Can't exactly defy the ACLU as they have no real power in the end. Might as well defy the NRA...

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A nice 150,000 fine on the Tech district might wake them up. Let her put it up at HER house.

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Hardly the ACLU the teacher and school board are defying aerotive.

Remember, the Constitution grants us religious freedom!

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Aero, you're wrong. As eLwood said, Greene County is defying the Constitution. When the ACLU sues, it wins, period. There is no question as to the well-settled law.

And guess what ACLU gets if it wins? Attorneys' fees and costs of the litigation, along with an injunction proscribing the display of the nativity scene. They don't even have to wait until next year. Typically a case can only be brought if the harm is still occuring to the persons being harmed (meaning those who are either not Christian or do not wish to support the particular flavor of christianity the counselor practices). In other words, if the case is "ripe." Because the season is over, one could say that the issue is moot. However, because it occurs every year, and the superintendent ACTUALLY ADMITTED to violating the Constitution, then it's "capable of repetition yet evading review." That means that the Court will make an exception and issue an order on an issue that has, in this case, already taken care of itself.

Needless to say, the school will lose, and the taxpayers will be forced to pay for the legal fees of the ACLU. As an ACLU supporter, I thank the taxpayers of Greene County Tech for supporting one of my favorite organizations.

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The school district will lose because the teacher chose to include a label for the baby "Jesus" and the text "Happy Birthday Jesus". By including the text, the counselor is attempting to proselytize. It clearly shows that the teacher wants to be damn sure that the students and visitors to the school know that the baby in the picture is Jesus, and that Christmas is a celebration of his birthday. (Can't she leave anything to the imagination?)

I think the teacher should be punished by having the Winter Solstice outhouse from the Capital grounds parked on her front lawn.

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That's our Viper with no use for the U.S. Constitution.

Got to wonder if Viper ever wakes up on the right side of bed.

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One is always encouraged to see signs of a sense of humor on the part of the wing to the right. And, of course, trolls.

No Greater Hope has your Norma this New Year Season, Razorbabies!

Now if only your Freethinkers would exhibit the creativity with which those on the wing to the left are presumed endowed instead of -- seriously -- a Pedantic Outhouse at college reading level.

Even if you don't know what's supposedly going on with a Nativity scene it's pretty and you don't have to read nothin' to bask in the Aww-Factor.

Get your gay guys to come up with the concept and colorways, Freethinkers. Get your lesbians to draw up the specs and build it. Maximize resources, people.

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Man, I really, really want to like the ACLU. I was a member of the ACLU when I was in law school. I generally agree with them on pretty much everything -- including this. But they're such jerks that I end up not really giving a damn.

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There are more important battles for the ACLU to fight, one of the most important of which is the Little Rock Police Department's efforts, supported by the attorneys for the City of Little Rock, to circumvent the Freedom of Information Act.

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This is an important battle for the ACLU to fight. The Paragould school district should know better than to allow this to go on. What I would like this counselor to do is put her Christianity into real action by personally professing her Faith to the residents of Lake Street and Reynolds Road. In fact, she should spend a week visiting the whole Northeast side of Paragould. I still think these people are grandstanding in the name of God. Hubris. And what if next year Wiccans, Catholics, General Baptists, or Jews in Paragould (hey, there are few there) want to display in the school their own Christmas posters?

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misswood, i will presume you are trolling. The ACLU does stand up for Christians and everyone else. misswood, did you play Santa with your children? Do your friends and family play Santa with their children? If so, then you have participated in a pagan ritual that has nothing to do with "what Christmas is all about". In fact, you are an idolater and have utterly failed to celebrate fully the birth of Baby Jesus. Did you have a Christmas tree in your house this year? If so, then you might as well have been kneeling down to worship at the alter of Satan. I sincerely hope that whatever Christian Church you attend is not full of people like you. I bet that your Church is not near as Holy as the Church of the Paragould Counselor.

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"But in some corners of the country, especially in the rural South, open prayer and Christian symbols have never really disappeared from schools, with what legal advocates call brazen violations of the law coming to light many times each year."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/28/us/battl…

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Millions, meanwhile, shrug. If it's reached U.S.A. Today, this is officially a trend.

"As Christmas Day glides by — all gilt, no substance — for many, clergy and religion experts are dismayed. They fear for souls' salvation and for the common threads of faith snapping in society. Others see no such dire consequences to a more openly secular America as people not only fess up to being faithless but admit they're skipping out on spiritual, the cool default word of the decade, as well."

Honey, when "the common threads of faith" in society are obsessed with control of women's reproductive rights and hatred of same-sex Americans, they can't snap soon enough.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/stor…

Of course this means all those big businesses and industries and schools and entrepreneurs that were on the brink of locating in Paragould and revitalizing Main Street are having second thoughts.

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I'm betting Kay Williams will do this again in 2012, and the School Board will cave in to public opinion, so the ACLU should be ready to file their lawsuit.

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Let's see: Aren't city, county, state, and federal offices and facilities (maybe with the exception of jails and fire and poiice stations) closed on Christmas day?

Doesn't that somehow suggest that all those people involved are "proselytizing" because they acknowledge that celebration of the birthday of Jesus? And they're cramming their religion down the throats of all the unbelievers who don't really want to be off from work and observing some Christian holy day.

It's OK to shut down government operations in the name of Jesus and celebration of his birthday, but it just won't do to put some construction paper on a bulletin board depicting the birth of a baby, especially if you put his name on it, and wish him happy birthday.

Does a school bulletin board actually constitute an "establishment of religion"?

Raise bigger issues, brethren; raise bigger issues.

IMHO

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Agreed!

Concern over religious indoctrination is so pre 9-11.

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Perhaps Norma is referring to the non-traditional nativity at the church:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011…

Public schools are not the place to teach religion. I'm no expert on teacher credentials, but I'm not aware of any certification in religion for public school teachers. I'm opposed to physical education teachers teaching calculus if they're not certified, and we sure don't need guidance counselors teaching religion.

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SkyPilot

I celebrate the passing of the winter solstice, a pagan holiday with a history longer than the Christian religion. The ACLU has no bigger issue than enforcing the US Constitution especially in public schools.

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