Matthew 22:17
Our freedom of religeous belief that we have in this country is just that: A freedom to believe as we wish; not a freedom to defy authority. I think if you truly try to understand the point Jesus was trying to get across, we, or you, as Christians, are supposed to follow the laws as set forth by the society, and that also holds true for the military draft.

Not all schools have uniform codes, and those that do have them for a reason; therefore, if you dont want your son to wear a uniform then simply send him to a school that dosnt have a uniform code. It really is that simple.

I am going to side with the school administrator on this one. Freedom of religeous beliefs DOES NOT mean you have the right to buck the system because of what you personally believe.

Too many people twist and falsely interpret the bible to suit their own personal interests; but anyone who really takes the time to try to learn what Jesus himself was trying to get across will understand that he didnt want his followers to be a group of activists bucking the system. Jesus was all about submission, and faith, and love and trust. You live in the world, and therefore must follow its laws, but you are not of this world. He knows that, and thats what he was trying to teach. Im sorry you didnt get the message.

And here is the kick in the butt: Im not even a religeous person and I know that, so why dont you??

OH crud, I just now looked at who wrote the blog that I just responded to. OK, I am going to completely avoid this whole Blog section thing. LOL, I cant believe its you....again. OMG, I should have looked at who wrote this before I replied, lol. No need to respond, Im outta here. Go in peace.

Ah now you are just being mean. It is ok for us to disagree with each other and still have conversation. We would never grow if we decided to not talk to everyone who disagreed with us. Just because we do not see eye to eye on issues does not mean I respect you any less as a person. To the contrary, I would respect you more for voicing your opinion in a polite respectful way. I have changed my mind on issues after having conversations with people who presented other sides of those issues. With that in mind I will reply.

Matthew 22:17 I pay my taxes.

Mark 7:1-23, shows it is appropriate to disregard rules if we believe they are wrong.
Colossians 2:20 we are instructed not to subject oneself to worldly regulation.

If I were to refer to the constitution. I would have listed this: Wisconsin v. Yoder "Any conflict between public schooling and a family's basic and sincerely held values interferes with the family's First Amendment Rights." I would then quote Pierce v. Society of Sisters.

Students have a right to free speech and symbolic speech. Tinker v. Des Moines For example, the fact Richard wants to wear a polo with the words "Flame Resistant" "Got God?" "Dependant on Him" in a 2×2 box would be protected by the constitution. The fact he wants to wear clothes pleasing to God that are different then what the girls wear again protected by the constitution.

Ganues/Hicks v McIver Elementary School, "No child should be denied a public school education for failing to comply with a school uniform dress code policy that conflicts with his family's religious beliefs."

Sissy Littlefield et al. V. Forney Independent School District, "The ACLU maintained that the policy violates the Establishment Clause by inquiring into the substance or sincerity of religious or philosophical beliefs and arbitrarily creates and singles out a class of citizens for disparate and adverse treatment."

Guiffré v Las Cruces School District, "Judge Parker recognized that the student's free speech rights were of such importance that an immediate order was necessary to protect and preserve that right."

We are not the only people in the US with these complaints. Hundreds of cases have been heard and it is amazing to me that schools still disregard them until a student challenges that district in court.

Hi, I'm Mona's husband.

>>He included many scriptural references and focused on scripture that tells us not to submit oneself to worldly regulations.

I find it difficult to see how a school administrator would accept that line of reasoning. Perhaps his other arguments about teacher violations and the lack of a code in the high school would allow the administrators to respond in kind. I don't think he'll get far by using religious reasoning on people who may or may not share his faith group.

Hi Mona's husband. Nice to virtually meet you. :-)

Yes, that is why we told him to include that. He kept pointing out how teachers, staff and administrators broke their own rules but he did not write them down. When we saw his first draft of the letter to the board, both his father and I said we thought he should include that. so he did a re-write.

I really dislike the idea that he has to protest. I don't understand why no one took us seriously last year or even responded to the letters written. It is not like Richard is asking for massive changes. He is asking for small changes to a flawed policy that would allow a Christian student to dress in a way that would not conflict with the Word of God.

I believe the only reason they presented that he didn't address was the one where they claim it is easier for parents because you don't have to argue with your kids over what to wear. I would argue that, if the school truly wanted to help the child parent relationship, they would offer parenting classes or counseling to strengthen the relation and develop mutual respect. I find it hard to accept that the reasoning behind this as being the norm. It is unfair to punish the masses because some students refuse to follow their parents direction. If this is the school's genuine concern in taking over parental rights & responsibilities they would deal with the student one on one and offer sincere help to parents in developing a good relationship with the student.

OK, I will reply again. I wasnt trying to be mean in my first reply. The tax thing was a nice comeback and ill give you points for that one; but I would have to counter with this. It isnt just about taxes, in my opinion. Lets face it, there are a myriad of religeons out there and all differ to some extent or another. If you had one that believed it against their faith to pay taxes then of course that scripture I cited would be a perfect argument, but then again, I am positive that certain religeon would have a completely differeent interpretation of the scripture. People tend to pick the bible apart like a legal document and look for the slightest loophole in order to justify their actions. But its the intent of the word that is what we as a people are supposed to get, not the exact, specific words, including proper punctuation. Taxes had to be paid by citizens, and Jesus told his followers to pay the taxes; in other words, to follow the law. He did not list out all the laws that should be followed and all the laws that should not be followed. But there is a point and I will admit that. One example would be if there was a law that stated you must turn your back on God and denounce him. Wow, at about this time I am pretty content with things and am greatful I live in the United States.

If there truly is just one God, then I would think that there is one truly correct way to go about doing things: His way. But there are a myriad of religeons and they all go about doing things differently. I guess we just need to find out who, if anyone, is going about it the right way. I would never actually try to change your beliefs, and I dont want to. Who knows, you may be the right one. Sometimes its just fun to toss it all up and bicker about it. In the end, I think we all will be slapped around a little, cause I dont think any of us really got it right.

What do you know, I am going to agree with you. Even people within the same religious groups disagree on the meaning of some scriptures.

Would you agree that one of the beauties of being an American is our freedom? Freedom of speech is one of the many reasons we have such a great nation. Can you imagine where we would be without that freedom?

I do not believe that an arm of the government has the right to say, your religious beliefs are wrong so you must do as that arm of the government says. By the same token, I do not believe I have the right to say, my beliefs are right and all students must do as I say. What I do feel needs to happen is an opt-out policy needs to be put into place so that students with beliefs contrary to the policy would be allowed to maintain their freedom of speech and religion.

Now this may be shocking to you as it was to me. The school has taken the position of selectively approving which religious beliefs should be recognized and which should not. Let me explain. With no opt-out policy in place last year, a young girl wore her head coverings. While I applaud the schools decision in allowing her to follow her beliefs I would argue that allowing her to follow her beliefs and not allowing Richard to follow his, the school has taken the position that this arm of the government has the right to pick and choose which religious beliefs are acceptable to them. Honestly, disagreements aside, do you believe that is acceptable?

I would agree that there are certain religions, at the current moment in time, that tend to be more political hotbeds than others. I wont mention faiths...MUSLIMS....echemmmmm.....We certainly dont want to upset them now do we. Our society is all about politics. We have turned virtually every single aspect of Americana into politics; so much so that our educational system is nothing more than a political battleground (which is why I left teaching). The issue with your son and the school has more to do with politics than anything else.

There are uniform codes and there are dress codes. If a school has a strict uniform code then I feel it should be followed across the board with absolutely no exceptions except for medical related issues. Parents then can choose to send their children to that school based on whether they want to follow those rules or not. Dress codes are much more relaxed and basically state which things cannot be worn and are mostly based on a school trying to dissuade students from advertising such negative things such as gangs, drugs, sex, etc. I have actually worked in both settings and never encountered a problem, but I do know problems arise, and those problems are religious based. Freedom of expression means that as one student can come to school wearing a shirt that has positive faith related mesages on it, another has equally the right to wear a shirt that has the Nazi swastika on it. The swastika is offensive to some, including myself, but the cross could be so for others as well.

Our society has degraded into nothing more than nitpicking over offences. We have to be so darn careful anymore that something we do will be offensive to someone else. Our freedom of speech and expresion allows us to expres ourselves freely "except" if it offends someone. the problem is that there will always be someone that gets offended. The truth is that they really are just pains in the butts that are using that as political leverage.

But here is the original question: Some girl is allowed to wear her head covering but your son cannot wear a shirt that has a religious mesage on it......Like I said before, its all political: We dont want to tick off the Muslims, and so we pretty much afford them carte blanche here. But I have a suspicion that world opinion is gradually changing due to all this terrorist activity, which by the way, and just coincidentally, is being done by.....hmmmmmm...take a guess.....thats right...you got it.

The thrust of my reply here is simply that I dont like politics. It is destroying our educational system and eroding our society. Pretty soon we wont be able to do a darn thing because anything we do will offend someone else.

I think my intent might be misconstrued, therefore, I would like to offer this: It is the differences between social customs and religious symbology I think that might too be at play. A head covering can be looked at as a social custom, and not strictly a religious symbol such as writings on a shirt. Perhaps this is the differentiating factor. But if that is the differentiating factor, then a yamika too should be allowed as it is as much a social custom. The problem that I have with it all is that if we go to an islamic country such as Saudi Arabia, our western women cant drive and need to be covered. We must follow their customs. But yet they dont feel they need to follow ours while they are here. Some would say we dont have our own set of customs. I would disagree. I think our first and most special and important custom is that we dont force anyone in this country to dres a certain way, or to believe a certain way.

Anyway, it is a complicated isue, and one that certainlt wont be resolved here. Have a good one.

There is no way of me knowing if the girl is Muslim without asking her. Not that that was ever my point but there are a variety of religions that require a girl to cover her head. My own included under certain circumstances. I do my best not to stereotype people so for me to automatically say she is Muslim because her head was covered would have been doing that which is why I only said a girl who covered her head. People fail to realize covering one's head is a custom shared by many faiths.

The point I was making is that the school allowed one exception based on religion and did not allow others, thus assuming the authority of picking and choosing what they feel is acceptable religions.

Our belief is based on more then Richard wanting to wear religious sayings. It is primarily based on his belief that boys and girls should never be dressed alike.

I am going to agree with you again. (we are starting a trend) Our custom is freedom and we should never force anyone to dress in a certain way. Even the youngest of our citizens.

Richard spent the weekend collecting signatures for his petition. I was amazed at the number he collected this first weekend. I had no idea so many people were against uniformed dress code which raises my hopes. If enough of us become upset with the policy and the refusal to change the policy we can use our votes to mix things up a bit. Perhaps his cause is not hopeless after all.

So what happened on Monday?

Due to a misbehaving computer I was not able to update last night.

Monday: Richard wore a white polo with blue strip. On it he wore a patch with the American Flag that said God shed His grace on thee. A patch with the words Dependant on Him and a sticker with the words I am always with you. He also wore shorts that fit and were just below the knee. He was obviously not in dress code but looked very neat and presentable.

Despite warnings from the week prior no one made comment to his clothes or sent him to the office. They have not answered his letter to the board either. When I asked about it I was sort of brushed off. Frankly, I am not sure what to make of it. No answer and no action seems a little odd. But maybe they are considering his stand and decided not to take action until they reach a decision. But that is only speculation on my part. If that is what is happening I applaud them for taking the time to seriously consider a solution before taking action.

Today he is dressed in denim shorts that fit just below the knee and a blue denim and cream like swirl polo with a patch of the American Flag and a gold cross. He looks very neat and presentable.