It absolutely is not okay to fly that flag just because students approved it for the simple reason that rights are not matters of majority rule, and never have been. By that standard those students could outlaw Muslims or any other minority religion they chose. Conservative Christians simply cannot stop trying to force their religion into the public schools paid for with everyone's tax dollars. As a society we do not extend full rights to adolescents for a reason, and this is an example of why.
It's a PUBLIC school. Its attendees and indeed its faculty MAY be Christian. They may also be Jewish, Muslim, Mormon, or even atheist or agnostic. Point being: THEY AREN'T ALL NECESSARILY CHRISTIAN. As such, raising a Christian flag over the school amounts to an act of exclusionism and is utterly inappropriate.
And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. Except in Texas. So sayeth the Laird.
If there had been some sort of student committee that asked to be put in charge of that 3rd flagpole, then maybe it would be ok. But forming the student committee explicitly to control what's on that flagpole? That is de facto school sponsorship, even if not de jure. Will they hoist a pride flag? Probably not.
The best solution, in my opinion, would be 𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝗿𝗶𝗱 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗲𝘅𝘁𝗿𝗮 𝗳𝗹𝗮𝗴𝗽𝗼𝗹𝗲.
Whether it's decided by a student council or not, it's still endorsed by a fucking PUBLIC school. We are not talking about a christian club where participation is a voluntary choice but the use of a pole owned by the state/county. The courts were wrong by allowing prayers during graduation speeches for the same reason.
xtians just cant stop waving their dicks (oops) 'flags' around in public. Also, I wonder who the lucky grifter was that sold all those xtian car flags...
This is where we need to fight Christian Nationalism the most. These enclaves of Christianity are not as homogeneous as they claim or want to be, they’re just loud enough to pressure the folks into compliance (if they can’t pressure others out of town completely). Correcting Christian Nationalist creep is easier in the more diverse areas, and even necessary, but the fight really is in these small towns that feed the Nationalism with a majority of almost complete agreement. Shrugging our shoulders and shaking our heads as we say “forget it, Jake, it’s Chinatown” only enables Christian Nationalism to grow and invade more towns and take over our institutions, kind of like the fifth circuit court and the SCOTUS. We’re now fighting on our back foot, but it’s not over.
Having specifically chosen students get together to make decisions you want them to make doesn’t make displaying the Christian flag anything other than the government institution of this public school endorsing a specific branch of Christianity. This flag is not recognized by all sects of Christianity and is not a general statement of “God is good”. Even the tactic of students voting for a student speaker who might say a prayer isn’t as democratic as they make it seem, the school chooses which students to choose from, and I’m sure there are none picked who wouldn’t include a prayer. I’m guessing the highest performing students also attend church. And if there were a student who was a high performer that didn’t attend church, their performance could be easily overlooked because who compares grades in high school. It’s not that competitive and a high performer might just believe they simply missed the cutoff rather than suspecting their politics didn’t fit the desires of the administration for this group.
Nothing about this seems above board and they’re just trying to get away with their Christian Nationalism.
I am frankly amazed that HS students haven't voted to put up a FSM flag or rainbow flag or some other 'political grenade' flag yet. Just because they're high schoolers.
With that in mind, I suspect one of three things is happening:
1. That "under the supervision of a district parent" thing is essentially baking in an illegal content bias.
2. They knew who the "highest GPA" kids were going to be at the time the rule was passed, and they were all conservative Christians.
3. The school is more uniformly christian conservative than any I've ever ever had contact with.
Now while #3 is certainly possible, I'm betting on #1 or #2. If #1, then hopefully secularists can show it and render this illegal. If #2, then I suspect the procedure will be abandoned the first time the "highest gpa" turns over and a Jewish, gay, or heck even just reasonably liberal kid earns that spot.
Suggestion: Maybe the way to attack this kind of thing is not on First Amendment grounds but on Equal Protection grounds. Why are only high GPA students getting to express their flag speech?
East Jesus Texas parent won’t send her kids to a Christian private school because it costs money for tuition. Since her public school is flying their freak flag for Jesus, why pay for milk when you’re getting the cow for free
Looking at Wikipedia, it doesn’t look like Catholics have adopted the flag, so the SCOTUS, being mostly Catholics, may not allow this. Not that I am confident in this assessment, SCOTUS is making a lot of decisions that only benefit evangelicals and not necessarily Catholic interests. There may be some folks who don’t care for this particular flag at this school.
How long until they fly some razor wire from the flagpole?
It absolutely is not okay to fly that flag just because students approved it for the simple reason that rights are not matters of majority rule, and never have been. By that standard those students could outlaw Muslims or any other minority religion they chose. Conservative Christians simply cannot stop trying to force their religion into the public schools paid for with everyone's tax dollars. As a society we do not extend full rights to adolescents for a reason, and this is an example of why.
It's a PUBLIC school. Its attendees and indeed its faculty MAY be Christian. They may also be Jewish, Muslim, Mormon, or even atheist or agnostic. Point being: THEY AREN'T ALL NECESSARILY CHRISTIAN. As such, raising a Christian flag over the school amounts to an act of exclusionism and is utterly inappropriate.
Still, this IS Texas, so what do you expect? 😖
And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. Except in Texas. So sayeth the Laird.
If there had been some sort of student committee that asked to be put in charge of that 3rd flagpole, then maybe it would be ok. But forming the student committee explicitly to control what's on that flagpole? That is de facto school sponsorship, even if not de jure. Will they hoist a pride flag? Probably not.
The best solution, in my opinion, would be 𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝗿𝗶𝗱 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗲𝘅𝘁𝗿𝗮 𝗳𝗹𝗮𝗴𝗽𝗼𝗹𝗲.
Whether it's decided by a student council or not, it's still endorsed by a fucking PUBLIC school. We are not talking about a christian club where participation is a voluntary choice but the use of a pole owned by the state/county. The courts were wrong by allowing prayers during graduation speeches for the same reason.
xtians just cant stop waving their dicks (oops) 'flags' around in public. Also, I wonder who the lucky grifter was that sold all those xtian car flags...
This is where we need to fight Christian Nationalism the most. These enclaves of Christianity are not as homogeneous as they claim or want to be, they’re just loud enough to pressure the folks into compliance (if they can’t pressure others out of town completely). Correcting Christian Nationalist creep is easier in the more diverse areas, and even necessary, but the fight really is in these small towns that feed the Nationalism with a majority of almost complete agreement. Shrugging our shoulders and shaking our heads as we say “forget it, Jake, it’s Chinatown” only enables Christian Nationalism to grow and invade more towns and take over our institutions, kind of like the fifth circuit court and the SCOTUS. We’re now fighting on our back foot, but it’s not over.
Having specifically chosen students get together to make decisions you want them to make doesn’t make displaying the Christian flag anything other than the government institution of this public school endorsing a specific branch of Christianity. This flag is not recognized by all sects of Christianity and is not a general statement of “God is good”. Even the tactic of students voting for a student speaker who might say a prayer isn’t as democratic as they make it seem, the school chooses which students to choose from, and I’m sure there are none picked who wouldn’t include a prayer. I’m guessing the highest performing students also attend church. And if there were a student who was a high performer that didn’t attend church, their performance could be easily overlooked because who compares grades in high school. It’s not that competitive and a high performer might just believe they simply missed the cutoff rather than suspecting their politics didn’t fit the desires of the administration for this group.
Nothing about this seems above board and they’re just trying to get away with their Christian Nationalism.
I'm surprised it's not on the middle pole.
Eta: Yet.
I wonder how the Jewish students in that school feel about the Christian flag?
I am frankly amazed that HS students haven't voted to put up a FSM flag or rainbow flag or some other 'political grenade' flag yet. Just because they're high schoolers.
With that in mind, I suspect one of three things is happening:
1. That "under the supervision of a district parent" thing is essentially baking in an illegal content bias.
2. They knew who the "highest GPA" kids were going to be at the time the rule was passed, and they were all conservative Christians.
3. The school is more uniformly christian conservative than any I've ever ever had contact with.
Now while #3 is certainly possible, I'm betting on #1 or #2. If #1, then hopefully secularists can show it and render this illegal. If #2, then I suspect the procedure will be abandoned the first time the "highest gpa" turns over and a Jewish, gay, or heck even just reasonably liberal kid earns that spot.
Helpful hint: if you cut the first 1/4th or so off your Christian flag, it'll be more useful!
Y'know.
For when you finally lose your bullshit culture war and need something to surrender with.
Suggestion: Maybe the way to attack this kind of thing is not on First Amendment grounds but on Equal Protection grounds. Why are only high GPA students getting to express their flag speech?
East Jesus Texas parent won’t send her kids to a Christian private school because it costs money for tuition. Since her public school is flying their freak flag for Jesus, why pay for milk when you’re getting the cow for free
🙄
A tyranny of the majority is the point.
Looking at Wikipedia, it doesn’t look like Catholics have adopted the flag, so the SCOTUS, being mostly Catholics, may not allow this. Not that I am confident in this assessment, SCOTUS is making a lot of decisions that only benefit evangelicals and not necessarily Catholic interests. There may be some folks who don’t care for this particular flag at this school.