Philadelphia Freedom (Of Speech)

Oh yeah. They had a little controversy in the Abington district. This Inquirer article tells the story. It seems a ten (10) year old boy wanted to dress as Jesus in the Halloween parade last fall. Well, it seems that school officials' assholes got real tight over the possibility. It's understandable. Considering the number of lawsuits filed over the years with a passing mention of Jesus or Christianity in a school, most administrators would probably be nervous as hell. I know it doesn't constitute state sponsor or endorsement, but that never has stopped anyone in the past. This time however, roles reversed.

An Abington Township woman and her 10-year old son have sued the Abington School
District, saying that the principal at the Willow Hill Elementary School there
would not allow the boy to wear a Jesus costume, complete with a paper-and-twig
crown of thorns, during a Halloween parade there last fall.

Hmmm. Ol' BC has long maintained that mentioning religion or even teaching about it is a far cry from advocating a religion. This country was founded so there would be no national church, but a freedom of religious expression. That has changed. Maybe it's time the pendulum swings back toward the side of reason.

This is not the first time the Alliance Defense Fund has taken legal action
against a Philadelphia-area school district. Last spring, the group sued the
Downingtown Area School District, saying that it did not allow student to
express their Christian beliefs and their religious conviction that
homosexuality is sinful. That suit was settled late last summer after the
district, without admitting any wrongdoing, changed its policies, making it
clear that students were allowed to express their religious beliefs on school
grounds.

Soooo, what does all this mean? Nothing in the grand landscape, but at least someone has agreed that some freedoms had been trampled around Philly. In the United States, in theory, we don't restrict freedoms because we don't like the message. Now, we need to return that theory to practice.

Just a thought.