Jared Ozvath, alias “Winterhawk,” is an atheist. During his seven years and 17 days* in the U.S. Air Force, he was an active member of the organization Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers (MAAF), donating his spare time to the crusade for the right of our godless men in uniform to be free of all exposure to the practice of theism.
Or as he puts it, “I fought and screamed for equality for members of religions other than big brother christianity. Everywhere you went in the Air Force there was a christian prayer, or benediction. Hell the retirement ceremony reserved a ‘fold’ of the flag for the christian god for flippin’ sake.”
But that fighting and screaming took their toll on his joie-de-vivre. In July, he left the service.
Since then, Jared has been blogging. His online diary, “10,000 Fists in the Air” (the title is taken from a song by a heavy metal band named “Disturbed”), salutes his ongoing faithless struggle against the forces of “Zealotry” and “Biggotry.” (When I mouse over the “Biggotry” link in the sidebar, the embedded message “Look it up, if you don’t know what it means” appears.)
Imagine a man mortally offended by the prospect of battle-hardened soldiers being exposed to benedictions at retirement ceremonies. Then, try to imagine how upset he would be if his own young son was being evangelized by a public school! Fairly upset, I’d reckon.
Well, two days ago, it happened, and Jared was fairly upset.
I am fairly upset. Today when we picked our oldest child up from school, we went through his bookbag as is our normal practice. As parents today we were shocked to discover that the school had sent home a paper with my son that endorses christianity and is an invitation to participate in a christian function. It is also a solicitation for funds to support christian mission work.
The offending paper was a handbill depicting a cartoonish scarecrow standing among pumpkins and cornstalks. The text advertises the upcoming “Pumpkin Festival,” to be held Saturday, October 8, at a church in Midwest City, Oklahoma. According to the flier, the Pumpkin Festival will feature a “Kids’ Craft Tent” and “Outdoor Games.”
(I haven’t seen this flier myself, but I presume the picture Jared posted is accurate and undoctored, except for his blurring of the name, address, and phone number of St. Matthew’s United Methodist Church.)
So, where was the “endorsement of Christianity”? I couldn’t find it. And where was the “invitation to participate in a Christian function”? Nowhere, unless a “Christian function” is any function hosted by Christians.
Admission to the Pumpkin Festival is free of charge, says the flier, but some food, toys, pumpkins, and whatnot will be offered for sale or auction. The proceeds will indeed “benefit local mission projects,” it warns. So there is the “solicitation for funds to support Christian mission work.”
Offended, Jared spoke with the school principal twice yesterday. On Friday morning, the principal apologized for the offense, and reportedly agreed “that the constitution had been violated,” even though he had not seen the flier himself. But later in the day, he explained that the flier had been approved by the school district, and all further complaints must be directed to officials there. He also said that after looking at the flier, he found nothing objectionable about it.
Meanwhile, a contentious debate was brewing over this Pumpkin Festival flier on the OKC Talk online forum. The discussion was in the “hidden” section*, but blogger “Subjective Scribe” was good enough to post excerpts. The debaters (”Scribe” and “Shaggy”) disagreed about whether Jared’s anger was justified, though curiously both seemed to agree that the flier was illegal and unconstitutional.
But they’re very wrong.
Just the opposite is true: as the law stands now, it would have been illegal and unconstitutional for the school to refuse to distribute the Pumpkin Festival flier!
In 1993, the Supreme Court decided Lamb’s Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free School District, holding that it is a violation of the First Amendment for a public school to “discriminate on the basis of viewpoint.” In other words, the school must treat religious persons and organizations no differently than non-religious ones. This legal doctrine was strengthened and reaffirmed with Good News Club v. Milford Central School in 2001. In both cases, the court forced the schools to allow religious groups to use their facilities.
These cases were not specifically about distributing fliers, but the principle clearly applies. In 2003 the U.S. District Court in San Diego ruled against the San Diego Unified School District in a case involving fliers advertising free lectures at a Lutheran church. The school district was ordered in a summary judgment to post the church’s fliers.* A summary judgment is one in which one party’s case is so weak that the court can rule without hearing any testimony. After this, the school district settled out of court and agreed to distribute the church’s fliers to students as well.
Sorry, Jared and Scribe. You are both in the wrong. If the school district distributes fliers for any extracurricular activities, it cannot refuse a flier solely on the grounds that Methodists are doing it. That’s the law. You are of course free to advocate repealing the First Amendment, but you won’t get my vote.
* The three asterisks in the foregoing mark edits I have made in light of information provided by Scribe and Winterhawk, in the comments below.
“Free speech for me but not for thee” - the mantra of ‘progressive’ leftists.
oh. There you are…your post that is. First, if someone (or their child) gets a flier that they don’t like or agree with, toss it. Why is that so hard for some people? I agree with your stance on this, which also appears to be the stance of the courts. There appears to be more people easily offended nowadays, and seek legal recourse to stop people from offending them. Good luck to them (sarcasm). I also see how letting any organization distribute their fliers to students could lead to some not-so-likable groups stepping up (e.g. devil people, cult groups, etc). Should we just accept their flier distribution along with the more society-loved ones? I seem unable to completely form a solid opinion on this. I undersand that sometimes, in order to maintain the principles that our country was founded on, we must allow for those less-than-lovely elements in our society. (e.g. Freedom of Speech … you may hear/read things that offend you and peeve you to the ends of Earth, but they still retain that freedom). What do you think?
Further Family Fun Fellowship foofaraw
When last we left this story, I had suggested that there were Constitutional issues involved. Sean Gleeson reports on what those issues are: [A]s the law stands now, it would…
The court decision cited addressed the posting of a flyer, not the distributing of the flyer, as was the case in this instance.
“While the court declared the school district’s policy to be unconstitutional with respect to the posting of the material, it did not rule on the constitutionality of the portion of the policy that prohibits the distribution of the materials. ”
In my opinion, there is a distinction between the two, especially on the elementary school level. However, since I am not a constitutional lawyer, nor do I hold a law degree, I don’t claim to have an expert opinion on the matter; I was merely expressing my opinion.
As far as Joe’s comment, I don’t believe anything of the sort. A more thorough reading of my posts on the OKC Talk website as well as my posts on my own blog will bear testament to that. I don’t think the schools need to be in the business of passing out advertisements or “announcement” fliers on anything other than school-specific matters.
For the record, I’m not just any old “progressive liberal.” I’m a progressive, evangelical, Bible-believing, Spirit-filled, committed follower of Jesus. I’m not one of those (as many Religious Right-wingers so hatefully refer to as) Christian-hating, liberal pansy aethists.
Finally, to clarify another point, the “hidden” section is not only available to premium members. Anyone registered (at no cost) on OKC Talk wanting access to that forum, “The Nose Bleed Section,” can email me directly and I’ll turn on your access to that “hidden” forum. (If you are signing up for the first time, please note “Scribe” as your referral when asked.)
Thank you for the corrections, Scribe. I have made appropriate edits to my post. I’m no lawyer either, just a humble Okie artist, but the San Diego Unified School District was advised by its own lawyers to cave in. It was only because the school district quit its defense that the San Diego court didn’t get a chance to rule on the flier-distribution part of the case.
My statement that the OKC Talk hidden section was available only to paid members was based on information in this chart. I am happy to hear that this is not the case.
My characterization of Shaggy’s opinion (which I did qualify with the phrase “seemed to agree”) was necessarily based entirely on the excerpts you posted, in which he did not argue for the legality of the flier, and in fact voiced surprise that a Christian would be deterred from evangelizing by “the law.” If he elsewhere opined that the flier was legal, I agree with him.
I cannot presume to speak for all hateful religious right-wingers, but I’m sure I never called you anything like a pansy atheist.
For the record, my military service time was 7 years, 17 days.
I was honorable discharged after a psychological evaluation determined i had developed a passive-agressive adjustment disorder which stemmed from the ethical conflict I had serving in the military.
I appreciate the publication of the story Sean, tho our interpretation of the law differs.
THose who are interested can read the complete story at my blog. I have represented the facts of the situation, nothing has been altered or inflated to further my point of view in this case with the school.
Oh, those nefarious Methodists! Why, oh, WHY must people take up other peoples’ time and energy with such nonsense?
Sometimes you just need to LET IT GO. And then maybe all your passive-aggressive adjustment disorders will simply go away.
Maureen:
Dont insult people by speaking about things you have no frame of reference for. Would you consider it nonsense it a Muslim sponored activity flier came home from school with your child?
Furthermore, go look up passive agressive, you will realize you are insulting everyone with the problem. It is not something that simply goes away.
I have amended “nearly seven years” to “seven years and 17 days” in paragraph 1, sentence 2. I regret the error.
hmm. In today’s society, I guess it should be all or nothing. I despise black&white rulings, though. But, to appease everyone, I guess it’s all or nothing. Post/distribute fliers from any org, or don’t at all.
For some reason, I am reminded of the recent news article about a Muslim who raised cain about pictures/statues/toys of pigs at a UK govt office. They ordered the removal/covering up of all pigs. Then another Muslim actually states, “‘It’s a tolerance of people’s beliefs.’” My big hairy bass! That is not tolerance. What’s the real word I’m looking for? We can not redefine the word tolerance, because I won’t tolerate it.
See, it used to be that people kept to themselves or their like. People like cliques and sameness. Now the cultural pot wants to call the kettle black. Tolerance for another religeon is to let them practice it without harassment, ridicule, and punishment. It goes both ways.
If you expect tolerance for people practicing Christianity in the schools or government, then you must also be tolerant of others practicing their rel at the same level. So, I guess it has become an all-or-nothing attitude society must take for sanity. Let the (in no particular order) Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Atheists, Spagetti-monster-believers, Agnostics, People-Who-Pray-To-Joe-Pesci, witches, heavens day cult, Toejam gods, Isis, magicians, anarchists, antichrists, and everyone else partake in the flier posting/distribution. Let everyone access to the kids, or no one. sad that it’s come to that.
BTW, who gets to subjectively chose which group will be the “good ones”?
Good point, Zach — and I believe Scribe made a similar point in his comment. The school could avoid the whole issue of “viewpoint discrimination” by simply refusing to distribute any extracurricular handbills at all. A number of school districts in the country have adopted such a policy, and it’s perfectly legal.
As for who gets to choose the good ones, I nominate you.
chose == choose. whoops.
Basically, I understand not wanting some other group to indocternate (sp?) your children. I believe that you can protect them from that, while still allowing them to be exposed to the world. There are a lot more things worse in this world than a Church-sponsored pumpkin party on a fictitious date. An atheist cannot expect to avoid seeing something religeous around them.
This also reminds of the children raised completely protected from the outside world, assuming that everyone else is loving, forgiving, wonderful Christians. Then, they turn 18, go to college, and get b-slapped into reality.
Question for atheists (seriously) : Would it not be better for atheists’ children to be exposed to religeon superficially, so that they may sit down with their children to explain and help form a more solid understanding of atheism, along with the family’s reasons? I am not talking about sending them to Vacation Bible School; that’s not a superficial exposure. (just like I wouild NOT suggest people expose their kids to Kill Bill movies to have a better understanding of the real world. lol)
I’m a lawyer (although Rick Tepker kicked my ___ in constitutional law) and a Christian who would enjoy the pumpkin festival. Still, I would prefer public schools refrain from sending home handbills for non-school related events, too. In the alternative, they could send them “under cover” so as not to scar the eyes of the young children and all. I take this view because if we let Christians send home stuff, we’ve gotta let Muslims and Atheists and Satanists send home stuff. Let’s just leave that stuff for outside of class in a public school.
I’d be interested to know if others who are actually involved in public school see any practical problems with this. For instance, would you have other ways of finding out about city sports teams, scouting programs, music programs and the like??
All this over a Halloween pumpkin fest. Bet he’s a REAL hit at Christmas parties!
I understand that it is difficult to get past my biases, since I am a Christian, and went to parochial schools growing up. Christian-based handouts, posters, and fliers were typical growing up, and I don’t have a problem with them. I am not an atheist or a member of some religeon different than Christianity, and want my children to take part in Christmas shows and Easter celebrations at their school (if we decide something other than homeschool). Just as I am Caucasian and find it difficult to truly fully relate to racial discrimination, I am a Christian and find it difficult to truly relate to the atheist or Musliim. I can empathize legally, I guess.
Jan: A practical solution to satisfy the lawyers is to fold the handbills to conceal what’s inside, but print a copy of the contents on the outside so you can read what’s inside before you open it to keep from being offended by opening it.
Zach: Why fight your biases as a Christian when the atheists are riding theirs at full throttle? Time for a little pushback here or they’ll win.
I like how he stated that benedictions are required for commander’s calls. He is in fact… DEAD WRONG. I have not been to ONE commander’s call that has a bendediction. Also, retirement ceremonies are there to celebrate comrades reaching the end of their tour. Although they have a bendiction, that is all in the favor of the person retiring. If he ever retired, he would not be required to have a benediction. If I retired and wanted a pagan benediction, they would supply this for me as it is MY belief and MY retirement.
He has too many chips on his shoulder and uses these chips to gain high levels of attention, and I take it he just wants people to feel sorry for him.
-Anonymous
alright i spend a little time with Ozvath while he was in the military, and at times he realy does come off a little ummm….stong. He threw a fit when we had a ‘christmas party’ and threatened legal matter when we tried to put up a christmas tree. All in all though he does have a point at times (even if he takes it off the deep end ). The millitary should not push religious matters. My past commander would begin every commanders call (kinda like a meet and greet for the big boss) with a prayer…i belive that that is wrong. As it is an offical function it should not have any religious connotation. just my two cents worth