Sophia Investigates The Good News Club

[hue]

" Published on Feb 7, 2013

Do you think children should be told they are evil and deserve to die? This is what the Good News Club teaches -- in Public Elementary Schools, no less.

In 2001, a conservative Supreme Court overthrew a New York public school's policy of excluding adult-led religious proselytizing groups like The Good News Club from operating in its schools, turning the Establishment Clause on its head. Since then the Good News Clubs have been on a tear, and now can be found in well over 3000 public elementary schools across America...."

[cbayer]

1. Don't get upset if you don't get a lot of action here. We recently had another

thread on this.

http://election.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1218&pid=71865

[idwiyo]

2. Mind boggling.

[goldent]

3. For those who watched the video...

The video is 36 minutes long and contains a lot of fluff - I'd like to see the part where they tell children they are evil and deserve to die - any idea about what time that part occurs?

[Jim__]

4. This is presented as anecdote - 5:15 into video is one place.

The anecdote is told by Katherine Stewart, author of The Good News Club. It is about 2 girls, Ashley and Zoe. Ashley, who just started attending the GNC, tells Zoe that she doesn't believe in Jesus so she is going to hell. I don't know if there is documentation of this in her book.

Also at about 10:00 minutes in they describe how the story of Saul and the Amalekites (sp) is presented by GNC. Essentially, they are told that if God tells you to commit genocide, you are obligated to do it or you will die.

At about 30:00 minutes in they talk about evolution. I can't remember the details, but they are telling children that they cannot believe in evolution and if they do they will die.

[goldent]

8. Thanks for the pointers

It's unfortunate that they claim

Do you think children should be told they are evil and deserve to die? This is what the Good News Club teaches -- in Public Elementary Schools, no less.

because I could see no evidence for that (maybe they didn't think it was important enough to include). But the spooky sinister-sounding music was a hoot!

[backscatter712]

12. Here's another video that talks about the "You are evil scum that deserves death!" lessons.

This video is pulling directly from the official Good News Club curriculum and textbooks.

About 3:10 into this video is where they start talking about the teachings directly, starting with the "Wordless Book" which features a black heart that is a symbol for man's sinful nature.

At 3:24 in the video, a quote directly from GNC material:

It is sin! That is what this DARK page reminds us of. Sin is anything you think, say, or do that does not please God, like lying, cheating, being selfish, or hurting others. The Bible says "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God." --- Romans 3:23. That means everyone, big or little, young or old! No matter where you live or who you are, you have sinned! Everyone is born with a "want to" to do wrong. God says that sin must be punished (Romans 6:23), and the punishment for sin is to be separated from God forever in a place of suffering.... a place called Hell. But God has a wonderful plan so that you will not have to be punished for your sin!"

[Jim__]

5. Here's a link to the decision The Good News CLub versus Milford Central School.

The decision can be found here.

An excerpt:

Held:

1. Milford violated the Club’s free speech rights when it excluded the Club from meeting after hours at the school. Pp. 5—11.

(a) Because the parties so agree, this Court assumes that Milford operates a limited public forum. A State establishing such a forum is not required to and does not allow persons to engage in every type of speech. It may be justified in reserving its forum for certain groups or the discussion of certain topics. E.g., Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of Univ. of Va., 515 U.S. 819, 829. The power to so restrict speech, however, is not without limits. The restriction must not discriminate against speech based on viewpoint, ibid., and must be reasonable in light of the forum’s purpose, Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Defense & Ed. Fund, Inc., 473 U.S. 788, 806. Pp. 5—6.

(b) By denying the Club access to the school’s limited public forum on the ground that the Club was religious in nature, Milford discriminated against the Club because of its religious viewpoint in violation of the Free Speech Clause. That exclusion is indistinguishable from the exclusions held violative of the Clause in Lamb’s Chapel v. Center Moriches Union Free School Dist., 508 U.S. 384, where a school district precluded a private group from presenting films at the school based solely on the religious perspective of the films, and in Rosenberger, where a university refused to fund a student publication because it addressed issues from a religious perspective. The only apparent difference between the activities of Lamb’s Chapel and the Club is the inconsequential distinction that the Club teaches moral lessons from a Christian perspective through live storytelling and prayer, whereas Lamb’s Chapel taught lessons through films. Rosenberger also is dispositive: Given the obvious religious content of the publication there at issue, it cannot be said that the Club’s activities are any more “religious” or deserve any less Free Speech Clause protection. This Court disagrees with the Second Circuit’s view that something that is quintessentially religious or decidedly religious in nature cannot also be characterized properly as the teaching of morals and character development from a particular viewpoint. What matters for Free Speech Clause purposes is that there is no logical difference in kind between the invocation of Christianity by the Club and the invocation of teamwork, loyalty, or patriotism by other associations to provide a foundation for their lessons. Because Milford’s restriction is viewpoint discriminatory, the Court need not decide whether it is unreasonable in light of the forum’s purposes. Pp. 6—11.

2. Permitting the Club to meet on the school’s premises would not have violated the Establishment Clause. Establishment Clause defenses similar to Milford’s were rejected in Lamb’s Chapel, supra, at 395–where the Court found that, because the films would not have been shown during school hours, would not have been sponsored by the school, and would have been open to the public, not just to church members, there was no realistic danger that the community would think that the district was endorsing religion–and in Widmar v. Vincent, 454 U.S. 263, 272—273, and n. 13–where a university’s forum was already available to other groups. Because the Club’s activities are materially indistinguishable from those in Lamb’s Chapel and Widmar, Milford’s reliance on the Establishment Clause is unavailing. As in Lamb’s Chapel, the Club’s meetings were to be held after school hours, not sponsored by the school, and open to any student who obtained parental consent, not just to Club members. As in Widmar, Milford made its forum available to other organizations. The Court rejects Milford’s attempt to distinguish those cases by emphasizing that its policy involves elementary school children who will perceive that the school is endorsing the Club and will feel coerced to participate because the Club’s activities take place on school grounds, even though they occur during nonschool hours. That argument is unpersuasive for a number of reasons. (1) Allowing the Club to speak on school grounds would ensure, not threaten, neutrality toward religion. Accordingly, Milford faces an uphill battle in arguing that the Establishment Clause compels it to exclude the Club. See, e.g., Rosenberger, supra, at 839. (2) To the extent the Court considers whether the community would feel coercive pressure to engage in the Club’s activities, cf. Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577, 592—593, the relevant community is the parents who choose whether their children will attend Club meetings, not the children themselves. (3) Whatever significance it may have assigned in the Establishment Clause context to the suggestion that elementary school children are more impressionable than adults, cf., e.g., id., at 592, the Court has never foreclosed private religious conduct during nonschool hours merely because it takes place on school premises where elementary school children may be present. Lee, supra, at 592, and Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 U.S. 578, 584, distinguished. (4) Even if the Court were to consider the possible misperceptions by schoolchildren in deciding whether there is an Establishment Clause violation, the facts of this case simply do not support Milford’s conclusion. Finally, it cannot be said that the danger that children would misperceive the endorsement of religion is any greater than the danger that they would perceive a hostility toward the religious viewpoint if the Club were excluded from the public forum. Because it is not convinced that there is any significance to the possibility that elementary school children may witness the Club’s activities on school premises, the Court can find no reason to depart from Lamb’s Chapel and Widmar. Pp. 12—20.

[goldent]

9. This decision seems very logical

I understand that school admin often get nervous about religious orgs using school facilities as they don't fully understand the establishment and free exercise concepts of the first amendment. It is also possible that personal bias enters into it.

[Jim__]

10. Here's a link to the full decision, including Stevens' dissent.

The full opinion is here, Stevens dissent start on page 130 (you can search on stevens, dissenting).


An excerpt from Justice Stevens, dissenting.

The Milford Central School has invited the public to use
its facilities for educational and recreational purposes, but
not for “religious purposes.” Speech for “religious purposes”
may reasonably be understood to encompass three
different categories. First, there is religious speech that is
simply speech about a particular topic from a religious point
of view. The film in Lamb’s Chapel v. Center Moriches
Union Free School Dist., 508 U. S. 384 (1993), illustrates this
category. See id., at 388 (observing that the film series at
issue in that case “would discuss Dr. [James] Dobson’s views
on the undermining influences of the media that could only
be counterbalanced by returning to traditional, Christian
family values instilled at an early stage”). Second, there is
religious speech that amounts to worship, or its equivalent.
Our decision in Widmar v. Vincent, 454 U. S. 263 (1981),
concerned such speech. See id., at 264–265 (describing
the speech in question as involving “religious worship”).
Third, there is an intermediate category that is aimed principally
at proselytizing or inculcating belief in a particular
religious faith.

A public entity may not generally exclude even religious
worship from an open public forum. Id., at 276. Similarly,
a public entity that creates a limited public forum for the
discussion of certain specified topics may not exclude a
speaker simply because she approaches those topics from
a religious point of view. Thus, in Lamb’s Chapel we held
that a public school that permitted its facilities to be used
for the discussion of family issues and child rearing could
not deny access to speakers presenting a religious point
of view on those issues. See 508 U. S., at 393–394.

But, while a public entity may not censor speech about
an authorized topic based on the point of view expressed
by the speaker, it has broad discretion to “preserve the
property under its control for the use to which it is lawfully
dedicated.” Greer v. Spock, 424 U. S. 828, 836 (1976); see
also Board of Ed. of Westside Community Schools (Dist. 66)
v. Mergens, 496 U. S. 226, 275, n. 6 (1990) (Stevens, J., dissenting)
(“A school’s extracurricular activities constitute a
part of the school’s teaching mission, and the school accordingly
must make ‘decisions concerning the content of those
activities’ ” (quoting Widmar, 454 U. S., at 278 (Stevens, J.,
concurring in judgment)). Accordingly, “control over access
to a nonpublic forum can be based on subject matter and
speaker identity so long as the distinctions drawn are reasonable
in light of the purpose served by the forum and are
viewpoint neutral.” Cornelius v. NAACP Legal Defense
& Ed. Fund, Inc., 473 U. S. 788, 806 (1985). The novel question
that this case presents concerns the constitutionality of
a public school’s attempt to limit the scope of a public forum
it has created. More specifically, the question is whether a
school can, consistently with the First Amendment, create a
limited public forum that admits the first type of religious
speech without allowing the other two.

Distinguishing speech from a religious viewpoint, on the
one hand, from religious proselytizing, on the other, is comparable
to distinguishing meetings to discuss political issues
from meetings whose principal purpose is to recruit new
members to join a political organization. If a school decides
to authorize afterschool discussions of current events in
its classrooms, it may not exclude people from expressing
their views simply because it dislikes their particular political
opinions. But must it therefore allow organized political
groups—for example, the Democratic Party, the Libertarian
Party, or the Ku Klux Klan—to hold meetings, the principal
purpose of which is not to discuss the current-events
topic from their own unique point of view but rather to
recruit others to join their respective groups? I think not.
Such recruiting meetings may introduce divisiveness and
tend to separate young children into cliques that undermine
the school’s educational mission. Cf. Lehman v. Shaker
Heights, 418 U. S. 298 (1974) (upholding a city’s refusal to
allow “political advertising” on public transportation).

Lawyers are wordsmiths and their public writing almost always sounds logical. It's fascinating to have a lawyer explain a decision to you - they usually see much more than I do. Certain words in the decision may carry legal implications that the layman misses. Stevens goes into different aspects of Lamb's Chapel v Center Moriches Union Free School District than the main opinion.

[goldent]

11. I think the "control over access" argument is invalid

Thanks for posting this, and the constructive discussion...

In the opinion you quote, Stevens refers to these after-hours uses of the school building as "A school’s extracurricular activities." I don't see that at all in this case. As I understand it, the school was allowing use of its building after-hours for a wide range of uses, and I can't see these being "extracurricular activities" in the normal meaning of that term in America. In other words, the physical location of those activities does not make them any more "extracurricular activities" just as holding a high school team soccer practice on non-school fields makes it any less an "extracurricular activity". What matters is the relationship between the school and the activity.

In the opinion he references (Widmar, 454 US) he says this:

Today most major colleges and universities are operated by public authority. Nevertheless, their facilities are not open to the public in the same way that streets and parks are. University facilities -- private or public -- are maintained primarily for the benefit of the student body and the faculty. In performing their learning and teaching missions, the managers of a university routinely make countless decisions based on the content of communicative materials. They select books for inclusion in the library, they hire professors on the basis of their academic philosophies, they select courses for inclusion in the curriculum, and they reward scholars for what they have written. In addition, in encouraging students to participate in extracurricular activities, they necessarily make decisions concerning the content of those activities.

This seems totally inapplicable - as far as I know the school did not in any way "encourage students" to participate in these after-hours activities (or at least, that was not the point of the lawsuit).

In my view, he has an extreme view of the establishment clause that a reasonable person would not agree with. These kinds of views seem to come and ago, and I would guess that in 50 years people will scratch their heads over all of this.

[backscatter712]

6. K&R - These clubs need to be exposed as the cult-brainwashing machines they are. nt

[Phillip McCleod]

7. absolutely infuriating.

no other word for this. i almost wish i hadn't watched that.