Via the Christian Post.

A Pennsylvania high school is facing a legal battle to keep its monument of the Ten Commandments, which it has had for decades, after an atheist group threatened to sue the school district for violating the separation of church and state.

Wait a minute. Didn’t we already plow this field? Didn’t the Christian side get their asses handed to them?

Administrators at Valley High School in New Kingston, Pa., received a letter last week from the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) asking them to take the down the six-foot-high monument that sits on the school grounds outside of the entrance to the gymnasium. The statue displays the Ten Commandments as found in the Old Testament of the Bible, and was given in 1957 as a gift to the school by the New Kensington Fraternal Order of Eagles, a nonprofit community group.

I can see where this is going…

Valley High School, however, does not currently have any plans to remove the monument, and administrators insist they are ready to settle the issue in court. “We’re not happy with them asking us to take down the Ten Commandments,” Dr. George Batterson, Valley High School Superintendent, admitted. “The one thing that’s very very important that people realize is that there is no way that our school district is trying to promote or impose religion on our students.

But…the ten commandments is…religious. *boggle* For someone to say they’re not trying to promote religion by maintaining a religious monument is like turning on the light in your back yard to see a thief holding your television and him saying, “I’m not stealing your TV.”

Ready for more disingenuous excuses that haven’t worked in the past?

“This is just a monument that was donated by the Fraternal Order of the Eagles, way back in 1957 and we see this having more historical significance than religious,” he explained.

It doesn’t matter if it has more historical significance than religious significance (and I accept that it has less religious significance anyway). If it has denominational religious significance at all then it’s against the law.

And what’s with the idea in both Cranston and New Kingston that because something is a gift that it can’t also be religious? Or that if something is historical that it can’t also be religious? Does anybody buy that for a second? Does it work for other things? Like, if an alumni decided to give the school a bunch of posters of Sasha Grey getting all sextastic with a couple dudes, could we insist, “Are you serious? These are a gift! They’re not pornographic!” as if the two were mutually exclusive?

“I feel it should stay,” added New Kensington Eagles Secretary Marc Hoak. “This is our creed and our motto. I hope (the district) doesn’t consider this group’s request. It seems like they want to take away all of our social values in this country.”

Oh where to fucking start with this…

If the ten commandments are your creed and your motto, how the hell does your superintendent get off saying you’re not promoting religion? And we want to take away your social values? What the fuck does that even mean?

People can keep whatever values they want. Nobody’s suggesting for even a moment that students and teachers must abandon their religion. What we are saying, what the courts have said for the last century, is that the government must represent all citizens equally. We are saying that in order to protect religious liberty for all, not just us, it cannot endorse a particular religion. This is cut and dried.

So when the ten commandments gets removed (and it will, all that remains to be seen is how much money earmarked for education the school wants to piss away defending religious privilege in the process), everybody in the school will still be able to pray. They will still be able to read their bibles in their own time if they’re faculty, and pretty much whenever the hell they please if they’re a student (not during class, obviously).

So don’t piss and moan that by stopping the public school (part of the government) from breaking the law that we are prohibiting any of your social values. We’re not. And the only people gullible enough to buy your martyrdom story are other members of the overwhelming majority.

My dad’s in the comment section taking names (we can zerg the comments by going in and clicking “agree” on all the rational comments). This comment by dad puts it very well.

“Valley High School, however, does not currently have any plans to remove the monument, and administrators insist they are ready to settle the issue in court.” I suggest they check out Ahlquist v. City of Cranston. It only cost that community $175,000 education dollars (they got off easy) to fight that slam dunk decision. I guess it is time to find out how many education dollars Valley High wants to waste fighting a slam dunk decision. How shrewd and responsible.

It’s a damn shame that these administrators are willing to put their religious beliefs above their charge to educate these students. For those who say religions promotes beneficial behavior, I wonder if you could look me in the eye and tell me that administrators like this (and there are lots of them) are not made this way, at least in part, through their religious faith.

I doubt it.