Good God.

Good God. (No pun intended.) I got over this type of thing in high school and stopped arguing about it in college. How can anyone, with any sense of democracy and understanding of the law, actually think it is okay for a big oil painting of Jesus to hang out side of a principal’s office in a public school?

Yet that is just what is happening in Bridgeport, WV.

From MSNBC:

“The painting, which depicts Jesus in sepia tones on a large canvas and hangs outside the principal's office, has been at the school for 37 years. A guidance counselor left it behind upon retirement.”

The regular list of cultural warriors have lined up to fight this never-ending battle with all of the typical misconceptions. The ACLU v. the life-of-quiet-desperation types. It must be said that most of the misconceptions are emanating from the Jesus Camp. The dumbest misunderstanding is the Bible Bleaters contention that someone is trying to take religion out of public school. This is alarmist bullshit. It would be just as illegal and unethical to ban student prayer as it would be to require it. It isn’t that prayer should be banned, but that mandatory prayer, or prayer at official functions or led by public officials in their official capacity is flatly unconstitutional. Again, something most of us should have learned in high school civics.

The second problem with these zealots is the way they interpret the term "religion." They, as always, seem to think that a religious neutral environment where all religions are given the same rights and privileges is “anti-Christian”. Fundamentalist Christians believe this because, just like the other worldwide evangelical, zero-sum enterprise of fanatical Islam, religion = only Christianity. Therefore, when a court mandates "religious neutrality" it is translated to their misguided, problematic brains as “Jesus was an Asshole,” which he most certainly WAS NOT, though a number of his modern so-called followers certainly are.

A few months ago, I was at something most West Virginias do not believe exists, let alone see; a public school with a majority religion that wasn’t Christianity. It was in a majority Jewish suburb of Cleveland. Guess what? They had tons of religious Jewish imagery throughout the school. See, people of other religions can be just as narrow-minded as Bridgeport Christians, and I was duly offended. Not by the religion itself, but rather the identification of a public school with a specific religious community. Unlike Eric Cartman's hero, Mel Gibson, I like Jews. And Christians and Muslims, etc. Actually, I like some of them and I dislike some of them, but based only on their individual character flaws, not on their stance concerning the baby Jesus, or how many conservative radio hosts can dance on the head of an Oxycontin. I mean, non-Christians are just like real people and everything.

What if it had been a majority Islamic school? I wonder if the same people who defend a public school’s endorsement of Christianity with one of those cheesy Jesus pictures your grandma owned would be so happy if their child attended a school where the 99 names of God were inscribed in the library and most of the students prayed to Mecca right before lunch?

In a great update to the case, the picture of Jesus (or Jaysus as too many of my fellow West Virginians would say) was stolen from Bridgeport High School. Wouldn’t it be funny, if it was the school administration who did it so that they could make the problem go away without backing down?

Original Story:
http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2006/08/west_virginia_s.html

Update:
http://www.dailymail.com/news/News/2006081749/