A federal judge ruled May 31 that a Connecticut school district’s plan to hold graduation ceremonies in a mega-church violates the constitutionally mandated separation of church and state and ordered school officials to find a secular alternative site.
U.S. District Judge Janet Hall handed down a preliminary injunction blocking Enfield Public Schools from holding graduations for two high schools scheduled June 23-24 at The First Cathedral, a 120,000 square-foot facility that is home to an 11,000-member Christian church.
The judge said two seniors at Enfield High School and three parents proved “a likelihood of irreparable harm” if the court did not intervene and “a substantial likelihood of success” in their lawsuit alleging that holding the graduation at the church instead of a neutral site violates the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
“The court’s ruling will ensure that no student or parent has to choose between missing their own graduation and being subjected to a religious environment of a faith to which they do not subscribe, said Alex Luchenitser, senior litigation counsel for Americans United for Separation of Church and State. “It is unconstitutional and wrong for a school district to subject students and families to religious messages as the price of attending graduation.”
Likewise people of faith should not be required to attend graduations in secular or pagan surroundings. Let’s scrap the whole thing and mail the diplomas.
if they were really atheists, the building would be a quaint museum.
Talk about a tempest in a teapot. This is almost too silly, too puerile for words. Well, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, one certain sign of a mediocre mind or a fanatic is the hunger to pursue great principles in matters of no importance. And this is patently a matter of no importance. The court is, as usual, simply out of touch with reality. Larry
Do they never use churches as polling stations in Connecticut?
The judge is flat wrong on many accounts, most notably on Constitutional knowledge. There is nothing, nada, about separation of Church and State in the Constitution. It is not in there anywhere. The ruling is based on a flawed 1947 case that came before the Supreme Court.
they sure do in SC, #4.
A quick google shows numerous churches and church halls used as polling stations in CT:
http://www.courant.com/news/breaking/hc-pollingplaces-0204,0,5975470.htmlstory
This abomination must stop!!!!
I’ve always wondered about the vainglorious need to go searching for a venue. I went to one of the top boarding schools in the country, and if it rained for graduation, we had it in the gym. If not, we had it on the lawn and got sunburned, with risk of heat stroke.
C. Wingate, I asked the same question this weekend, and was told it was more about number of seats than anything. If you’ve got 500+ graduates, the gym may not hold enough people (figure two parents, a sibling, and two grandparants per graduate, that’s 3000 people right there). Though why you can’t use the football field escapes me.
I haven’t seen this particular church, but most megachurches I have seen are scarcely distinguishable from a theater or sports arena anyway. Cover up the sign out front and you’re good to go.
Well, if this church is like most Mega Churches I have ever seen or attended, there is nothing particularly religious looking about the structure or furnishings at all.
[b]#19, Andrew717:[/b]
Later on, the article explained that the two high schools:
[blockquote]had been using the church as a temporary alternative for graduations when construction was being done on their athletic fields during the school years of 2006-2007 and 2007-2008.
This year the school board voted 6-3 to move the graduations back to the two schools themselves but later reversed the decision after lobbying by the Family Institute of Connecticut, a non-profit that lobbies the state government for conservative values. [/blockquote]
So, it seems to me that the problem is that the FIC felt the need to insert itself into a situation that didn’t involve it, didn’t affect it, and didn’t require its input in any way. If a kid attends public school, and is uncomfortable in churches, I don’t see why that kid should have to choose between skipping his own graduation ceremony, or attending it in a church.
Personally, I think any graduation should be held at the school, regardless of whether the school is public or private. Church schools, of course, have a solid reason to hold their graduation ceremonies in their churches — if they’ll fit! (My law school was part of a church-affiliated university; graduation was for the whole university, and was held in the basketball arena, because the college chapel was nowhere near big enough. My college was affiliated with a different church, but the school was much smaller, so graduation was in the college chapel.)
“people of faith should not be required to attend graduations in secular or pagan surroundings. ”
And indeed, they are not so required if they attend a religious school. Which would be their (or their parents’) choice. That’s the point you see.
I can think of 105 good reasons not to hold a graduation ceremony in a football stadium, at least in Dallas this coming weekend. 105 is the forecast temperature in Dallas this weekend. Perhaps by 7 PM, when it is still sunlight, it will have cooled to a tolerable 98 or so, it might be doable.
Luckily for these graduates, they’re in New England — much cooler than Dallas in June.
Oh, and my high school graduation — from a church school, in coastal SC — was held in the quad, with no shade anywhere, in a sweltering tropical heat. I survived (barely!).
When it comes to one’s physical comfort, graduation ceremonies are almost invariably miserable experiences, for graduates and family alike. Which is part of why I didn’t bother to attend my law school graduation (the one in the arena, though at least it would have been out of the sun and well air-conditioned).
My high school graduation was held in a jai alai fronton, in the South. I suppose my Baptist classmates should have sued for having such sinful secularism forced down their throats by the school board!
This country is suffering from over-offensentivity.