One More Win For Political Correctness

[tall_bearded01]

An item sent to me by a friend in the USA

Football players at Arkansas State University were ordered to either remove a Christian cross decal from their helmets or modify it into a mathematical sign after a Jonesboro attorney complained that the image violated the U.S. Constitution.

The cross decal was meant to memorialize former player Markel Owens and former equipment manager Barry Weyer, said athletic director Terry Mohajir.  Weyer was killed in a June car crash. Owens was gunned down in Tennessee in January.

These young men were simply trying to do a good deed. They were standing up for their fallen teammates. It’s really too bad the university could not stand up for the team.

Barry Weyer, Sr., told me that the players and coaches voluntarily decided to memorialize his son and Owens. 

“The players knew they were both Christians so they decided to use the cross along with their initials,” he said. “They wanted to carry the spirits of Markel and Barry Don onto the field for one more season.”

It was a decision that had the full support of the university’s athletic director.

“I support our students’ expression of their faith,” Mohajir said. “I am 100 percent behind our students and coaches.”

However, the athletic director said he had no choice but to remove the crosses after he received a message from the university’s legal counsel.

“It is my opinion that the crosses must be removed from the helmets,” University counsel Lucinda McDaniel wrote to Mohajir. “While we could argue that the cross with the initials of the fallen student and trainer merely memorialize their passing, the symbol we have authorized to convey that message is a Christian cross.”

According to documents provided to me by Arkansas State, McDaniel gave the football team a choice – they could either remove the cross or modify the decal. And by modify – she meant deface.

“If the bottom of the cross can be cut off so that the symbol is a plus sign (+) there should be no problem,” she wrote. “It is the Christian symbol which has caused the legal objection.”

The team had been wearing the decals for two weeks without any complaints. That changed after last Saturday’s nationally televised game against the Tennessee Volunteers.

Jonesboro attorney Louis Nisenbaum sent McDaniel an email complaining about the cross decal.

“That is a clear violation of the Establishment Clause as a state endorsement of the Christian religion,” Nisenbaum wrote. “Please advise whether you agree and whether ASU will continue this practice.”

Ironically, the university’s legal counsel admitted in a letter that there were no specific court cases that addressed crosses on football helmets. Nevertheless, she feared the possibility of a lawsuit.

“It is my opinion that we will not prevail on that challenge and must remove the crosses from the helmets or alter the symbols so that they are a (plus sign) instead of a cross,” she wrote in an email to the athletic director.

The Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation fired off a letter congratulating the university on cleansing the helmets of the Christian symbol.

“The crosses appeared to confer State’s endorsement of religion, specifically Christianity,” the FFRF wrote. “The inclusion of the Latin cross on the helmets also excludes the 19 percent of the American population that is non-religious.”

FFRF co-presidents Annie Lauire Gaylor and Dan Barker went so far as to suggest alternative ways for the football players to mourn.

“Many teams around the country honor former teammates by putting that player’s number on their helmets or jerseys, or by wearing a black armband,” they wrote. “Either of those options, or another symbolic gesture free from religion imagery, would be appropriate.”

That suggestion set off the athletic director.

“I don’t even kinda-sorta care about any organization that tells our students how to grieve,” Mohajir told me. “Everybody grieves differently. I don’t think anybody has the right to tell our students how to memorialize their colleagues, their classmates or any loved ones they have.”

While Mr. Weyer told me he supports the university “100 percent”, he said he took great offense at the FFRF’s attack.

“The fact is the cross was honoring two fallen teammates who just happened to be Christians,” he wrote on his Facebook page. “I just have a hard time understanding why we as Christians have to be tolerant of everybody else’s rights, but give up ours.”

I do, too, Mr. Weyer. I do, too.

Liberty Institute attorney Hiram Sasser told me he would be more than honored to represent the football team in a lawsuit against the university.

“It is outrage that the university defacing the cross and reducing it to what the university calls a plus sign,” he told me. “It is disgusting.”

Sasser said the students are well within their rights to wear a cross decal on their helmets and accused the university of breaking the law.

“It is unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination to force the players to remove or alter the cross on their helmets that they chose themselves simply because the cross is religious,” Sasser said.

These young men were simply trying to do a good deed. They were standing up for their fallen teammates. It’s really too bad the university could not stand up for the team.

“The university and others want football players to be positive role models in the community, but as soon as the players promote a positive message honoring their former teammates – the university discriminates against them in a blatant violation of the Constitution.”

Mr. Weyer said he’s not a political man – but he is a Christian man. And he’s tired of having to kowtow to the politically correct crowd.

“It’s time that we as Christians stand up and say we’re tired of being pushed around,” he said. “We’re tired of having to bow down to everyone else’s rights. What happened to our rights? The last time I checked it said freedom of religion – not freedom from religion.”

[cherry*135]

 Political Correctness in the USA

Would it be an issue in Australia?

[tall_bearded01]

Just two instances that immediately come to mind

A year or so ago the CEO of the Royal Adelaide Hospital directed that there would not be a minutes silence or sounding of the last post on Remembrance Day because it might offend some patients belonging to minorities.

We also have the case where, in some public schools, children cannot put up Christmas decorations, sing Christmas songs, or even exchange Christmas cards on school grounds, because they may offend other religious minorities at the school or make them feel excluded.

[i-need-a-martini]

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@tall_bearded01 wrote:

Just two instances that immediately come to mind

A year or so ago the CEO of the Royal Adelaide Hospital directed that there would not be a minutes silence or sounding of the last post on Remembrance Day because it might offend some patients belonging to minorities.

We also have the case where, in some public schools, children cannot put up Christmas decorations, sing Christmas songs, or even exchange Christmas cards on school grounds, because they may offend other religious minorities at the school or make them feel excluded.

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I can't find any journalistic reference to either of the two things you mentioned above.

The only reference to a school removing "Christmas" was a NON-DENOMINATIONAL Monstessori school in Sydney in 2012. AS the school was specifically non-religious then I would expect that they WOULD remove all references to religion as part of their activities.

Other than that there are a lot of blog and forum references to Christmas not being allowed to be celebrated. But no actual  occurences seem to be real. It is simply anti-Muslim propaganda that is (Like all propaganda is) not true.

[tall_bearded01]

The RAH ban was on the local news, both radio and TV

The Christmas ban is from personal experience.at my grand child's primary school.

[tall_bearded01]

Anyway you must not have been looking too hard. After a quick 5 minute Google search here is a small sample.

Article - Janet Albrechton, The Australian August 2011

Article - Sydney Morning Herold Sept 2014

ABC’s the Drum, November 2010

Reference Paper Mark Railbird, University of Adelaide “Humour, Multicultural and Political Correctness 2004.

What I found striking about the above is an apparent common thread. That political correctness is more often than not used when someone wants to shut down or steer people away from legitimate discussion one issues dealing with multiculturalism, race relations or religion, by using comments such as “Other than that there are a lot of blog and forum references to Christmas not being allowed to be celebrated. But no actual occurences seem to be real. It is simply anti-Muslim propaganda that is (Like all propaganda is) not true.”

[this-one-time-at-bandcamp]

First of all, it's not political correctness, it's a violation of the Constitution.......Arkansas State receives federal and state  funds.......and for those pundits that contend there is no "separation of church and state in the Constitution, SCOTUS has alread deemed that there is.

[tall_bearded01]

Yes, I understand that you have in the US a Supreme Court (the equivalent of our High Court decision) that because of the seperation of  state from religion, it's unconstitutional for state owned or funded instructions to promotie religious issues.

But like all laws, people, mostly those who think in absolutes, take these laws to the extreme. The decision to use the symbol was a personal choice made by individuals (the students) not a decision by the school. That is, I was a matter of personal choice and not a dictate of school.

So where does it stop. Say a devout Muslim student wants to wear a traditional Muslim dress, or a devout Catholic a crucifix are they barred by the constitution from wearing these regions symbols inside state owned institutions because one may offend the other.

[i-need-a-martini]

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@tall_bearded01 wrote:

Anyway you must not have been looking too hard. After a quick 5 minute Google search here is a small sample.

Article - Janet Albrechton, The Australian August 2011

Article - Sydney Morning Herold Sept 2014

ABC’s the Drum, November 2010

Reference Paper Mark Railbird, University of Adelaide “Humour, Multicultural and Political Correctness 2004.

What I found striking about the above is an apparent common thread. That political correctness is more often than not used when someone wants to shut down or steer people away from legitimate discussion one issues dealing with multiculturalism, race relations or religion, by using comments such as “Other than that there are a lot of blog and forum references to Christmas not being allowed to be celebrated. But no actual occurences seem to be real. It is simply anti-Muslim propaganda that is (Like all propaganda is) not true.”

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Thanks for listing those non-specific non-links complete with spelling mistakes just to make the search harder.

I assume that you couldn't supply the links yourself for a reason?

Well, I have searched every combination that I can possibly find for all of those 'needle-in-a-haystack' hints and I am still no closer to finding anything at all that backs up your claims.

1. Whilst I am sure that Janet Albrechtsen would have written about the idea of christmas bans in any one of her blogs the 'lets stop political correctness' bandwagon is her thing, I can't find a single article of hers which specifically mentions a public school ban on christmas.

2. The SMH publishes over a 1000 articles a day which would give us 400,000 plus articles in 2014. Perhaps you could be a little more specific about which article you are referrring to?

3. Again can't find any reference from The Drum archives about christmas bans or SAH bans. 

4. Mark Rainbird (took me a while to find him thanks to that error) did indeed present a paper on Humour and Multiculturalism. However the paper was about the comedian Kevin Bloody Wilson who's comedy is generally considered to be unnacceptable in this day and age - even tho he is still telling the same jokes and I know because I went and saw him 2 years ago to see if anything had changed. It hadn't.. Rainbirds paper says the opposite of everything you are saying anyway and he concludes with:

"KBW fails to recognise the position of privilege that he, as a white, Anglo-Celtic male, maintains in Australian society; rather he claims ‘victim’ status that is associated with the politics of the New Right. In doing so KBW justifies the use of tendentious jokes at the expense of previously marginalised groups that are now reconstructed as powerful organisations and groups. Moreover, through the construction of the politics of identity and the denial of the legitimacy of difference, KBW’s ‘subversive’ humour ends up reasserting a traditional Anglo-Celtic form of Australian identity at the expense of others."

So not sure why you mentioned the Rainbird paper.

And as for the other items, perhaps you could be so kind as supply proper links this time to support your claims as I felt that I have spent the last 30mins on a wild goose chase that yeiled nothing.

[fayekinnitt]

One key detail was left out of the Fox News story, which explains why the Christian Cross was to be removed or modified:

In order to comply with the First Amendment's prohibition of a state-sponsored religion, the memorial dedicated to the memory of the two men could not be a religious symbol on helmets, which are public university property.

Rebecca Markert, an attorney for the FFRF said of the school's decision to remove the decals: “That is great news. Putting religious imagery on public school property is unconstitutional."

There are other clues in this article that suggests the writer is quite biased in his reporting this incident.