You know, I start to worry about people thinking like lawyers…
A school district violated a
fourth-grader’s constitutional rights to free speech and equal protection
by refusing to allow her to distribute “personal statement” fliers
carrying a religious message.
I’m not talking about
standing up for Constitutional principles. That’s a given. Just the crap
that consumes the lives of bureaucrats with petty-foggery and piss-ant rules.
For example:
A school district violated a fourth-grader’s constitutional rights to free speech and equal protection by refusing to allow her to distribute “personal statement” fliers carrying a religious message, a federal judge has ruled.
The Liverpool Central School District in upstate New York based its restrictions on “fear or apprehension of disturbance, which is not enough to overcome the right to freedom of expression,” Chief U.S. District Judge Norman Mordue wrote in a 46-page decision Friday.
Liverpool officials said at the time there was “a substantial probability” that other parents and students might misunderstand and presume the district endorsed the religious statements in the flier, according to the lawsuit.
“The court cannot say the danger that children would misperceive the endorsement of religion is any greater than the danger that they would perceive a hostility toward religion as a result of the district’s denial,” Mordue wrote.
This kind of crap has nothing to do with “political correctness” or any other of the meaningless pseudo-semantic rants from mutant cranks. It’s all about bureaucratic legalism gone wild, endemic to a social system with standards set by fear-bound political sphincters.
A school district violated a fourth-grader’s constitutional rights to free speech and equal protection by refusing to allow her to distribute “personal statement” fliers carrying a religious message, a federal judge has ruled.
The Liverpool Central School District in upstate New York based its restrictions on “fear or apprehension of disturbance, which is not enough to overcome the right to freedom of expression,” Chief U.S. District Judge Norman Mordue wrote in a 46-page decision Friday.
Liverpool officials said at the time there was “a substantial probability” that other parents and students might misunderstand and presume the district endorsed the religious statements in the flier, according to the lawsuit.
“The court cannot say the danger that children would misperceive the endorsement of religion is any greater than the danger that they would perceive a hostility toward religion as a result of the district’s denial,” Mordue wrote.
This kind of crap has nothing to do with “political correctness” or any other of the meaningless pseudo-semantic rants from mutant cranks. It’s all about bureaucratic legalism gone wild, endemic to a social system with standards set by fear-bound political sphincters.
Posted: Tue - April 3, 2007 at 07:15 AM