Ruling ignorant and hypocritical

Published 9:59 pm Friday, September 10, 2010

The Everett School District’s decision to ban a piece of music that has a religious theme is wrong and the recent federal appeals court ruling that supports that decision is equally wrong. (Wednesday article, “Everett school’s ban on ‘Ave Maria’ violated no rights, court rules.”)

This is censorship run amok and on steroids. The Everett School District may be excused for its benighted stand — after all, they are only educators, but I am disappointed in the federal court jurists who really should know better.

The First Amendment to the Constitution guarantees that there will not be an established state supported church and it also guarantees that religious beliefs may be freely expressed. It does not, by the way, specifically use the word separation. This was a later and rather tendentious phrase coined by Jefferson. The left wing nut organization, Americans United for Separation of Church and State, seem to forget the second part.

The Judeo-Christian ethic is simply part of Western civilization and we are culturally part of that civilization, like it or not. To try to separate the two is like trying to separate Siamese twins; the attempt is likely to kill the patient. For heaven’s sake (irony intended) the chorus to Edward Elgar’s “Pomp and Circumstance” march (which everyone would recognize as the graduation march), played ad nauseam at almost every school district graduation ceremony since it was written, ends with, “God, who made thee mighty, make thee mightier yet.”

Please don’t tell the Everett School District, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, or the Americans United for Separation of Church and State or, henceforth, our progeny for generations to come are doomed to march to the not so stirring melody of “Imagine” by John Lennon.

David W. Rash

Everett