The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) recently filed a complaint against a high school in Enfield, Connecticut, because the district uses local churches for graduation ceremonies. Instead, the ACLU wants the schools to hold the events at a secular location, and they're threatening to file a lawsuit if that doesn't happen.
The group says that "graduating students, their families and other guests are unconstitutionally and "coercively subjected to religious messages as the price of attending high school commencement," and that "students and family members of minority religions, as well as those who do not subscribe to any religion at all, are immersed in a religious environment of a faith not their own."
This is an ongoing issue in many parts of the United States. Churches typically have large facilities, and can accomodate more people that the standard high school gym or auditorium setting. My teenage daughter will be graduating in 2010, and there are approximately 800 kids walking the stage that day to collect diplomas. Factor in the notion that each will invite five to ten parents, siblings, and grandparents. Our school district doesn't have a facility that can accomodate that capacity, so guess where our graduation ceremony is held each year?
The uber-fundamentalist World Harvest Baptist Church, home of evangelist Rod Parsley (and yes, he lives about five minutes away from me in a heavily gated compound).
Now, I live just outside a major metropolitan area with several universities and event centers. I find it hard to believe that no one could come up with a better location that World Harvest -- then again, it's a whole lot closer than anything else. Do I feel like my religious rights will be infringed upon next June when I have to walk into WHBC to watch my kid graduate? Not particularly, truth be told, because I know that even though there will be religious iconography all over the place, I'm there for a graduation ceremony, not a church service. Do I think it would be better to have it in a secular location? Absolutely, but logistically speaking, in my community, I don't know if it's possible.
What about the rest of you folks? Does your local high school have graduation ceremonies in a church or other relgious facility because of space constraints? Is it possible for them to hold it elsewhere, or are you in a community in which the church is the biggest place around?
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The group says that "graduating students, their families and other guests are unconstitutionally and "coercively subjected to religious messages as the price of attending high school commencement," and that "students and family members of minority religions, as well as those who do not subscribe to any religion at all, are immersed in a religious environment of a faith not their own."
This is an ongoing issue in many parts of the United States. Churches typically have large facilities, and can accomodate more people that the standard high school gym or auditorium setting. My teenage daughter will be graduating in 2010, and there are approximately 800 kids walking the stage that day to collect diplomas. Factor in the notion that each will invite five to ten parents, siblings, and grandparents. Our school district doesn't have a facility that can accomodate that capacity, so guess where our graduation ceremony is held each year?
The uber-fundamentalist World Harvest Baptist Church, home of evangelist Rod Parsley (and yes, he lives about five minutes away from me in a heavily gated compound).
Now, I live just outside a major metropolitan area with several universities and event centers. I find it hard to believe that no one could come up with a better location that World Harvest -- then again, it's a whole lot closer than anything else. Do I feel like my religious rights will be infringed upon next June when I have to walk into WHBC to watch my kid graduate? Not particularly, truth be told, because I know that even though there will be religious iconography all over the place, I'm there for a graduation ceremony, not a church service. Do I think it would be better to have it in a secular location? Absolutely, but logistically speaking, in my community, I don't know if it's possible.
What about the rest of you folks? Does your local high school have graduation ceremonies in a church or other relgious facility because of space constraints? Is it possible for them to hold it elsewhere, or are you in a community in which the church is the biggest place around?
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Sometimes I think people should get a grip. Not everything is perfect, not every school is big enough nor does a small town have another place big enough that’s not a church. I for one wouldn’t mind having to sit in a church hall for a simple graduation. But if in the graduation ceremony it became a service then that would be wrong but just using the hall, no big deal.
My daughter’s school didn’t have a place to hold graduation, she was only the second class to graduate, and it was held on the field of the Community college but then we lived in a large city.
Our local high school uses their outdoor stadium, rain or shine. But i know there will be an invocation and blessing sort of thing. Oh well, I’ll survive, graciously.
I would imagine that not only logistics (seating, parking, and even location) but also costs would be a big consideration. I would have no problem going to any religious or secular venue because I would keep in mind the purpose. I would certainly not want propaganda shoved at me but I am curious so letting them leave their own stuff on the tables by the entrances would not even present any concern. As long as that same consideration was applied to all whether the event were at a synagogue, temple, church, or oak grove. I think that we have way over balanced on the whole trying to not offend thing. People need to just put on the big kid pull ups and get over themselves and stop looking for offense in everything.
I have no problem with church facilities being used as rental hall spaces when they’re not being used for religious purposes, as long as the event itself doesn’t turn into a religious service. I’ve sat through enough music teachers’ studio recitals in church sanctuaries to get over any problem I might have. Those never harmed me either (well, depending on the student performing…)
Besides, many newer churches these days resemble professional performance halls more than church sanctuaries anyway. (These churches’ services tend to be analogous to their spaces, but that’s a rant for another day. Yet another reason why I left Christianity…)
I don’t think it would bother me, just as long as it doesn’t turn into a religious service.
I will be graduating in 2010 and my schools graduation is always held on campus. It used to be held in the gym, with about 600 people stuffed inside, but now they are held in the new football stadium.
As for graduation being held in a chruch, I don’t think there is a chruch in my town big enough for that (maybe if we added all 500 of them together there will be enough space.)
I know that their will be a prayer of some sort at graduation but it won’t bother me. Neither does prayer before going on class field trips or being made to say the Pledge of Allegence. I live in a town that is openly, predominantly Christian and I just have to deal with it. Its all part of the experience.
I live in Las Vegas, NV. Here they hold graduation at the convention center. Because it is Vegas, the center is HUGE and the graduation ceremony is for all the high schools at one time. Vegas also has a very hi number of other venues, ie: casinos, colleges, and arenas of other sorts. I don’t think that any one church would be big enough for even one high school to use here. I have also lived in small towns and they didn’t use a church there either.
I would have no issue with a church being used, community’s need to work together and a church offering the use of their building to benefit everyone is a good start. When I was younger the church I attended was down the street from a synagogue that had been vandalized. The pastor of our church loaned our building to them while repairs where being done, saying we are all Gods children.
And these comments are, of course, the way it should be. However, there are some religions which do not allow their members to go inside another church’s building, if any attendees belong to such a church, especially any graduates, then I think that needs to be honored. To me, democracy is the majority protecting the rights and rites of the minorities.
I hadn’t even thought about churches not allowing members to even enter another church building. But if it wasn’t for an actual service, I think god and their church would understand and respect them going in and attending a loved ones graduation.
My school used our football field, and the family sat in the bleachers. There was a cap for how many family members you could bring — I wanna say 5 — because otherwise, the bleachers would collapse under the weight. Everyone else could still come, but they’d have to stand on either side of the stage and bring lawn chairs if they wanted to sit.
Larger high schools than mine held their commencement in a local exhibition center where craft shows and the like are normally held.
I wouldn’t be particularly upset about having a graduation service in a church if I knew it was the most pragmatic thing to do. My only hope is that the church made their best effort to minimize Christian iconography for that particular event and, most importantly, avoided any religion-specific convocations by a priest or pastor. With those two exceptions in mind, I think I’d be okay with it.
My uber-small public high school on an Air Force base had our graduation ceremony at the base theater. Usually, Air Force bases build these locations to also accomodate large groups for various types of breifings or other military-action related events where a speaker (like a base commander) has to gather many personnel in addition to playing movies on base at a discounted rate to service members and their families.
I’m graduating next year and my school always uses the church across the street for our ceremonies.
But like I commented somewhere else, it really is not issue in my town because we have a church one every street (I can see two from my bedroom window!).
what if it were a Jewish Temple or a Mosque? Is it the fact that it is a church that makes it so distasteful? I hope that I am reading that the readers are uncomfortable with ANY religious institution being used for public school events.
There is no perfect situation, but I know that no matter how practical it all appears to be, I would be horrified if all the photos of my daughter at graduation had religious icons in the background. When we started at this public charter school, the building wasn’t ready and the “open house” gathering was in a Catholic church on the block. We were horrified as members of an “alternate religion” (even though it predates Catholicism) as many of the children were talking about the saints/icons amongst themselves, leaving my daughter and others who were not part of this culture to the side.
I think it is time for people to understand that you can’t have it all. Maybe instead of inviting 5-10 people each, 2 people should come to a graduation ceremony for each child and the school could use its own facilities. In a long reaching scenario, perhaps we, as a nation, should not build public schools going forward without either a facility that can hold all of it’s events OR a partnership stated from the onset with a new public school with a non religious facility in the area agreeing to hold these events.
Holding public school events in religious institutions has become too accepted overall.
You know if all us Pagans “just put on the big kid pull ups and get over themselves” or “just deal with it” then our religion is going to be bulldozed under once again. I would not want my daughters graduation held in a church if the school was not large enough. The school could find a place large enough even if they had to go outside the city. My school graduation was held outside on the football field and i lived in a tiny town.
As long as we won’t be burned, hung nor drowned for openly wearing our pentacles — mine is nearly always visible. You *know* there would be evil looks even though it would be acceptable to wear a visible cross. They would think we were “blasphemous” for wearing our religious symbols in their god’s “home”. I’m just sayin’.
The Church is not the building, it is the people. The building is just that a building, made up of steel and concrete. It is a graduation inside a large building. This day in age where schools districts budgets are tight with teachers being laid off, the schools need to find the places that are inexpensive and can accomodate the large masses of people wanting to see their love ones graduate. Let the graduations happen as long as no one attempts to make the building a church during the ceremony.