Jessica Alhquist has taken a lot of flack from neighbors and classmates (and even elected officials) because she asked her school to take down a prayer banner. She’s blogged about the experience and for the most part the comments are supportive. That’s not the case in the comments on the local news sites. Most of the commenters who attack her don’t understand the First Amendment. Many confuse the Constitution with the Declaration of Independence. And many of the commenters are just downright nasty. Sabine however, gets it.
Jessica stood up for everyone by doing what she did. Including christians.
As you presumable know, christians come in many variations, some are hateful (Westboro Baptists), some are oppressive (mormons), some are violent (abortion clinic bombers, the norwegian terrorist), some are whacky (Harry Camping), many are immoral (catholic priests, mega church leaders), most are hypocrites (personal observation), many are bullies (just read the threats directed by CHRISTIANS at Jessica), many are uneducated (read the posts here), and some are christian in name only.
The Separation of Church and State protects us ALL from ALL of them.
And what’s ironic about this is that this all takes place in Rhode Island—the state that was founded by Roger Williams after he was expelled from the Plymouth colony, by the government-run General Court of Massachusetts, for “diverse, new, and dangerous opinions”. Many of the comments in the papers and from the people protesting at the school board meeting are along the lines of “We’ll she doesn’t have to look at it.” or “If she doesn’t like it she can move.” What they don’t seem to understand is that the First Amendment was put in place by the founders because they knew firsthand the dangers of allowing the government to impose religion on the citizens. And this isn’t a gray area. The banner is clearly in violation of the First Amendment, which applies to the states because of the 14th Amendment.









