A homemaker active in her children’s schools, Mrs. Dobrich said she had asked the board to develop policies that would leave no one feeling excluded because of faith. People booed and rattled signs that read “Jesus Saves,” she recalled. Her son had written a short statement, but he felt so intimidated that his sister read it for him. In his statement, Alex, who was 11 then, said: “I feel bad when kids in my class call me ‘Jew boy.’ I do not want to move away from the house I have lived in forever.”
Later, another speaker turned to Mrs. Dobrich and said, according to several witnesses, “If you want people to stop calling him ‘Jew boy,’ you tell him to give his heart to Jesus.”
-- "Families Challenging Religious Influence in Delaware Schools," NYT, Jul 29, 06
Jesus answered, ‘The first is, “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; 30you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” 31The second is this, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” There is no other commandment greater than these.’
-- Mark 12:29-31
This made me want to vomit:
"“We have a way of doing things here, and it’s not going to change to accommodate a very small minority,’’ said Kenneth R. Stevens, 41, a businessman sitting in the Georgetown Diner. “If they feel singled out, they should find another school or excuse themselves from those functions. It’s our way of life.”"
Find another PUBLIC SCHOOL? What is wrong with people?
Posted by: hannah | 2006.08.01 at 11:52
The thing that bugs me most, I think -- and oh, there are so many things -- is that she seems to be trying to meet them in the middle. She's not trying to get rid of prayer completely, she's just asking that they make it more inclusive.
Also, she GREW UP THERE. Her way of life is their way of life. Also, it's not 1939.
Posted by: drunken monkey | 2006.08.01 at 12:51
Yeah, Mr. Kenneth R. Stevens' comment made me do a double-take.
How fortunate that at no point in Christianity's history were the followers of Jesus ever in the minority. How fortunate that their "way of life" was unequivocally uncontested by others!
Because otherwise, it would be too ironic to consider how people who ascribed to a creed that once led to matrydom ... should so blithely trample over the rights of other minorities to even exist in the same space.
It's not like Jesus was even opposed to minorities. After all, his prophet Zechariah did say: "Show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the foreigner or the poor. Do not plot evil against each other."
Tell me how THAT squares with the actions in Delaware.
Posted by: Lisa | 2006.08.01 at 12:52
Hmmm...wonder if they would call Jesus "Jew Boy" if they ever met him. Because, uh, he was...well, you know. How infuriating.
Posted by: Heidi | 2006.08.01 at 13:15
I think the most telling part of that article is that the mother grew up there, and says that things were not like this when she grew up. This whole Aggressive Christianity movement is obsessed with "going back" to, or "preserving," a time that never even freaking existed in the first place.
Posted by: Alexandra | 2006.08.02 at 15:38