ACLU Seeking to Put School Officials in Jail for Praying

AUTHOR

ACRU Staff

DATE

August 18, 2009

A small school district in Florida made the mistake of bargaining with the ACLU when it sued them about prayer in schools. Now, under a consent decree written by the ACLU but signed by a federal judge, three school administrators are threatened with criminal trials and convictions for violating that order, by engaging in protected speech which even the US Supreme Court, today, recognizes as protected.

Some of the facts for this article, and some of the legal conclusions, come from an article by Ken Klukowski, an ACRU colleague, published on Fox News as a legal analysis piece on 17 August. It is entitled, “Never Make a Deal with the Devil About Prayer.” It concerns criminal actions initiated against three officials of the Santa Rosa County School District in Florida for allegedly violating a consent order of a federal court concerning prayers.

As these outrages have mentioned many times before, the tactic of the ACLU is to attack school districts with small budgets. Prolonged litigation with the ACLU could cause such districts to lay off teachers, or stop buying books for classrooms and libraries. So, these districts tend to fold like a cheap lawn chair when the ACLU even threatens to sue, or in this case, actually files suit.

School officials gave up, and allowed the ACLU to write a proposed order which the federal court signed as a Consent Degree, not only forbidding prayer at any school function, but forbidding any school official from even acknowledging any private prayer by bowing his/her head.

Two school officials are now under investigation for allegedly violating that order by having grace before a meal for a Boosters Luncheon. As the original article points out, this was for adults who supported the schools athletic and other programs. It was not a “school” event as described in the order, because no students were present.

What the article doesnt mention is that the US Supreme Court decisions forbidding prayer at school functions (which, whether they are correct or not, must be accepted at face value by lower courts and US Attorneys), have done so because “students are impressionable” and “school officials are in positions of trust and authority over them.” Neither parts of that reasoning apply to adults, such as those at the Santa Rosa Boosters Luncheon.

A competent judge who had read the Supreme Court decisions would never have referred these school officials for prosecution. A competent US Attorney who had read these decisions would have dropped the prosecution instantly.

There is another aspect of this Consent Order not in this article. Apparently, the President of the Senior Class was not allowed to speak at her own graduation. The reason was that she was known to be a Christian, and would not submit her speech to be vetted by the court and the ACLU, before hand. Presumably, if she had been a known atheist and ACLU supporter, shed have been allowed to speak.

The members of the School Board who permitted this travesty to take place, should be removed and replaced as soon as possible. The judge should be asked to strike his unconstitutional order from the record, probably by the parents whose daughter was not allowed to speak at graduation.

All who read this Outrage should take this as an object lesson. Striking a deal with the ACLU does not end the fight. It only means that the fight will go on, but on far worse terms. The goal of the ACLU is to take down American society as it currently exists. Such people will not be satisfied with any bargains.

Source on the Net:

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2009/08/17/klukowski-prayer-florida-aclu/

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