Backpack Blowback: Religious Right Activists Want Preferential Treatment From Public School Forum

[pegkerr]

I love this story. From the blogsite Americans United for Separation of Church and State. (See the article here):

"Backpack mail" systems are common in public schools. [The Albemarle School District] uses it to advertise extra-curricular activities such as children’s theater, summer camps and recreational sports events.

The Albemarle District previously had a sensible policy barring "distribution of literature that this for partisan, sectarian, religious or political purposes," but it was revised at the behest of the late Jerry Falwell’s Liberty Counsel to allow religious content.

Liberty Counsel relied on a 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling earlier in 2006 that public school districts do not have "unbridled discretion to deny access to the oft-used forum" because that would not "ensure the requisite viewpoint neutrality."

So, the Religious Right got what they wanted from the federal courts (the same federal courts they accuse of "kicking God out of the public schools") and now they’re hopping mad…again.

World Net Daily reports that the Albemarle School District is under attack by a Religious Right group for sending students home with flyers for Camp Quest, an overnight summer camp for young atheists, agnostics and freethinkers.

A pagan group used the "backpack mail" system to publicize some of their events, too, which made the Religious Right even more furious. Good heavens, you open that door and look what happens . . . ANYONE can come in!

Comments

[amandageist.livejournal.com]

Now *that* is funny. Clearly in the realm of "be careful what you ask for," eh?

Such a tempest in a teacup, though--most things sent home this way via my children are found months after the fact in crumpled pieces in the bottom of the backpack...children are *NOT* a reliable means of information transfer.
:)

~Amanda, not-very-religious conservative who gets tired of the idiots who stand for the whole viewpoint