I don't care what the Doctor has to say I like Salt and double Butter.

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I interpreted what He said as meaning Church as Churches in general not a specific Church.

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[QUOTE=w123fanman;3327522]Is it appropriate for my school to let people hold a vigil for a sophomore that was killed in a car accident where the speakers were pastors and they closed in prayer?

The girl died on Wednesday, and the vigil was Thursday in the football stadium. The driver was a senior male and was seriously injured along with another sophomore girl. Apparently they were street racing and swerved to miss oncoming traffic and no one was wearing seat belts. I know the driver, a generally good guy but not too bright, but not the two girls. It was really rough the past couple of days at school.
Vigil held for Dutchtown student killed in car crash | www.wsbtv.com

I wasn't able to attend the vigil, but they had pastors come and speak, which is why I wonder if anyone is going to make a big deal out of it because it probably is a violation of church and state.

On a slightly related note, unfortunately, from many accounts of friends that went, the end was awkward when the FCA president prayed for the family and friends of the girl that was killed and for the driver and other passenger. She is a intolerant, hypocritical, all-out Jesus freak that even few teachers can deal with. The teacher that oversees the club, but isn't involved (by law), has expressed his dislike of her to me. She has turned more people away from Christianity than anyone I know personally. These are unfortunately (well, depending on your viewpoint) the most visible people in Christianity, just like those people in that video Kerry posted.[/QUOTE]

The extremist Christian or otherwise is almost always what is held of for Comment on this Forum as if they were common.
Since I do not know much about other Religions I cannot comment on them.

But, I see in general that the followers of Christianity and Judaism that actively try to tread the narrow path of their Religion to be beneficial to the Public at large or at least benign.

As the number of People in the Public that are poor practitioners of Christianity and Judaism or non-religious grows the Public in general is going to lose the benefit of those Religious Folks because they tend to be Law abiding.

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But, even that pisses some People off and there would be some that would activly oppose such Memorials if religion is involved.

The other issue is that I think some Schools or School Districts would bulk at such a Memorial if it was not Christian or Jewish. If the Memorial was Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist and other it would be less palatable to the Public in general.

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84 300D, 82 Volvo 244Gl Diesel

There is no Right never to be offended.
In the exercise of their Rights, some people may offend others. That is permitted, otherwise we have the tyranny of the offended as official policy.
If you don't like the prayer vigil; simply do not attend. You do not need to prevent others from attending, nor even to draw attention to what others are doing. You can control your actions to attend, or not. You cannot be forced to attend, or forced NOT to attend.

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1982 300SD " Wotan" ..On the road as of Jan 8, 2007 with Historic Tags

In these cases the general will of the people effected about 51% of our population in the first example and about 12% in the second.

These are taxpaying Americans we are talking about here and I really don't think the will of the people has much to do with it. The supreme law of the land is the US Constitution and how it effects the lives of Americans is what is important.

If we are to run this place depending on the will of the people then what do we need a Constitution for?

I guess so long as Wicca, VooDoo, devil worship and any other religion can conduct a vigil in the same manner I guess it's OK.

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- With out god, life is everything.
- God is an ever receding pocket of scientific ignorance that's getting smaller and smaller as time moves on..." Neil DeGrasse Tyson
- You can pray for me, I'll think for you.
- When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.

Fact is though, especially in this area, there is little chance that you will encounter Wiccans, Satanists, etc. We have Christians, Hindus, Buddists, Muslims, and Agnostics/Atheists. And given the probabilities of a person dying while still attending school, the person who has died is most likely Christian or their parents are Christian, or both. That is not to say a Muslim child won't die but it is highly unlikely and hasn't happened yet, at least near here, so there have been no Muslim vigils. If that were to happen, the school officials would most likely allow a vigil, even if they hated the idea b/c they don't want to be sued or lose their jobs. Students might be less likely to attend but that also just has to come down to demographics, there is some de-facto segregation of students by religious beliefs/culture. Most of my peers don't care to know your religion but there are those who do.

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That is a nice idealistic thought. If at the end of the Civil War the Public had demanded that the Negros get full rights as Citizens the Government would have had to do that. But, instead most of the White People in the Country including a good deal of the Anti-Slavery People did not want and in fact prevented the Negros from having the same rights as themselves. All that despite CONUS.

And, then along with that was no Vote for Women even though there was at least one State that allowed Women to Vote at that time.
Neither of the above are isolated or extreme examples of CONUS being disregarded because the General Population supported that.

In My opinion as Religion became less important to the Population in General they started insisting on a different definition of the separation of Church and State than had been previously practiced.

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84 300D, 82 Volvo 244Gl Diesel

I think it is possible that people with other Religious Beliefs would participate in a memorial to a Muslim Kid but I think there are some Christians that might protest it being done at the School; clearly a double standard.

Out here there was a lot of Christians that protested against the Building of a Mosque within view of a Christian Church. Even though the Land was Bought and paid for by the Muslims.
The Christians felt it was insulting to them an were fearful of violence against their Kids.

The Christians were angry that the City Council had approved the Building permit rather than congratulating the City Council for obeying the Law.
Perhaps there is going to be a Religious Cold War with Churches and Mosques being Built next to each other just to increase the tension between the 2 Religions.

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84 300D, 82 Volvo 244Gl Diesel

Like I said. There is no right to never be offended. That applies to everyone.

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1982 300SD " Wotan" ..On the road as of Jan 8, 2007 with Historic Tags

Why can't the Wiccans or Muslims conduct a vigil for a Christian kid?

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2014 C250 21,XXX my new DD ** 2013 GLK 350 18,000 Wife's new DD**

- With out god, life is everything.
- God is an ever receding pocket of scientific ignorance that's getting smaller and smaller as time moves on..." Neil DeGrasse Tyson
- You can pray for me, I'll think for you.
- When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.

Have any (whatever) proposed (whatever) and been denied? Or is this a sort of rhetorical 'just suppose' type thing?

So the Constitution is just a piece of paper?

Actually until someone makes an issue of something then it is not an issue. The final judge of our laws must always be the Constitution. This is playing out in a lot of southern states with gay marriage laws being overturned when they show up in court.

And during the era of passing laws and making state constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage there was really no onslaught of gay marriages about to overrun the country. There was a guy named Karl Rove who taught that if you wish to drive the sheep to the polls you need to crank up an emergency, declare that the sky is falling and wait for the polls to reflect that a lot of fearful Conservatives had flooded the voting booths and, while they were there, also voted Republican.

Now those laws might have represented the will of the voters, but one after another they are being found to be unconstitutional.

So should they be kept on the books just because they represent which way the wind is blowing?

Why would they? Why would the parents allow this? The school can allow the parents to have a vigil but at that point on, the vigil is run by the parents. They decide who represents them, I don't think the Constitution says they must take anyone who wants to speak. If they want a Muslim to conduct the vigil, then they can do that, it's their right. I'd assume here that since you have the right to choose your lawyer based on your own ideas of what type of person/lawyer they should be, you would have the choice here as well. There are some lawyers out there that advertise themselves as representing Christians, and it seems courts (which are government run) have no problem with that, but would have a problem with a judge ruling based on their own religious beliefs.

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