23

I'm skipping yesterday's two most active threads because they are ones that I've already discussed. The third most active thread yesterday was titled, "Bible verse card at work", and posted in the "Jobs and Careers" forum. The original poster says that she is a public school teacher and that yesterday every teacher received a sealed envelope in their school mailbox containing a personalized Bible verse signed by a local church. The original poster is very upset and believes that the school secretary must have been involved in allowing the envelopes to be distributed. The original poster considers this an unacceptable intrusion of religion into a secular space. Responses can be categorized as three different types. There are many posters who think the Bible verses were harmless and many of these posters consider sending the verses to have been a nice gesture. This group believes the original poster is wrong to feel offended. Next are posters who agree with the original poster that distributing Bible verses in public school teachers' mailboxes is inappropriate. But they simply don't consider it to be a big enough deal to be upset about. They would have tossed the envelopes in the trash and not given them a second thought. Third were those posters who both agree with the original poster that the envelopes were inappropriate and that their distribution was worthy of a response. The original poster said that she had talked to her principal and emailed the church, steps that are consistent with the advice offered by other posters. Other public school teachers posted about the intrusion of religion into their schools. This includes prayers during meetings at which attendance is required and the reading of Bible verses at staff functions. Many posters argue that this is not only an unwelcome violation of the separation of church and state, but potentially an illegal one as well. Those who support the Church in this episode argue that it is simply the Church's right of free speech to distribute the Bible verses. What is particularly notable about this group is what I can only describe as their passive aggressive methods of practicing Christianity. The thread is full of such things as offers to "pray for" the original poster that are clearly not meant to be true offers to help the original poster in anyway. Rather, these are clearly attempts to further poke her. In addition, as several posters point out, it is very likely that the same posters who so adamantly claim support for the 1st Amendment that would be among the first to support banning books that offend them. Moreover, these folks have a very specific understanding of the 1st Amendment. Even if we disregard the establishment clause issues of distributing Bible verses at a public school, many of the supporters of that action don't seem to recognize a similar free expression right to oppose the activity. If we accept that a church can send teachers Bible verses, certainly we must also agree that a teacher has a right to vocally oppose the church's action. But many among the pro-Church crowd consider that to be intolerant and, because liberals are supposed to be tolerant, hypocritical (they also assume the original poster is a liberal).