It took the complaint of just one parent to induce the school district of Shorewood, a suburb of Milwaukee, to drop a new student-designed logo from the high school football team's helmets. The reason: The logo included a cross, along with a bishop's hat (similar to the design on the traditional chess piece). The district's superintendent, Martin Lexmond, no doubt feared that the religious symbols, particularly the cross, might raise the ire of the ACLU, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, or some other secular group which have used the First Amendment's supposed “separation of church and state” clause to intimidate schools and municipalities into removing all signs of religious faith from public facilities.continue at New American
“It just didn't occur to anybody that there might be questions about it,” Lexmond told Fox News. “A parent last week raised the question, asking if this was a violation of separation of church and state.” That, apparently, was enough to convince Lexmond and the school board to banish the logo. “It's clearly a Christian cross,” echoed school board member Michael Mishlove to a local Mequon newspaper. “I think it's inappropriate to have on a uniform or any sort of school-authorized clothing, as I think it could be viewed as an endorsement.”
Because Shorewood high school is too small to field a football team on its own, it has partnered since 2000 with Messmer Catholic High School in Milwaukee. The new logo — which combined Shorewood's mascot, a greyhound, and Messmer's uniquely Christian symbols — was designed several months ago by a Shorewood student and added to the team's helmets in August, just in time for the fall high school football season.
Awesome logo! To bad tolerance nazis got to it.
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3 comments:
What should happen, but won't because it's hard to find anyone in Catholic land to stand up for principles, is that Messmer HS should withdraw from the joint football program (and have their own if possible). Shorewood is too small for their own, and so it will effectively shut their football program down. They should get to pay a price for the rabid anti-Christian stance.
The Messmer letter should be coy, though.
"Dear Sirs:
The issue over the logo has made us realize to our horror that our Catholic students might inadvertently be having an effect on your secular students. We feel we must withdraw from the joint program in order to protect you from any church/state litigation over our medieval religious influence. The slightest off-hand Catholic remark by one of our students might cause irreparable damage to the psychological well-being of one of your students, and we just couldn't bear to have that on our consciences."
Totally agree with Cassandra!!
Does Shorewood hs print calendars? Maybe someone could send an email voicing some concern about all the pagan gods, Wodin, Thor, Saturn, Janus, etc. being acknowledged in a gov't printing?
Come on, even people in ultra secular societies like Sweden and Norway and Quebec don't lose any sleep over the fact that their flags are Christian cross variants.
(Don't tell anyone in Shorewood, but even the Wisconsin state flag uses the cross as a heraldic device.)
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