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Monday, June 25, 2007

High court finds religion 2-day

The U.S. Supreme Court found religion today -- or at least issued two rulings with a religious connection.

In one case (Hein v. Freedom from Religion Foundation), the high court found that a taxpayer lacks the standing to challenge President Bush's faith-based initiatives program. Liberal groups blasted the decision, which leads to the dismissal of claims brought by a group of agnostics and atheists in Wisconsin. Personally, I didn't think they had a prayer with this one. The high court apparently agreed.

The second case, Morse v. Frederick, is actually a free-speech case involving a religion-related(?) message. The high court upheld the 10-day suspension of an Alaskan student who held up a "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" banner at a school-sanctioned event. The student apparently had no idea himself what the bizarrely worded banner meant. School officials weren't so sure either -- but understandably thought it might have something to do with promoting drug use and made the decision to suspend him.

It strikes me as odd (though I have not checked to see if there is precedent for it) to have a free speech case in which the person whose speech rights were allegedly violated has no idea what he was trying to say.

In any event, in the future, students who want to make desperate bids for attention will have to stick with tradition and dye their hair blue or purple ...

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