School in hot water because church feeds ball team

[ChuckJ]

This maybe should have been posted in another category. If so, the mods are more than welcome to move it.

Link to article

Some group called the Freedom From Religion Foundation is going after a Ga school apparently because the area churches feed the football team.

Here are some clips from the story:

“Taking public school football teams to church, even for a meal, is unconstitutional,” wrote FFRF attorney Andrew Seidel. “This program is an egregious violation of the Establishment Clause and must cease immediately.”

Seidel said taking school children to churches and having ministers “present the Gospel of Jesus Christ” and having the food blessed “shatters the protections the First Amendment put in place.”

Richie White, the church’s youth director, said he was quite surprised to hear that an outside group had issues with feeding children.
“It would be interesting to see what part of the Constitution we violated by simply offering a meal to fellow Americans,” he told Fox News. “These are kis from our area that we do love and we do care about.”
White said several members of the church youth group are on the football squad – and it’s been a tradition to show their support for school athletics.
“We as Christians don’t force our religion on anyone,” he said, suggesting that perhaps Christians are treated differently.

I wonder if this Freedom From Religion Foundation got involved with the case in California several years back where the school was getting students to pretend that they were Islamic?

Article link

A clip from the 2003 article:

Requiring seventh-grade students to pretend they’re Muslims, wear Islamic garb, memorize verses from the Quran, pray to Allah and even to play “jihad games” in California public schools has been legally upheld by a federal judge, who has dismissed a highly publicized lawsuit brought by several Christian students and their parents.

[formerlurker]

Truly unbelievable.   

[ChuckJ]

Seidel said taking school children to churches and having ministers “present the Gospel of Jesus Christ” and having the food blessed “shatters the protections the First Amendment put in place.”

This is the quote that really got to me. Either I don't understand the 1st Amendment or this attorney doesn't understand the 1st Amendment.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

It would seem to me that PREVENTING the meals would be more of a violation of the 1st Amendment than the meals themselves. Especially so if everyone (including the students) are participating willingly. You would be prohibiting the free exercise of religion. You would be abridging the freedom of speech. You would be preventing the right of the people to peaceably assemble.

Maybe the churches need to take Freedom From Religion Foundation to court.

[Possom]

I wish those ass hats would name their foundation to reflect what it really is. It's not the freedom from religion foundation. It's the freedom from Christianity foundation. A bunch of ultra liberal idiots who are angry about their own miserable lives and blame God for their own short falls.

We as a country will not prosper again until we put these types of hate filled morons in their place and take our country back.

[MrsSmith]

I wonder when these "geniuses" will start suing Food Pantries and homeless shelters.