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Teenager vilified and threatened via social media after winning prayer banner ruling
The Christians once again have the opportunity to show their religion of "love", by verbally abusing and threatening, Jessica Alhquist, a 16 year old Rhode Island high school student. Her school, Cranston High School West, had a banner with a Christian prayer. She complained that it was unconstitutional. She tried reasoning with the school, to no avail, and then the ACLU took up her case. They won in court.
From Hemant Mehta's blog:
The 40-page decision from U.S. District Court Judge Ronald R. Lagueux can be read here(PDF).
Highlights:
The Court rules that Plaintiff [Ahlquist] has standing in this matter and rules in her favor on the merits of this dispute. The Court also orders the immediate removal of the Prayer Mural from the auditorium at Cranston West.
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The Court refrains from second-guessing the expressed motives of the Committee members, but nonetheless must point out that tradition is a murky and dangerous bog. While all agree that some traditions should be honored, others must be put to rest as our national values and notions of tolerance and diversity evolve. At any rate, no amount of history and tradition can cure a constitutional infraction. The Court concludes that Cranston’s purposes in installing and, more recently, voting to retain the Prayer Mural are not clearly secular.
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Plaintiff is clearly an articulate and courageous young woman, who took a brave stand, particularly in light of the hostile response she has received from her community.
JT Eberhard, from Freethough Blogs, has a long blog telling the entire story, here.
Excerpt:
Jessica Ahlquist Totally Was the Bad Guy
January 12, 2012 at 9:31 am 
JT EberhardThere is a large, angry mob in Cranston, Rhode Island (and I imagine this mob extends across the United States) who believes Jessica Ahlquist, a shy, overly compassionate high school student is the bad guy. This boggles my mind.
She saw the prayer banner and did not run immediately to the ACLU. Instead, she informed the administration that the banner marginalized atheists and was illegal. They continued to break the law.
The ACLU sent a letter to the school telling them that the banner was illegal and informing the administration that this was an open and shut case. They did not open with a lawsuit, but they did ask the administrators to stop breaking the law. The administrators declined.
The lawsuit was then organized and the administrators held a meeting to decide if they wanted to fight it out in court. Jessica went to that meeting, was harassed by the adults in her community in doing so, and begged the school not to piss away educational dollars fighting a losing battle. She didn’t want to fight, she just wanted the law to be observed. They didn’t listen.
The mobs inside the school and outside the school were quick to call Jessica immoral as they bullied and harassed her. One day she had to be taken out of school early due to other students threatening violence, presumably because Jessica was the immoral one.
The shrieks from the community came instantly: “This immoral girl is willing to eat away at educational dollars to destroy our tradition!” The presumably moral ones, of course, were the people who valued tradition over the law and over concern for the well-being of marginalized students. Second, the presumably moral ones were the people using the future education of the students in their charge as an aegis so they could continue to break the law. Somehow Jessica was the bad guy.
Naturally, loving Christians responded by hurling abuse and threats at Jessica:
How does it feel to be the most hated person in RI right now? Your a puke and a disgrace to the human race.
shes not human shes garbage
I think everyone should just fight this girl
F**k Jessica alquist I'll drop anchor on her face
Let's all jump that girl who did the banner
But for real somebody should jump this girl
I want to punch the girl in the face
I hope there's lots of banners in hell when your rotting in there you atheist f**k
jessica alquist is gonna get punched in the face
The behavior is not surprising, but still makes me angry that the threats were significant and she actually reported them to the police. She is very brave; she has done absolutely nothing wrong, and it never ceases to amaze me how some Christians can be such cry babies and sore losers, and then immediately turn nasty.
On a bright note: Hemant Metha has set up a college fund for Jessica. >$15,000 were donated in just a few days!
And two other updates from Hemant Metha:
Interesting piece of trivia: Judge Ronald Lagueux was appointed to the bench by that liberal activist…. Ronald Reagan.
…
Jessica Ahlquist has been added to the list of Reason Rally speakers!
Tags: Jessica Alhlquist, civil liberties, constitution, law
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Craig 396 on -
Surely the god botherers are aware of their behavoir or does the belief blind them from being answerable. It's questions like these that seem to get swept away, why no one simply says to these christains (stains) hehe, uumm sorry, anyway why dont we ask these god believing fools to forgive, being part of their belief system, oh, is that to much to ask? Double standards again, I still wonder when these blinded believers will grow up. The world seems to be stuck in a perpetual issue relating to religion, it's time to stop the treadmill and choose a differant path.
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Permalink Reply by Neal on -
I'm tired of christian crap. Listen to this:
Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow’s strong devotion to prayer is inspiring others. On Friday, Colorado Democratic Rep. Sal Pace sent a letter to Tebow and invited him to lead the House in a daily morning prayer prior to the lawmakers beginning work.
According to ESPN, Pace wrote in the letter to Tebow that he believed he was an excellent choice for this task to “give Colorado’s elected officials guidance as we take on the important task of leading Colorado.”
Put an atheist there or kick this bullshit practice out of the government.
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Permalink Reply by Adriana on -
A complete violation of the separation of church and state. But to me, that Obama (or any US president) had an invocation, a religious prayer, at his inauguration, is an aberration.
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Permalink Reply by Neal on
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Here's the link to a video where the gentleman who wrote the prayer makes his case; a very bad one. Go dislike, I did, he's a jackass.
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Permalink Reply by Adriana on
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Jessica tweeted this:
jessicaahlquist Jessica AhlquistState representative Palumbo called me an "evil little thing." At this point, it's just funny.It's not just immature idiots who are calling her names, apparently state representatives, too! i don't know who this Palumbo person is, but I think we should let him know that we disapprove of his comment, especially in light that Jessica went to court so the law was upheld!
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Permalink Reply by Neal on
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I replied to her directly on that one. Representatives supposedly represent all, he should be gone. I sent him a few nice thoughts that he will ignore since I don't live there, but still felt good.
Have been spending time commenting on every video that shows some asswipe talking about how they want that prayer to stay. Some comparing its removal to the columbine shootings. Pigs. My lone comments are everywhere, well, at least on several. =)
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Permalink Reply by Adriana on
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Comparing the removal of a banner to the Columbine shootings?? What kind of moral monster could do that? I'm hoping it was just an immature kid that made that comment.
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Permalink Reply by Neal on
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It was a gentleman older than me. His point was that if there is more religion in school, bad things wouldn't happen. Bah.
Here's how christianity helps the children attending that school:
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Permalink Reply by Neal on
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On one of her tweets she threatened to let the law see his comments. But now that I'm looking closer at her twitter account; either she is very cautious on who she will follow, or she may be thinking there's fame to gain. =(
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