Texas requires ‘In God We Trust’ signs in schools. A man wants some in Arabic
washingtonpost.com
washingtonpost.com
Stuff like this rips the mask off the theocracy that exists in peoples minds or in reality. Sadly, while religious philosophy has admirable aspects it is used for staggering amounts of bigotry. Particularly when it’s adherents ignore it’s tenets that are inconvenient.
They won't link it since they are always starving for your clicks and outrage first before anything else.
I am not American - So strange that the act takes effect even if it does not receive the required votes, only a bit later. How does it work ?
Sec. 39. TIME OF TAKING EFFECT OF LAWS. No law passed by the Legislature, except the general appropriation act, shall take effect or go into force until ninety days after the adjournment of the session at which it was enacted, unless the Legislature shall, by a vote of two-thirds of all the members elected to each House, otherwise direct; said vote to be taken by yeas and nays, and entered upon the journals.
The goal here is for laws not to take people by surprise; when a law is passed, it's not active until ninety days has passed, so people have time to learn about the new law and adjust accordingly. If it is believed that an emergency needs the law to be enforced sooner, the Constitution provides a mechanism for that.
In short, it does need the required votes to become law, but that is in this process a simple majority; a larger majority is required to bypass the 90-day delay.
> The constitutionality of the modern national motto has been questioned with relationship to the separation of church and state outlined in the First Amendment.
> In 1970, in Aronow v. United States, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the motto does not violate the First Amendment to the Constitution. The United States Supreme Court has not ruled on the issue.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_national_motto
Even if this law is challenged in court and is struck down, it is still a win for GOP. They riled up their base over a manufactured issue, diverted their base’s attention from actual issues. This is GOP politics 101 these days.
(I read "a" as meaning the school isn't forced to display 10,000 such posters, should they be donated. Which a prankster totally would do.)
What happens if each of 100 organizations donates a poster?
What size does the poster need to be?
When does a poster get taken down?
Can it be replaced with another poster, should the school administration prefer the other one?
What if I donate a 1"x1" poster to a school? If it doesn't currently have one, will they be forced to hang it in a conspicuous place?
Can the administration use a 1"x1" donation as a reason to take down a larger one?
What if the poster is 40×60 inches, but where the motto is in 6 point text?
AFAIK the USA isn't hanging gay people from cranes or forcing gay people to change gender.
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/rights-group-...
https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2019/04/04/...
Mind changed yet?
And "everyday more similar" is a progression, not an equivalence. A vector, not a single number.
I would not put it past the Southern states to enact laws making it difficult or dangerous to be "out" as gay.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodomy_laws_in_the_United_Stat...
In some cases these laws also criminalize some forms of heterosexual intercourse, as a fun little example of how discriminatory laws targeting the minority can often be repurposed to punish members of the majority who step out of line.
Also, you know this exists, right? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Log_Cabin_Republicans
The thing is, you are right. Extremists have been winning more and more power.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/26/amy-coney-ba....
- Put the text on a gay-rights rainbow flag
- Put it on a Canadian Flag
- Make it a very very small poster
- Make it a very very large poster
- Make it an ad for your new start-up, with the text very very small in the corner
- Put otherwise profane words on the poster but have 'In God We Trust' on it too
- Make a word cloud with the text in the word cloud somewhere
- Make it as offensive as possible to the writers of the law with 'In God We Trust' on it. Like, ads for The Bunny Ranch, or for your DnD club, ads for the nearest abortion clinic, etc.
- Make it useful to the students with the text on it. Put helpful notes about how to use your phone to cheat in class, what teachers you suspect of dating each other, how much the principal makes in a year, etc
- Cherry pick laws you want to highlight and have the text on it.
- Have it be outright campaign ads for politicians with the text on it
In the end, the law is so poorly written that it essential makes staff into full time poster putter-uppers for literally any message you want to have sent. You only need to pay for the poster. This opens up opportunities for the students and teachers.
Would they be required to hang even this poster?
The gay-rights rainbow flag would be information encoded in the color. Subdivision (1) allows only a US flag and a state flag. The "other information" clearly prohibits the ads and other text examples you mentioned, leaving only the size as something you could change.
You will need "a representation of the United States flag centered under the national motto."
The same judge/principal will likely interpret "the national motto" to mean there is only one instance of the motto, and thereby reject repeated copies of the motto.
https://religionnews.com/2022/06/28/teacher-led-prayer-is-ba...
I mean, there are plenty of Christian Arabs along side Jewish, Muslim and many other religions.
How do they refer to a Christian god? In English?
But perhaps it should not be surprising. It is quite common for Christian biblical literalists to refer to English translations of the Bible.
Surprisingly few even read Armenian.
One way might be to compare Quran's Sura 1 to the Lord's prayer in the Bible (either Matthew 6:9– or Luke 11:2- ) , in either arabic or english (or use transliterated) since they overlap.
A salient difference is that the Quran uses "God" while the Bible version uses "Our Father". This is due to the fact that Christianity is trinitarian whilst Islam isn't.
Whether it's the state or school, it'd be pretty expensive.
[edit - This comment is currently at -2, less than 10 minutes after posting it. HN, you're changing, and not for the better...]
[edit #2 - I don't think this has been a very good thread at all.]
Wow, really? Can I ask what country? In my state it's illegal for the leader of a school to neglect or refuse to display the flag:
https://codes.ohio.gov/ohio-revised-code/section-3313.80
...maybe this is a US thing?
From the outside it looks like Americans value the flag more than they value other Americans, in the uk we value brits more than we value the British flag as the flag is just a representation of the people.
Are you sure? I've done a little bit of spot checking on Google Maps, and I find that national flags are clearly visible outside public schools in:
Canada Mexico Poland South Africa
...all have flags with flagpoles outside public elementary schools.
Sorry, I don't know how many countries exist but that's a pretty tiny percentage
[0] https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@43.8835313,-79.4254555,3a,75y...
The day begins with "Good morning" - "Good morning Ms/Mr X".
And being a secular country there is no prayer in school either (however there is religion as a school subject if you are a member of one of the major churches (+ sometimes Islam is offered as well)) or ethics if you are not.
It's almost like other countries could learn from that history of extreme nationalism. The US especially
How many people alive today truly remember what it was like during WW2?
I would argue that Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union is actually what did them in, not the US invasion
What about the comments by no less than Admiral Zhukov himself acknowledging that in his view, the USSR couldn't have defeated Germany without US assistance?
But this is all beside the point of extreme nationalism being a bad thing
Americans get a lot of flak for assuming the world looks like their backyard, but maybe this is a case of the reverse?
We do not display the French flag in schools (for no particular reason, except that you would need someone to take care of that), you would find Forbes on official buildings.
Because it’s a religious motto. It’s not just the national motto.
AND as mentioned by another comment, the specific law in question was explicitly created to push Christianity onto school kids, according to the creators.
And pushing religion on someone in school is against americas stated ideals.
There are other countries to compare yourself with, no need to pick China and Iran.
Very few countries have these types of laws, and it would be straight up unconstitutional in many western democracies.
It’s a stupid law, but at least it doesn’t waste the schools money.
It still wastes school money.
Who installs the sign?
Who cleans it? Who prevents it from being defaced?
And where do their salaries come from?
You are correct that it's a small amount, but it's still a cost to the school.
If it doesn't benefit the school then it's a waste of the school's money.
Also, most school boosterism/Officer-friendly type posters aren't framed, while this law requires the school to put up a framed poster if that's what someone donates. I wonder what the school will do if it's framed in glass.
It's not going to cost them money unless they're actually going to spend more, and they won't. Putting up one poster instead of another isn't spending more, preventing vandalism you're already preventing isn't spending more, etc.
Yes, while putting up a poster on a blank wall is spending more.
Replacing a poster + tape with a framed poster + fasteners is also spending more.
My point is vineyardmike only looked at acquisition cost, not TCO.
I don't see how you can be so sure there is only cost substitution, and that there is no additional cost.
We even read that Chaz Stevens raised $14K to distribute Arabic versions of the sign to schools. Someone in each school needs to receive the sign and decide to toss it.
That's a additional cost which wasn't there before.
Again, agreed - it's small. But I don't agree with your assessment that it's zero.
Because that's how the world works. Schools spend money to have capability to to miscellaneous tasks, things like putting up random posters. Adding one more tiny task, realistically, isn't going to cause them to spend more money, by any reasonable definition. At worst it will bump out a lower priority task (of probably dubious value), but it's just as likely someone will just spend a little less slack time staring at their phone.
tl;dr: it won't cost more, because they're already going to spend the money, one way or another.
> We even read that Chaz Stevens raised $14K to distribute Arabic versions of the sign to schools.
Which is money the school isn't spending. IIRC, the whole point of the thread required the posters be paid for with private funds.
> Someone in each school needs to receive the sign and decide to toss it.
> That's a additional cost which wasn't there before.
That person has always been there, getting paid to handle random stuff like this: there's no additional cost, it was always there.
On other words, why is that person expecting that a donated sign in a random language can be forced to be displayed?
If there is such a law, his lawsuit should be a non-brainer (he is assured to win).
This particular law is a state law passed in Texas. It requires that schools post any privately donated signs with this message. The law is written in English, so the case is not a slam dunk. A court could find that the law specifies the phrase in English and only applies to signs with the English phrase.
This Texas law is an example of the recent trend in the state's politics to leverage private actors to enact policies that may be constitutionally questionable. They also did it with their recent abortion laws, that enable private individual and organizations to sue abortion seekers and providers for facilitating abortions, even if the people bringing suit have no relationship to the abortion activities. The constitutionality of such laws have not been determined in court yet, so they may yet run into issues.
Does it mean that I could address an official body in any language and they are obligated to respond me in it? This sounds like an open door to a lot of abuse.
> A court could find that the law specifies the phrase in English and only applies to signs with the English phrase.
That's a good point.
My main concern was about the mere probability that the case stands in court. (In France for instance, if we had such a law (not gonna happen, hopefully, but who knows), the sign would have to be in French.)
So in the case of the Arabic one in Texas, it was either a sure win (if all languages are compulsory to be accepted), or a sure loss (if there is no such a provision).
If I understand your comment correctly, there is yet a third case: any language must be accepted, but in this case the letter of the law could be made specific to English (I am just rephrasing what your wrote to make sure I understand correctly).
In any case the idea that each and every language is acce^table to deal with official bodies sounds crazy.
I am specifically not trying to be vindictive - I read this official document and was quite surprised by the fact that all federal employees must swear on God (which means, I guess, that an atheist id not bound by the oath?), that it confirms that there is no America without God, or that religion and morality are the fondements of the US.
So if I needed to interact with the USA government (appear in court or apply for a driving licence) I'm entitled to do this in the Welsh language?
I ask this facetiously, as both English and Welsh have official recognition in Blighty.
Based on the civil rights act, it is considered discrimination based on nationality to discriminate based on English proficiency, and therefore illegal.
And of course: Aramaic would be most interesting indeed.
So possibly a poster with : Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic, the three original languages of 3 major monotheistic religions. I think this also meets the requirement that the only words should be "In God We Trust".
It looks like it won't work in this case, but other examples of trolling where courts rule in favor of a literal technical interpretation would be funny to see.
In Texas, Spanish is less foreign than English, as people have been speaking Spanish there for longer than people have been speaking English there.
And https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Texas#Spanish_in_... notes "In August 2004, the community of El Cenizo, along the U.S.-Mexico border, made Spanish its official language."
Lots of small towns in rural US say prayers before their town council meetings. The courts have ruled that this is ok, as long as there is no discrimination between religions - any citizen of that town can request to have their own religion's prayers spoken. People in these towns who are opposed to the Christian prayers have declared themselves to be adherents of the Church of Satan, and won court orders giving permission for Satanist prayers to take place.
There are videos of this happening on YouTube. It's, imo, remarkable evidence of something awesome about the American system. The Church of Satan sends someone scary-looking who recites something purporting to be a prayer, but is actually a speech in favor of humanism and tolerance. They are not allowed to make any political statements so they have to disguise it as prayer. They also make sure they get in lots of satanic-sounding stuff as well, to mess with the Christians. The local rednecks look worried and righteous and mumble anti-satanic stuff under their breath. They are allowed to say personal prayers to protect themselves from the devil, but not at a volume which covers up the satanic prayers. There are US Marshalls all over the place in these little town halls ready to jump anyone who violates any of these court instructions. And dozens of lawyers acting like it's an execution and they might be needed for a last minute challenge.
Most towns where this process has started simply get rid of the prayers at the start of the meeting.
Isn't there a risk to give the impression that humanism and tolerance is something the "other side" wants?
Through history, people have been very good at tribalism, and distancing themselves from the values of their opponents.
Also Arabic is not a “foreign language” in the US. The US does not recognize a national language so, like people, all languages are equal.
They forgot the "l".
> Now, Stevens wants to troll them back.
The votes to reaffirm the national motto pass because of a combination of historical significance and that it doesn't specify a religion. It's stated explicitly each time:
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/in-god-we-trust-r...
Stating that somethings is the case does not make it so. The very article you link to states that it was intended to merge Christianity and patriotism, if you can't see how that makes it very much specific to a particular religion (although not specific to a specific church), then I don't see what evidence could convince you.
Should they have ceremonial atheism too? "In God we don't believe"?