Earlier this week, a high school math teacher from San Diego won a chance to plead his case to a federal court about his right to display banners with sayings like “God bless America” and “One nation under God” written on them.
Brad Johnson, who teaches at West View High, was ordered to remove all posters from his classroom last year because it was seen as an attempt “to make a Judeo-Christian statement to his students.”
Considering other teachers were allowed posters depicting Buddhist and Islamic messages, a district judge found the school’s decision “brash” and one-sided. Now, Brad Johnson may be able to plead his case in front of a federal appeals judge.
If we are going to censor God from classrooms as offensive or insensitive, we should by similar justification ban Allah, Yaweh and Jehovah, even though each has great significance in different peoples’ cultural histories and religious systems. Following that argument, the establishment and free exercise clauses addressing religion should be deleted from the First Amendment.
Removing crosses should be balanced by kicking the Star of David out of classrooms.
Parents certainly don’t want their familial and spiritual beliefs and values undermined by educators who have preset agendas to push. Nor do they want their children subjected to criticism or abuse for being raised in other belief systems.
Although there must be a distinct line drawn between state-run institutions like schools and religious ideology, people in this country, like the principal at West View High, can’t freak out and start censoring people every time religion is merely displayed in public places.
Since the whole politically correct/get-offended-over-
Sure, maybe at a time when school districts had allotted time for prayer or stifled any discussion about American politics, Johnson’s posters could be seen as imposing his views.
In today’s political climate, only a small group of people actually outwardly expresses their approval of religion or America. Many schools have banned saluting the flag altogether, while many others have made students who want to pray leave the classroom to do so.
The “PC police” in this country need to understand that not everyone views the world in the same way that they do. Some people do believe that this country is the greatest, some people do believe in God and some people don’t feel ashamed to say so.
Although Johnson has no right to express his views any further by, for instance, requiring his students to calculate the distance between America and heaven, by merely putting his beliefs on display for the school to see, this math teacher has not violated any students’ civil liberties.
On the matter of why other teachers were not forced to remove posters displaying Muslim and Buddhist imagery, we must look at how Christianity is depicted as being much more threatening by the politically correct. But that is for another discussion.