Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.—Gustav Mahler

Monday, March 05, 2007

Real Violations of Religious Liberty

We spend so much time mucking about and yelling at one another about whether we can place the Ten Commandments on the South or North wall of a courthouse or whether a Santa needs to be 3 or 6 feet away from the Christmas creche, that we often fail to recognize how fortunate we are that we live in a land where religious liberty is protected to a degree really unknown in history. So when a story like this pops up, it shakes things up a bit.

It appears that there's a Christian group at Savannah State U that (according to the link above)* got "suspended" because its members engaged in "hazing" rituals. What were those? Why it was that ol' fraternity prank of "foot-washing." Now, for those unfamiliar with this "Animal House" ritual, it was that first pledge bro' Jesus who washed his own disciples' feet at the group's big annual formal, otherwise known as the Last Supper. Boy, was that a good time, except for that one dude who ran off - big party pooper he turned out to be.

Well, then the group at SSU (motto: "You Can Get Anywhere From Here") got expelled because - get this - they went to a Christian concert off campus. Well, we can't be having that, can we? With all the sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll on campus, anyone that goes off campus for a concert is clearly up to no good.

* I couldn't find any independent news on the web - just copies of the complaint and the ADL press release. There might be more to the university's side, of course.

1 comment:

Amy and Jordan said...

I saw this reported on FIRE's blog. Doesn't look like they link to much else original stuff on this specific case.