(VIA BLACK CHRISTIAN NEWS) A group of Christian athletes in Virginia was taking a stand Tuesday after high school administrators tore down copies of the Ten Commandments that were posted on their lockers.
Officials at Floyd County High School reportedly told the students that only secular messages like “Happy Birthday” or “Go Team” were acceptable.
The students, members of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, said that they believe their First Amendment rights were violated. When the Ten Commandments were removed from their lockers, they contacted the Liberty Counsel, a legal firm that promotes religious freedom, after a meeting with school officials did nothing to further their cause.
“What they [school officials] can’t do is selectively censor, and that’s exactly what they are doing,” Liberty Counsel founder Matt Staver told newspaper The Virginian-Pilot. The firm also sent a three-page letter to school principal Barry Hollandsworth to ask that the students be allowed to repost the Ten Commandments, in which it criticized the school’s selective enforcement of the locker-decoration policy.
“… a prior restraint on private speech must not discriminate on the basis of viewpoint or content … The policy articulated by Principal Hollandsworth would fail to satisfy constitutional requirements because it would preclude student expression that is religious because it is religious,” it wrote.
To read more go to: http://www.myfoxdc.com/dpps/news/students-fight-back-after-school-bans-religious-messages-dpgonc-20110301-fc_12111776
