America’s New Religious Intolerance

In Enfield Connecticut, the school board was facing a problem. Troubles with their athletic field left them with no facility to hold graduation for Enfield High School and Enrico Fermi High School.

The school board made a deal with the First Cathedral Church in Bloomfield to rent their building on 23 and 24 June. Greg Stokes, chairman of Enfield’s board of education, explained: “It had unlimited seating comfort, convenience, security, safety. It was truly the best venue for the best price and that’s what it was based upon.”

Two students and their parents objected to entering a Christian church and they filed a frivolous lawsuit against the school. They were joined in their suit by the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans for Separation of Church and State.

One of the students is agnostic and the other is Jewish. The agnostic student stated that it would be “difficult if not impossible for me to attend my own graduation if it were held at First Cathedral.” The Jewish student feels that she would be subjected to “Christian beliefs … through its scriptures and symbols.” The parents claimed that they would be deprived of a “once in a lifetime opportunity” if their children chose not to attend the graduation ceremony.

U.S. District Court Judge Janet Hall ruled against the school board, writing “Having considered all three analytical frameworks for determining whether the government action at issue has a principal effect that neither advances nor inhibits religion, the court concludes that it does not have such an effect, and therefore violates the Establishment Clause. By holding public high school graduations in an identifiable church, under the circumstances and context of this situation that would be known to a reasonable observer, Enfield Public Schools endorses religion,” the judge ruled. “By attempting to “neutralize” the First Cathedral by covering up many (albeit not all) of its religious images, Enfield Public Schools unconstitutionally entangles itself with religion. And finally, by requiring a graduating senior — or a parent of one — to enter First Cathedral in order to be able to participate in his or her graduation — or to watch their child graduate — Enfield Public Schools has coerced plaintiffs to support religion.”

I must now point out my own biases. I am an Atheist. That being said, I have two words for these youths and their parents: grow up.

If you enter a church of another religion, there is no boogeyman that is going to jump out and drag your soul to hell to be tormented eternally.    Buildings can’t hurt you.  Symbols and sayings can’t hurt you.  You have the right to worship how you choose (as long as no one else’s rights are violated), but you do not have the right never to be offended or never to see another person’s religious observance.

Your lack of religious tolerance is deplorable. Being physically in a building that is sometimes used as a church will not harm anyone. On the other hand, this frivolous lawsuit has cost the taxpayers of Enfield quite a bit of money which could have been used for better purposes and it also cost the entire graduating class of both schools the use of the best available facility.  No one benefited from your crass display of religious intolerance and the entire community is now poorer because of you.