Enfield Caves!
June 4th, 2010 by Peter
(Below is the text of today’s FIC email alert. Two additional points: 1) This lawsuit is actually not over; Enfield’s vote was only to not appeal the judge’s ruling. 2) I will discuss what this means on the Dan Lovallo program today at 5 pm. – PW)
Twenty-one years ago today a young man stood athwart a column of tanks in China’s Tiananmen Square for the sake of freedom. Last night, Enfield’s Board of Education decided it could not even face down a lawsuit for freedom’s sake.
We can be shocked that Enfield voted 5-4 last night to give in to the ACLU’s demand that they not hold their high school graduation ceremonies at a local church. Or we can be shocked that Enfield was willing to fight at all. Connecticut’s elected officials are not known for their political courage.
Family Institute of Connecticut’s role in the Enfield graduation battle was to help secure the BOE’s April 13th 6-3 vote for returning graduations to First Cathedral. Afterwards it was up to the American Center for Law and Justice and the BOE to carry on the fight. The ACLJ did its part; the BOE did not.
The BOE took a cowardly position last night. They betrayed the trust that was placed in them to act according to the commitment they had made. They betrayed their commitment.
They also betrayed the students, who wanted their graduations at First Cathedral. And they did it because of a ruling that almost certainly would have been overturned, issued by a judge who should not have heard the case because she had a potential conflict of interest.
FIC was the only organization that was willing to lead this fight. We succeeded in persuading Enfield to stand up to the ACLU for seven weeks. But it was seven weeks too much for the anti-family forces who control the commanding heights of culture in our state.
Connecticut’s citizens are now aware of things our opposition does not want them to know. The public now knows that the current interpreters of the First Amendment are so hostile to religion that even a graduation on church property is forbidden. The public now knows that judicial activism is so extreme that even a local community is not allowed to decide for itself where it will hold its graduations.
FIC has exposed this situation for what it is. Anti-family forces have been embarrassed by this exposure. They are enraged at FIC for being its source and they are lashing out.
We see this especially in Rick Green’s column today. You would think from Green’s column that it was FIC that sued Enfield, rather than the ACLU. But in the bizarro world of Connecticut’s biased media, if you resist the demands of the Left then you are the one who has committed some cultural act of aggression.
We will have much more to say about Rick Green’s lazy excuse for journalism—and about the next steps in the pro-family fight for the First Amendment. The battle for Enfield may be over. But the fight for Connecticut is just beginning.
1] The Enfield board ‘caved in’ when it was pointed out to them that holding a public school graduation ceremony violates the First Amendment of the US Constitution.
2] The Enfield board betrayed their commitment to the citizens when it decided to move the locations of the two graduation cerimoneys TO the church from their regular locations at the respective schools. The board even looked at public venues which were CHEAPER but elected to go with the church location after several board members were enticed to do so by out of state interlopers.
2a] “Family Institute of Connecticut’s role in the Enfield graduation battle was to help secure the BOE’s April 13th 6-3 vote for returning graduations to First Cathedral.”
‘Return’? Really? No public school graduation has ever been held there! How is it ‘returning’ to something its never had?
3] The students at both schools have less than 5% of the student body attending THAT church! Why would anyone want to attend a church that’s not thiers? Or pay a tithe to a church that’s not theirs???
4] FIC is leading this ‘fight’? IF you are the leaders, you’ve only fabricated a phoney situation. You are out right lying to everyone… I gotta say it, Bearing False Witness.
IF the church wants a graduation, it needs to get its own school. Then it can hold its own graduation. Leave my tax money out of it.
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(1) The Enfield board caved into political pressure following a ruling from a biased judge. Ultimately, Enfield stands a strong chance to prevail at the Second Circuit.
(2) The Enfield Board has been holding graduations at First Cathedral since 2006.
(2a) You are wrong— Enfield’s graduations were held there in 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009.
(3) Students are eager to go to First Cathedral because of its amenities— air conditioning, free parking, flat screen TVs every ten rows, seating sufficient for extended family. By the way, what tithe? By definition, a tithe is a donation or a voluntary offering. Where’s the donation. Last time I check, steps are taken to secularize the cathedral and cover up religious images. There are no prayers and no collection.
(4) The state should not discriminate against or in favor of churches in implementing programs. If First Cathedral offers the best experience for the cheapest price, it should not be discriminated against simply because it is a church.
If you were to look at the history of our state, when a church was destroyed by fire, the parishioners were allowed to have services in the nearby school. This is called community.
Bob Smythe, if you had read the articles, you would have seen that the schools did have graduation in this church before.
The verdict from that judge would have been hilarious, if it was not a situation that was important to the students of Enfield and Fermi High. Holding a graduation on one day for a few hours in a comfortable church is endorsing religion? How ludicrous! Was there someone there taking names and issuing cards that they were now a card carrying member of this church? Did they proletyize and pray and hold the audience until they submitted to the church’s demands? Oh come on, the majority of the students graduating just wanted more of their family to be able to attend. And, the A/C and comfortable seating would make everyone comfortable. The Church are the people and that church is a building. Those two students could make other arrangements as suggested in the auditorium of their respective high schools.
Clearly, the citizens of this state should be worried about a couple of groups that throws it’s weight around and tells schools how they should conduct themselves. I agree that they caved in and it is really too bad. You showed your students that you can be pushed around by a couple of groups who don’t really care about your concerns–only their concerns.
The situation with the judge’s “conflict of interest”, for which she should have recused herself from the case, reminds me of what happened some years ago in Massachusetts.
Only that case, the Goodridge “marriage” case, was of far more significance, because it did so much damage to the society of an entire state—and even beyond.
In that marriage case, Chief Justice Margaret Marshall, who wrote the opinion, *should have recused herself,* because she had clearly indicated her bias several years before in her speech to a gay and lesbian lawyers’ association.
Why is it that the lawyers and judges who are biased in favor of the secular progressive agenda get away with this LACK OF ETHICS?
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