ALBANY, N.Y. — Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund applauded a decision by a federal district judge who ruled that high school officials implementing a fundraising campaign could not censor parents who wanted to purchase a brick for their children inscribed with the words, “Jesus Loves You.”
“School officials shouldn’t be treating Christian students and their families as second-class citizens,” said ADF Senior Counsel Gary McCaleb. “These school officials clearly violated the First Amendment of the Constitution when they discriminated against families who adhere to the Christian faith.”
The purchasing of bricks that contain families’ personal messages is part of Mexico Academy and Central School’s fundraising campaign to raise money for the school through the construction of a brick sidewalk. The only stipulation on the message of the bricks, besides a 14-letter limit, was that vulgar and obscene messages would not be permitted, nor would “love interest” messages be allowed.
Several years before, the school officials had defended messages acknowledging Jesus against the complaint of a community member, but after the community member contacted the American Civil Liberties Union, the school apparently succumbed to pressure and eventually arrived at their current policy.
The officials had denied the request of families who purchased bricks for their children with the “Jesus Loves You” inscription yet had allowed the messages such as “God bless you” and “Praise God.” In their denial letter to the Christian families, the officials said that references to “God” would be allowed because it was a universal term but that a reference to Jesus would not be allowed since it promoted Christianity.
“It is hypocritical for school officials to say that ‘God’ is okay but ‘Jesus’ isn’t,” said Tom Marcelle, who served as lead counsel on the case,
Kiesinger v. Mexico Academy and Central School. “We are pleased that the judge came to the right conclusion in this ruling.”
A copy of the decision from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York can be read at
www.telladf.org/UserDocs/KiesingerDecision.pdf.
ADF is a legal alliance defending the right to hear and speak the Truth through strategy, training, funding, and litigation.
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