tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25327006.post89639699005642269..comments2024-01-02T10:55:10.607-06:00Comments on Angry Astronomer: Don't Fuck With Texas.Jon Voiseyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11550625188837528980noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25327006.post-84785447605471200422007-12-01T10:26:00.000-06:002007-12-01T10:26:00.000-06:00As a high school student in Texas at the center o...As a high school student in Texas at the center of curch-state separation issues (my mother recently was elected to the schoolboard and questioned Jesus Christ prayer at school board meetings, consequesntly getting bombarded with emails and persecuted by angry Christians) I was doing some research on the rules regarding the pedge in Texas. This post helped a lot. Honestly, I gotta agree with you. Texas doesn't need messing with. It does plenty of that to itself.DoubleKhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16090856972427413690noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25327006.post-45909429332614918762007-09-04T23:52:00.000-05:002007-09-04T23:52:00.000-05:00The Supreme Court has never really used the Endors...The Supreme Court has never really used the Endorsement Test in questions of sectarian exercises in school, they tend to prefer Justice Anthony Kennedy's "Coercion Test," which has roots in Justice Felix Frankfurter's concurring opinion in <I>Illinois ex rel. McCollum v. Board of Education</I> (1948) where Justice Frankfurter observes, quite accurately, "the law of imitation operates, and nonconformity is not an outstanding characteristic of children. The result is an obvious pressure upon children to [participate in sectarian exercises]."333 U.S. at <A HREF="http://supreme.justia.com/us/333/203" REL="nofollow">227</A> McCollum has since been used in most recent school-prayer decisions including <I>Wallace v. Jaffree</I> 472 U.S. 38 (1984) and, where Kennedy created the Coercion Test, <I>Lee v. Weisman</I> 505 U.S. 577 (1992)<BR/><BR/>"The principle that government may accommodate the free exercise of religion does not supersede the fundamental limitations imposed by the Establishment Clause. It is beyond dispute that, at a minimum, the Constitution guarantees that government may not coerce anyone to support or participate in religion or its exercise, or otherwise act in a way which "establishes a [state] religion or religious faith, or tends to do so... We need not look beyond the circumstances of this case to see the phenomenon at work. The undeniable fact is that the school district's supervision and control of a high school graduation ceremony places public pressure, as well as peer pressure, on attending students to stand as a group or, at least, maintain respectful silence during the invocation and benediction. This pressure, though subtle and indirect, can be as real as any overt compulsion." <I>Id.</I> at <A HREF="http://supreme.justia.com/us/505/577/case.html#587" REL="nofollow">587</A>.<BR/><BR/>Not to say this changes the verdict, but it's generally the more stylish test for things dealing with school.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25327006.post-25021263785044732007-09-02T10:12:00.000-05:002007-09-02T10:12:00.000-05:00There's a question one of the professors here asks...There's a question one of the professors here asks on one of the intro astronomy homeworks about proto-bacteria on Mars. I don't remember exactly, but the question is something like, "how do you think it got there?" (i.e., did life travel from Mars to Earth or Earth to Mars or arise independently on both, and iirc the question is phrased about that specifically). Every year at least one student answers, "God did it," which in turn gives the TA a mild ulcer, but because it is an opinion question ("do you <I>think</I>") with no provable answer, as long as the student's response is self-consistent, even "magic man done it" has to be graded with full marks.mollishkahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16056975190057844089noreply@blogger.com