Loading ...Now if he’d placed the ceramic cross in a glass of urine…
flockwoodThe retiree thought he was taking ceramics class, but it turns out he had signed up, inadvertently, for Political Correctness 101.
When he tried to make a cross in his ceramics class at a local community college, he was told that it wouldn’t be allowed. And if he defied orders and made one anyway? Well, he wouldn’t be allowed to fire it in the community college’s kiln.
Sounds like somebody needs to notify the State Department’s U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. It turns out there’s little religious tolerance, at least for Christians, in Turkey. Tajikistan. Texas.
Now, if he’d defiled the cross, or created it out of elephant dung, I’m guessing it would have received a better reception in Moscow. Mesquite.
(To read more, click here.
The ban on cross-making was lifted, but only after lawyers intervened.
In America, we have thought police trying to stamp out too many ideas that I always assumed were protected by the First Amendment. And all too often, these agents of intolerants are educators, which makes it all the more ironic. The targets are often evangelicals, and my hunch is that we’ll see more of this as American society becomes increasingly secular.
January 29th, 2010 at 9:53 am
And as long as some evangelicals demonstrate intolerance as vividly and cruelly (without substantiation) as these people, secular reactions will continue in that vein:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704423204575017441353648852.html
January 29th, 2010 at 2:20 pm
Mitchell, 69 and a retired autoworker, took the Dallas County Community College District’s noncredit class last summer to make gifts for friends at his church. But the school ruled the crosses were not in line with the program goals to encourage original, creative work by students.
Now I want to see what the rest of the class did.
January 29th, 2010 at 4:42 pm
This is a pretty old story and I’m surprised to hear about it again now. There are some important facts left out of this report, leading one to make certain conclusions about oppressive anti-Christian authorities. (Nothing new about that around here.) Here’s another report, from last year, with a fuller explanation:
http://www.wfaa.com/news/College-sued-over-ceramics-class-rules-79362037.html
This course had a policy, presented to the student from the start, that “prohibited items, like religious items and seasonal items, including Christmas and Valentine’s Day, as well as ashtrays, dog bowls, clock faces, and mugs with names, states, football teams, or birthday greetings.” Furthermore, the school explained that “the rules are intended to compel students to make original works and avoid duplicate projects, not to circumvent artistic freedom.”
America is surely a great place. We have free speech where folks can bitch and moan that teachers who require student to do their assignments as assigned are “thought police trying to stamp out too many ideas”. I can hardly wait for this guy to enroll in a Shakespeare class. Then he can sue the school when he fails because he wrote about Jesus Christ instead of Macbeth, and the school will have to apologize and revise it policy to something more…liberal.
January 30th, 2010 at 3:01 pm
Well, I can understand why they ban crosses and ashtrays and things with football references, but what’s wrong with dog bowls???