Midland (Michigan) Daily News:

The U.S. Capitol’s architect won’t allow God to be mentioned in certificates of authenticity accompanying flags flown over the Capitol and bought by constitutents.

A 17-year-old Eagle Scout from Ohio reportedly was denied the request to have a certificate read, “This flag was flown in honor of Marcel Larochelle, my grandfather, for his dedication and love of God, country and family.�?

“I can’t believe the U.S. House of Representatives can pass a resolution recognizing the Muslim holiday of Ramadan, which we did this week, but can’t send out certificates with the word ‘God�?on them,�?(Rep. David) Camp (R-MI) said. “It doesn’t make any sense. The policy needs to be changed.�?/P>

The controversy over certificate wording has arisen several times in past years, with the architect’s office saying religious and political messages should not be permitted, House leadership aides said.

In what the Providence Journal (if asked for login, use BugMeNot) describes as “a show of sensitivity,�?the nincompoop Superintendent of a Tiverton, Rhode Island Middle School has banned the Easter Bunny.

It’s not that he has anything against rabbits, or even eggs, he’s just worried about the use of the word “Easter.�?/P>

The Easter Bunny was to have made a stop at a craft fair at the Tiverton Middle School tomorrow, appearing for photos with students as part of a fundraising effort sponsored by the school’s Parent-Teacher Council.

But Schools Supt. William Rearick called a halt to the use of the word “Easter�?at a school event, just as the word “Christmas�?is out of bounds in school publications and activities.

Instead of the Easter Bunny, the Parent-Teacher Council booth will offer photos with Peter Rabbit.

Similarly, Rearick said, he has told officials of the Tiverton Land Trust that a flier inviting children to an egg hunt cannot include the word “Easter.�?.

Rearick nixed the Easter Bunny in response to a complaint from Burk, vice chairman of the School Committee.

Burk said yesterday that the appearance of an Easter Bunny at a school event would violate federal prohibitions against the public schools “soliciting or encouraging religious activities or participating in such activities.�?/P>

The Flat Hat student newspaper reports:

The cross from the altar area of the Wren Chapel has been removed to ensure that the space is seen as a nondenominational area, Melissa Engimann, assistant director for Historic Campus, said in an e-mail to Wren building employees.

“In order to make the Wren Chapel less of a faith-specific space, and to make it more welcoming to students, faculty, staff and visitors of all faiths, the cross has been removed from the altar area,�?Engimann said.

The cross will be returned to the altar for those who wish to use it for events, services or private prayer. Student tour guides have been directed to pass any questions or complaints about the change on to administrators

On the lighter side, Chuck at YARGB, thinks he knows who is responsible:

You know who fears the cross? Right, vampires. William and Mary has been infested by vampires. Hidden stairways in the faculty lounges lead to the crypts beneath the campus of America’s second oldest university; there the administration and tenured faculty spend their “break time�?resting on a thin layer of rich soil lining the bottom of comfortable coffins. Soon garlic will be banned from the cafeteria because some find its odor “offensive.�?Mirrors will be removed from the restrooms. There will be more night classes for “non-traditional students.�?The town’s people had better lay in a stock of wooden stakes and torches, they are going to need them.

Calling Buffy. Where are you Vampire Slayer?

Michael L. (“Mikey�? Weinstein comes from a military family. His father was an Annapolis graduate. He attended the Air Force Academy himself, and worked in the Reagan White House, in David Stockman’s Office of Management and Budget. But Weinstein became a secularist gadfly, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars of his own money, and growing his one man single-issue capaign into an organization combatting Christianity in the US military. Weinstein’s vendetta began in 2004, when his two sons who were then attending the Air Force Academy allegedly experienced anti-Jewish slurs and were subjected to proselytizing by Evangelical Christians. CNN

Weinstein’s latest demand is for the elimination of a unit’s nickname.

An Air Force Academy graduate from Albuquerque wants Cannon Air Force Base officials to end the 523rd Fighter Squadron’s use of “Crusaders�?as the unit’s nickname.

Mikey Weinstein, who has sued the Air Force over allegations that Air Force Academy cadets were unconstitutionally subjected to Christian evangelization, has complained about the 523rd’s unit emblem, which features a cross, a sword and an armored helmet.

“The airmen of 523rd Fighter Squadron �?not only have invoked the term ‘Crusaders�?to describe their unit, they use blatantly sectarian religious symbolism on the patches they affix to their uniforms and the official logo of their unit,�?Weinstein wrote in an article for the Sept. 4 issues of the Air Force Times, Army Times and Navy Times.

Weinstein, president and founder of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, said the Cannon squadron’s symbols should be eliminated.

“I’m not asking them. I’m demanding they change it,�?Weinstein said in a telephone interview Thursday.

Two teen-age girls expelled last September from California Lutheran High School in Wildomar, California for indecent conduct filed a lawsuit seeking readmission, along with unspecified damages and an injunction barring the Riverside County school from excluding gays and lesbians.

Last Wednesday, the California Supreme Court unanimously declined to review an appeal brought by the school, allowing the case to proceed to trial.

The ACLU is not content with censoring and then pulling the plug on high school graduation speeches in Nevada.

Officials and a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union said Friday that administrators followed federal law when they cut the microphone on Foothill High School valedictorian Brittany McComb as she began deviating from a preapproved speech and reading from a version that mentioned God and contained biblical references.

“There should be no controversy here,�?ACLU lawyer Allen Lichtenstein said. “It’s important for people to understand that a student was given a school-sponsored forum by a school and therefore, in essence, it was a school-sponsored speech.�?

They are also hard at work on prohibiting the expression of dissent by their own board members.

Several board members of the American Civil Liberties Union expressed concerns at a meeting yesterday over proposed standards that would prohibit board members from publicly criticizing the organization’s policies and internal operations.

“I cannot vote for these proposals, as I have violated them nearly every time I have written an op-ed piece or spoken to the press,�?said Mary Ellen Gale, an at-large member.

Bennett Hammer, a board member representing the organization’s New Mexico affiliate, cited examples of decisions in the last few years that he said had embarrassed the A.C.L.U. and contended that adopting the proposals would be yet another of “the things that have made us a laughingstock with the public.�?/P>

The board nonetheless voted against motions to strike the controversial provisions from the proposals and instead opted for further discussion.

Emily Whitfield, an A.C.L.U. spokeswoman, said the failure of the motions was not an endorsement of the proposals. “A vote at this early stage would have been a departure from the board’s deliberative process, and to suggest otherwise would be unfair and misleading,�?she wrote in an e-mail message.

One of the provisions said, “a director may publicly disagree with an A.C.L.U. policy position, but may not criticize the A.C.L.U. board and staff.�?/P>

Another said, “Where an individual director disagrees with a board position on matters of civil liberties policy, the director should refrain from publicly highlighting the fact of such disagreement.�?/P>

Shouldn’t these guys change their name already?

Theresa Rodriguez Farrisi, working as a substitute teacher in a Pennsylvania elementary school, last week, indignant that the lesson plan required her to read Clement C. Moore’s 1822 poem The Night Before Christmas to six and seven year olds, responded to what she viewed as the intrusion of religious expression into public education by delivering a diatribe debunking Santa Claus, which sent children home in tears.

She later explained:

Last week I substituted at a local elementary school in Lebanon County. The lesson plan required me to read the 1882 (sic) poem “The Night Before Christmas�?by Clement Clarke Moore to two classes of students. While I can appreciate the poem for its literary value, the subject matter is offensive to me, and the reading of this poem to the children imposed values upon me which are against my deeply held religious beliefs. I could not in good conscience present the notion of Santa Claus as a truth to the children, and stated so.

No public-school teacher should be required to teach a belief, custom or religion that he or she believes to be false, or be required to pass those purported falsehoods onto impressionable children, without the right to state a disclaimer. Furthermore, freedom of speech and religion, no matter how unpopular the speech or against cultural norms the religion, are protected rights.

A secular public school should not be propagating any kind of religion. The belief in Santa Claus as a divine, magical, omniscient, powerful, giving, loving father-figure, to whom children are taught to make supplications and requests, is a religion indeed �?a distorted substitute for the Judeo-Christian God.

The misfortune is that the modest exposure to higher education this woman had in the course of her professional preparation failed to make her a more humane, a more broad-minded person. It simply left her, as contemporary education leaves so many, overly supplied with opinion, and poorly equipped with judgement.

There is always another political correctness story coming out of New England. This holiday season, the town of Medway, Massachusetts, located southwest of Boston, has a middle school making the news:

MEDWAY—Some parents are scratching their heads after school administrators insisted students call a Christmas tree a “magical tree,�?the color red was removed from green and red elf hats, and songs from “Jesus Christ Superstar,�?were pulled from a winter concert.

Parent Tracy Goldrick said she has spoken to at least 20 parents who are, at the least, mildly annoyed at “the watering down of Christmas.�?

Goldrick’s daughter, Tess, 11, said some of her peers were upset they lost their solos in the “Jesus Christ Superstar,�?songs.

In addition, Tess said she was confused when her teachers said the Christmas tree that was part of the scenery for the play would be called a “magical tree.�?“About a week ago, we had to call it a magical tree,�?Tess said. “And they changed our red and green elf hats to green and white. I think they didn’t want them to have anything to do with Christmas colors.�?