipsism, that it is both the result and the cause of dangerous sexual repression, and that it is ultimately grounded on wish-thinking." ~Christopher Hitchens, god is not Great
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RE: Middle School Teacher's Memorial
February 18, 2015 at 5:31 pm
(February 18, 2015 at 5:12 pm)SteelCurtain Wrote: (February 18, 2015 at 4:43 pm)Pyrrho Wrote: The practical outcome of that would be, no satanist teacher would ever get a memorial, no matter how great of a teacher the teacher was. When deciding whether or not there will be a memorial, they are going to take into consideration what will be depicted on the memorial. So allowing the current one to stand is giving a privileged place to Christianity, and will most likely give Christianity a privileged place in perpetuity.
The problem with this line of reasoning is that you are taking the liberty of assumption that, if the roles were reversed, we wouldn't let stand on these boards.
You have a little more on your side as far as precedent, but until the school board declined a satanist memorial, there really is no preference being given.
...
On the contrary, as long as there are Christian symbols on display, and not symbols of other religions, there is a privileged place for Christianity. It is giving Christianity a privileged place for as long as there are no other symbols.
And if one wanted no religions to have a more privileged place than any other, there would have to be equal numbers of symbols for every imaginable religion. As that is impractical, as well as undesirable, it is best to keep religious symbols from being displayed by public schools. This is supposed to be the law of the land, and it should be followed. Those who violate the law should be punished, not rewarded, for their transgressions. (It would be different if the law were unjust, but as that is not in this case in this example, that hypothetical is irrelevant to this case.)
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RE: Middle School Teacher's Memorial
February 18, 2015 at 5:33 pm
(February 18, 2015 at 5:12 pm)SteelCurtain Wrote: You have a little more on your side as far as precedent, but until the school board declined a satanist memorial, there really is no preference being given.
Which is why I see leaving the memorial as-is to be problematic. I'm unclear about what, exactly, would have to happen to challenge this memorial if we're talking about the satanist teacher: would the satanist teacher have to also have taught at the same school? In the same district? Or merely the same state? Under what conditions would the satanist-teacher memorial have standing to challenge the christian-teacher memorial?
It does seems petty of the FFRF to go after a memorial like this, but, at the same time, if every instance of Christian privilege goes unchallenged what kind of precedent are we setting?
Is it bad PR for the FFRF to sue for a change to this memorial? Very possibly. But is that the only reason to not sue? I don't think so. It may be bad PR for atheists/secularists, but it can be equally bad PR for the school or the district to be seen spending time, resources and money defending a memorial that could have been altered for a fraction of the legal costs the district will spend defending it.
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