Student Sues Wisconsin School After Getting a Zero for Religious Drawing

This is a good example of how much ‘religious ire‘ is in the land, to where it continually becomes an obstacle in schools as much as anywhere else.

When Christians were silent and did not stop Madalyn Murray O’Hair , et al, a precedence was set that we have paid for, dearly, but it’s not society’s fault. As is the same in everything we ‘let go’, ignore, and condone today, we will reap what is sown.

Not to speak one way or the other, but something tells me the student in the article below was a “little less than respectful”. . .  not good for the ‘yeas’ or the ‘nays’ in any setting.

Kids learn well how to circumvent and manipulate, although I wouldn’t want to look at the other depictions considered ‘art’, either!

Infamy brings fame? ~WfI

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MADISON, Wis. – 

A Tomah High School student has filed a federal lawsuit alleging his art teacher censored his drawing because it featured a cross and a biblical reference.

The lawsuit alleges other students were allowed to draw “demonic” images and asks a judge to declare a class policy prohibiting religion in art unconstitutional.

“We hear so much today about tolerance,” said David Cortman, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal advocacy group representing the student. “But where is the tolerance for religious beliefs? The whole purpose of art is to reflect your own personal experience. To tell a student his religious beliefs can legally be censored sends the wrong message.”

Tomah School District Business Manager Greg Gaarder said the district hadn’t seen the lawsuit and declined to comment.

According to the lawsuit, the student’s art teacher asked his class in February to draw landscapes. The student, a senior identified in the lawsuit by the initials A.P., added a cross and the words “John 3:16 A sign of love” in his drawing.

His teacher, Julie Millin, asked him to remove the reference to the Bible, saying students were making remarks about it. He refused, and she gave him a zero on the project.

Millin showed the student a policy for the class that prohibited any violence, blood, sexual connotations or religious beliefs in artwork. The lawsuit claims Millin told the boy he had signed away his constitutional rights when he signed the policy at the beginning of the semester.

The boy tore the policy up in front of Millin, who kicked him out of class. Later that day, assistant principal Cale Jackson told the boy his religious expression infringed on other students’ rights.

Jackson told the boy, his stepfather and his pastor at a meeting a week later that religious expression could be legally censored in class assignments. Millin stated at the meeting the cross in the drawing also infringed on other students’ rights.

The boy received two detentions for tearing up the policy. Jackson referred questions about the lawsuit to Gaarder.

Sometime after that meeting, the boy’s metals teacher rejected his idea to build a chain-mail cross, telling him it was religious and could offend someone, the lawsuit claims. The boy decided in March to shelve plans to make a pin with the words “pray” and “praise” on it because he was afraid he’d get a zero for a grade.

The lawsuit also alleges school officials allow other religious items and artwork to be displayed on campus.

A Buddha and Hindu figurines are on display in a social studies classroom, the lawsuit claims, adding the teacher passionately teaches Hindu principles to students.

In addition, a replica of Michaelangelo’s “The Creation of Man” is displayed at the school’s entrance, a picture of a six-limbed Hindu deity is in the school’s hallway and a drawing of a robed sorcerer hangs on a hallway bulletin board.

Drawings of Medusa, the Grim Reaper with a scythe and a being with a horned head and protruding tongue hang in the art room and demonic masks are displayed in the metals room, the lawsuit alleges.

A.P. suffered unequal treatment because of his religion even though student expression is protected by the First Amendment, according to the lawsuit, which was filed Friday.

“Students do not shed their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse gate,” the lawsuit said. “No compelling state interest exists to justify the censorship of A.P.’s religious expression.”

Source: FoxNews

Who/Whom—Does it Matter?

On behalf of those who endure attacks on misspelled words, ‘bad english’ (grammar), punctuation,  misused words (even though your message is still clear), etcetera, etc., because content is not to another’s liking and/or there isn’t anything else to chew on, here’s a direction in which to refer the ‘grammar police’. Not to excuse sloppy work, but to lend a help, written in language that does not require overexertion!

Links open in new windows and lead to refresher or augmentation pages of knowledge regarding commonly spoken expressions.

Enjoy and Happy Surf-Blogging!  

(Empahses added by WfI throughout).                       

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“Whom” has been dying an agonizing death for decades-you’ll notice there are no Whoms in Dr. Seuss’s Whoville. Many people never use the word in speech at all. However, in formal writing, critical readers still expect it to be used when appropriate. The distinction between “who” and “whom” is basically simple: “who” is the subject form of this pronoun and “whom” is the object form. “Who was wearing that awful dress at the Academy Awards banquet?” is correct because “who” is the subject of the sentence. “The MC was so startled by the neckline that he forgot to whom he was supposed to give the Oscar” is correct because “whom” is the object of the preposition “to.” So far so good.

Now consider this sort of question: “Who are you staring at?” Although strictly speaking the pronoun should be “whom,” nobody who wants to be taken seriously would use it in this case, though it is the object of the preposition “at.” (Bothered by ending the sentence with a preposition? See my “Non-Errors” page.) “Whom” is very rarely used even by careful speakers as the first word in a question, and many authorities have now conceded the point.

There is another sort of question in which “whom” appears later in the sentence: “I wonder whom he bribed to get the contract?” This may seem at first similar to the previous example, but here “whom” is not the subject of any verb in the sentence; rather it is part of the noun clause which itself is the object of the verb “wonder.” Here an old gender-biased but effective test for “whom” can be used. Try rewriting the sentence using “he” or “him.” Clearly “He bribed he” is incorrect; you would say “he bribed him.” Where “him” is the proper word in the paraphrased sentence, use “whom.”

Instances in which the direct object appears at the beginning of a sentence are tricky because we are used to having subjects in that position and are strongly tempted to use “who”: “Whomever Susan admired most was likely to get the job.” (Test: “She admired him.” Right?)

Where things get really messy is in statements in which the object or subject status of the pronoun is not immediately obvious. Example: “The police gave tickets to whoever had parked in front of the fire hydrant.” The object of the preposition “to” is the entire noun clause, “whoever had parked in front of the fire hydrant,” but “whoever” is the subject of that clause, the subject of the verb “had parked.” Here’s a case where the temptation to use “whomever” should be resisted.

Confused? Just try the “he or him” test, and if it’s still not clear, go with “who.” You’ll bother fewer people and have a fair chance of being right. [WfI~ and you won’t sound pretentious!;) ]

List of errors [<<<This can help avoid some embarrassing blunders! ~WfI]

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Opening the School Door to Communism

By Holly Swanson

WorldNetDaily

The stated purpose of the Education for Sustainability movement is to use education to create “a new cultural norm” in America. In other words, use education as a tool to change our entire culture by manipulating the curriculum and teaching our children new cultural beliefs. Anthony Cortese, the president of Second Nature and one of the leading advocates in the Education for Sustainability movement, clarified their objectives, saying, “Humans are guided by a whole set of beliefs and values, and those come from culture, from religion, from social, economic and political structure. We need to change all of those.”

Education for Sustainability is a political tool to change the cultural, religious, social, economic and political structure of our nation. This is not common knowledge because these programs have been presented as nonpartisan environmental education – but this is not accurate. This movement is advancing a partisan agenda that mirrors Green Party goals and communism.

Critical distinctions must be made between sound steps to create a healthier environment and using public education to indoctrinate students as the means to impose a political agenda that mirrors communism. California state Sen. Alan Lowenthal’s bill, S.B.1322, to remove long-standing safeguards that prevent “teaching communism with the intent to indoctrinate” coincides with the Education for Sustainability agenda, as it would pave the way to teach these programs in California schools.

Sustainability, a core principle of the Green Party, is now the all-encompassing buzzword to mask implementing the revolutionary agenda outlined by Cortese. Teaching our children to “go Green” means politically indoctrinating them to support the goals of the Greens, party and movement. A direct alliance between Education for Sustainability and the Green Party is the Earth Charter. Although presented as non-partisan, the Earth Charter is:

• part of the Green Party platform;
• recognized as the tool to implement the objectives of the Green Party;
• a set of rules co-authored by former communist dictator Mikhail Gorbachev, now a leader in the Green movement;
• a document that promotes communist principles such as “the equitable distribution of wealth within nations and among nations”;
• a tutorial selected by the Education for Sustainability movement to teach our children new cultural beliefs, behaviors and lifestyles.

Advocates hope to make the Earth Charter law and the “common standard by which the conduct of all individuals, organizations, businesses, governments and transnational institutions is to be guided and assessed.”

The primary strategy to achieve this level of dictatorial control over the American people is to use Education for Sustainability to shape the political opinions and personal beliefs of the roughly 89 percent of our children that attend public schools. These programs target children at every grade level.

What happens to free thought, individual freedom and the democratic process if 89 percent of America’s children are taught to vote for Green communism? Ronald Reagan said it best: “The future of our nation will be determined, more than anything else, by the character of our children.”

A short list of the so-called nonpartisan groups that have endorsed the Earth Charter and support Education for Sustainability provides a clue about who is pushing these programs into our schools. The groups include:

• The Campaign for Environmental Literacy
• The North American Association for Environmental Education
• The Earth Day Network
• The National Wildlife Federation
• Second Nature

These same groups support S.2444, the Higher Education Sustainability Act of 2007, or HESA, which calls for $50 million a year to fund and “fully integrate sustainability into the curriculum” in higher education. The Education for Sustainability movement is positioned to have its programs recommended and accepted as part of the national curriculum.

An update from the Campaign for Environmental Literacy states, “The House and Senate … are now conferring on the final bill … This conference will decide which of the 40-plus new programs, including the HESA program, make it into the final higher education bill.”

The plan is to legalize, fund and implement Education for Sustainability programs before the American people understand:

• sustainability is the vehicle;
• the Earth Charter is the blueprint;
• political indoctrination is the objective; and
• communism is the end game.

Education for Sustainability is already part of the curriculum in schools across our nation. Be a voice for America’s children and help get Green politics out of our schools.

Holly Swanson is the director of the Operation Green Out! campaign and known for her work to get Green politics out of America’s schools. She is the author of the book “Set Up & Sold Out,” an expose on the political agenda of the Green movement.

Related special offers: [WorldNetDaily store]

“Global Warming or Global Governance?” DVD

“The Sky’s Not Falling!”

“Whoever Controls the Schools Rules the World”

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Also: Education for Sustainable Tyranny  (NewsWithViews)

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