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Technician

Tennessee, Once Again, Goes Full-retard

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Bill purports to protect schools when students pray, express faith

In the wake of a number of lawsuits over keeping religion out of school, a Tennessee representative is advancing a bill that seeks to protect districts when students pray openly or make other expressions of faith.

The Religious Viewpoints Antidiscrimination Act’s main sponsor, Rep. Andy Holt, R-Dresden, said he feels the legislation would alleviate school districts’ fear of allowing such expressions. His bill is slated for hearings in House and Senate subcommittees next week.

“We live in a society that’s hypersensitive to statements of faith, and so I think in many ways, students have been disincentivized to make statements of faith,” he said.

The right of students to pray or make other expressions of faith has long been upheld in the courts. But three Middle Tennessee districts ran afoul of federal law in recent years over allowing parents or outside groups to promote religion on campus.

Sumner County Schools allowed teacher-led prayer, Cheatham County allowed prayers at football games, and Wilson County allowed parents to hand out notes to students saying they were the subjects of prayer. All three allowed outside groups to distribute Bibles. All three also lost or settled the lawsuits.

On its website, the ACLU said Holt’s bill is neither necessary nor constitutional and would subject students to unwanted proselytizing, prayer and preaching and open districts to violating constitutional guarantees.

The legislation would require school districts to implement a policy to create a “limited public forum” before campus events such as the beginning of a school day or before a football game. Select students would be eligible to speak freely at these forums, including about religion, and the school district would issue a disclaimer before those speeches.

“I think the free expression of religion extends to those who may be in the public institution of education,” Holt said. “I do believe in the freedom of religion, but I do not believe in the freedom from religion.”

Now that's not the bad part.

Under the bill, school districts also would require teachers to treat a student’s faith-based answers to school assignments the same as secular answers. But while the bill allows faith-based answers, those responses must be justified like any other student’s.

“This is not a bill that is intended to give special advantages to those who hold a particular faith. This is to protect those who have a particular faith,” Holt said.

Holt couldn’t cite cases in Tennessee involving that particular type of discrimination against students.

Olivia Brown, a spokeswoman for Metro Nashville Public Schools, says she’s unaware of any such problems in that school district.

The Tennessee bill, HB 3616 or SB3632, like ones considered in several states and vetoed in Oklahoma, is nearly a word-for-word copy of the Texas legislation that stirred controversy in that state and beyond after it passed in 2007.

The ACLU chapter said the First Amendment does more than enough to meet students’ needs. That’s also the stance of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

Joe Conn, the group’s communication director, said the bill is so broad, it could result in violating the Constitution.

“You don’t want to have a captive audience listening to a prayer they don’t want to hear,” Conn said.

Wow.

Also:
It opened up the science classroom to "alternative theories" aka: Creationism, again.

This bill will be shot down - no question, but the insanity is downright laughable. Maybe Tennessee will have another monkey trial.

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BUT BUT being able to call out gay students as hell-bound faggot homo sinners is just them simply 'expressing their faith'.

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At least they still make whiskey in the old, leisurely way, by tossing casket corks waiting for the whiskey to age.

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If you haven't already got em, get catholic schools, we have them in england and they are great for religious people. Every other school only scratchs religion other than religious education.

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Technician said:

Now that's not the bad part.
Under the bill, school districts also would require teachers to treat a student’s faith-based answers to school assignments the same as secular answers. But while the bill allows faith-based answers, those responses must be justified like any other student’s.


So in other words, if the question is, "If an object is dropped off of a cliff, neglecting air resistance, how fast will it be traveling in 3 seconds," and if Student A says, "29.4 meters per second," and Student B says, "However fast God makes it," both answers are equally valid in Tennessee. Is there a European equivalent to Tennessee to make me feel better?

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Krispy said:

Is there a European equivalent to Tennessee to make me feel better?

Vatican City State?

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GreyGhost said:

Devout baptists going to catholic schools, that I have to see. :D


Yeah, I'd rather not go to a Catholic school X)

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Krispy said:

Is there a European equivalent to Tennessee to make me feel better?

education is controlled by the catholic church in ireland, although i'm pretty sure no country in europe teaches creationism.

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If I am reading this right, a school assignment question could read 'Describe the theory of the creation of the universe as a result of the Big Bang' and the student could write 'Jesus' and that answer would have to be accepted? Does this mean anyone who graduates from a Tennessee public school would have to take another 12 years of school in a state that isn't mentally retarded before they can get into college?

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Use3D said:

Does this mean anyone who graduates from a Tennessee public school would have to take another 12 years of school in a state that isn't mentally retarded before they can get into college?

No, this means that the next step is abolishing colleges and universities.

Science bad! Churches good!

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dew said:

education is controlled by the catholic church in ireland, although i'm pretty sure no country in europe teaches creationism.

Are you sarcastic? Creationism is taught during religion courses, which often happen to be mandatory (but relaxing and fun), because there's only one significant religion in a community here. Evolutionism is taught in parallel, during history courses.

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oh, sorry. what i meant was teaching creationism in "science" or history classes. i consider it rather harmless when kept within religious courses, because it gets simple to filter out. i may be wrong though, as i have no experience with such classes. godless nation of pesimists and all that.

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Evolution was part of Biology & Geology classes in my country; creationism was part of fuck all, I learned about it reading articles on the Internet about how dumb the Americans are. :p

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Gez said:

Evolution was part of Biology & Geology classes in my country; creationism was part of fuck all, I learned about it reading articles on the Internet about how dumb the Americans are. :p

The sane parts of the US are pretty much the same way. I learned about the fossil record in geology, the actual mechanics of evolution in biology, and human evolution early in world history. Religion was only mentioned in history.

How can you even teach creationism? "God did it all the end?"

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Back when I was in my second year of high school (2004), our biology class was shown a video of the "Evolution vs. Creationism" debate. The teacher looked straight-up annoyed just popping the disc into the drive, and the class basically treated it like a stand-up comedy act at most parts. An actual statement from a creationist went something like this:

"Whenever someone says, 'you know, back when the dinosaurs ruled the Earth millions of years ago,' I say "Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa - were you there?"

Clearly, these are prime, top-notch thinkers.

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Sorry folks, but a proposed bill isn't law yet. Thus far only one guy has gone full-retard, not an entire state. If it does get passed, than by all means flee from Tennessee.

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Snakes said:

Back when I was in my second year of high school (2004), our biology class was shown a video of the "Evolution vs. Creationism" debate.


If I were a teacher I wouldn't stand for that crap.

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I went through the Catholic education system and our biology and science class dealt with everything but evolution. The theory was covered briefly in religion class, not negatively, just laid down the basic theory. With that said, strangely enough, our religious classes never touched intelligent design or creationism at all. We somehow managed to avoid both topics.

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Use3D said:

If I am reading this right, a school assignment question could read 'Describe the theory of the creation of the universe as a result of the Big Bang' and the student could write 'Jesus' and that answer would have to be accepted?

Probably, but I wouldn't expect it to be marked as being correct since Jesus is New Testament while creation is more of an Old Testament question. I'd consider "Let there be light" to be a more appropriate answer.

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