Hate goes back to school.

You can tell it’s time for the kids to head back to school.  You can tell by the amount of stupid the parents are sending out there…

“Devil” shirts send kids home

GAINESVILLE, Fl (Gainesville.com) 26 August - More children from the Dove World Outreach Center arrived Tuesday at area public schools with shirts bearing the message “Islam is of the Devil” and were sent home for violation of the school district’s dress code when they declined to change clothes or cover the anti-Muslim statement on their clothing.

School district staff attorney Tom Wittmer said the shirts violated a district ban on clothing that may “disrupt the learning process” or cause other students to be “offended or distracted.”

“Students have a right of free speech, and we have allowed students to come to school wearing clothes with messages,” Wittmer said. “But this message is a divisive message that is likely to offend students. Principals, I feel reasonably, have deemed that a violation of the dress code.”

Wittmer said the school district allows students to express their religious beliefs but also must protect other students, such as members of the Muslim faith, from discrimination based on their religious beliefs.

He said there also has to be equal treatment of different faiths.

“The next kid might show up with a shirt saying ‘Christianity is of the Devil,’” Wittmer said.

First Amendment scholars said the school district’s policy is likely legal and constitutional. Ron Collins, a scholar with the nonprofit First Amendment Center in Washington D.C., said courts give public school officials a “significant amount of latitude” in regulating student dress that could disrupt the classroom or a school function.

“Here, it’s not only a religious expression,” Collins said. “It’s a religious expression that is hostile to other forms of religious expression.” [Emphasis mine.]

Collins did note that student speech is afforded more protection at the college or university level.

Catherine Cameron, a faculty member at the Stetson College of Law, said the school district “likely has a good leg to stand on from a First Amendment standpoint” because the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in several cases that public schools may quash speech deemed disruptive “even if it steps on the other child’s free speech rights.”

On their front, the T-shirts had a verse from the Gospel of John: “Jesus answered I am the way and the truth and the life; no one goes to the Father except through me,” and this statement, “I stand in trust with Dove Outreach Center.” The message “Islam is of the Devil” is on the back of the shirt.

On Monday, a 10-year-old fifth-grader at Talbot Elementary was sent home because of the shirt. On Tuesday, two Eastside High students and one Gainesville High student were sent home and a student at Westwood Middle had to change clothes because of the shirt, according to members of the Dove congregation.

Dove Senior Pastor Terry Jones said no local company “had the guts” to print the shirts. [Or maybe they just had, you know, ethics and morals.  Just sayin'...] Dove member Wayne Sapp said he then ordered the shirts over the Internet from a company that allows individuals to design their own shirts. His daughter, Faith Sapp , 10, was the Talbot Elementary student sent home Monday. She said she was allowed to wear the shirt to school on Tuesday – with the Gospel message on the front visible but the anti-Islam message on the back covered.

Wayne Sapp’s daughter, Emily Sapp, 15, was the student sent home from Gainesville High on Tuesday. Both Faith and Emily Sapp said it was their decision, not that of their parents, to wear the shirts to school in order to promote their Christian beliefs. Emily Sapp said the “Islam is of the Devil” statement was aimed at the religion’s beliefs, not its members.

“The people are fine,” she said. “The people are people. They can be saved like anyone else”…

The rest here. (There’s video there, too.)

I sincerely hope that the intolerant, bigoted, misguided people who are abusing their own offspring by sending them to a public school wearing shirts like this will get a lawyer and sue the district for violating the ‘free speech rights” of their children.

Because they will lose.  And that will send a message.

The 1969 Supreme Court decision known as Tinker v. Des Moines School District  that came out of the Vietnam War era and which gave students the right to political speech on campus doesn’t come into play here.  In addition to giving students the right to express their political views, that decision also gave school administrators the right to determine whether student expressions of free speech might disrupt the ability of the school to conduct its daily business, to be able to avoid disruptions in the learning process, as the person says above.

It’s also about not having kids feel threatened.  Imagine, if you can, that you are a parent who also happens to be a Muslim, and you find out your daughter or son has a classmate who is wearing a shirt like this to class.

Imagine if you can that you are that kid.  You’re now “of the devil”?  In fifth grade?

The pastor of this church is quoted in the article as saying that, “to him, spreading the church’s message was ‘even more important than education itself.’”  No, sir, not in a public school.  Doesn’t work that way.  In a public school, the job is to educate all God’s children, whether you like (or hate) them or not.

And, I mean, seriously, why not “Judaism is of the Devil”?  Or “Catholicism is of the Devil”?  Why stop at Muslims?  Why not spread the “love” around here?  I mean, as the man from this congregation says, it’s not “about the people,” whatever the heck THAT is supposed to mean.  So why not attack everybody and anybody who doesn’t go to their church?

You know why.  Of course you do.

This is exactly “about the people.”  People who aren’t exactly like him.

That’s what makes this hate speech. Children have the right to go to school without being abused for their faith.  Or for any other reason.

All children have the right to go to school without having to be afraid.

Kudos to the school officials for making the right move here.  If those shirts show up again, send them home, again. Stick to doing what is right, for ALL of the kids in those schools.

(Photo: Gainesville.com)