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Atheist want to stop prayer caravan in Cullman, AL


RosyDaisy

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A little on Cullman: http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/01/01043.html

It's a very strange, homogeneous place. I stopped there for dinner on a road trip back to my then-South Alabama home, and in a very large restaurant dining room, there were no people of color. Not the staff, not the diners, not anyone. It was creepy.

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A little on Cullman: http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/01/01043.html

It's a very strange, homogeneous place. I stopped there for dinner on a road trip back to my then-South Alabama home, and in a very large restaurant dining room, there were no people of color. Not the staff, not the diners, not anyone. It was creepy.

That's Cullman...it's almost like they are in a time warp in a lot of ways.

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But the bad news for all of them would be that since they are allowing a Christian group to do it, any court would rule that they would have to give equal access to other religious groups.

I have been to Alabama, though, my educated guess is that in this seemingly non-urban district, no other religious group is large enough to gather a group and attempt any action. I know that religious diversity was not an issue where my nephew went to school. He considered Catholics an oddity before he moved back to the Midwest.

Oh, how I wish what you say were true. At least in SC. when a Wicca practitioner (her words, not mine) requested, through the proper channels, to offer her blessing before a county board meeting, she was refused. She took it to court and lost. In another county, a city counsel refused a Buddhist from saying a blessing before the meeting. At least in his case, they stopped the prayers before the meetings. One would assume in the upstate of SC, that there wouldn't be many Wicca, Sikh, Buddhist, etc but one would be wrong. Even in the non-urban areas.

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The precedent would be that they either have to not allow anyone or allow everyone, that would explain why in one case you mention the prayers were stopped altogether. But a city council, county board, etc...is a very different matter. The courts have typically allowed more leeway for religious expression in public venues involving adults than in those involving children. Children in school are treated differently in the matter as they are considered a captive and impressionable audience.

By the way, my info on these matters comes from a seminar I attended at the University of Virginia where there was a session with a law professor on the First Amendment and religion which focused on issues, cases and precedent regarding public schools and students. I'm not making it up or finding it on wikipedia.

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A little on Cullman: http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/01/01043.html

It's a very strange, homogeneous place. I stopped there for dinner on a road trip back to my then-South Alabama home, and in a very large restaurant dining room, there were no people of color. Not the staff, not the diners, not anyone. It was creepy.

Cullman is a very creepy place. I've been there many times. The more rural areas of Cullman County are even creppier. It's hard to describe.

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Cullman is a very creepy place. I've been there many times. The more rural areas of Cullman County are even creppier. It's hard to describe.

Really? I have also been in Cullman a few times. I don't pretend to know more about it than what is observed by someone casually passing through, eating in a restaurant, or meeting relatives (no, the relatives do not live in Cullman; it was an in-between place for a get-together at a park there). But I gotta say, I never thought, "creepy". I guess, to each his or her own. :|

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It sounds like Stranraer :shock:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stranraer

That is literally the most unfriendly place I've ever been to. Lockerbie is weird for many reasons (aside from the obvious) but it is much friendlier, if surreal.

Stranraer is noted for two things - extreme unfriendliness to outsiders is one. The other is IRA bomb vans.

I know what you mean, RD, by an atmosphere being hard to describe. The nearest I can get is "Go there and you'll see what I'm saying. Or, shit, it's Stranraer. No, fuck it, don't go."

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I'm not sure why Cullman is considered creepy. It's true there aren't many African-Americans in Cullman County and surrounding counties since historically that area did not have plantations, large farms and slavery. It's very hilly and the soil is rocky, making it unsuitable for growing cotton. In fact, that area was strongly Unionist during The Late Unpleasantness. :wink-kitty:

After the war, well, there hasn't been much going on economically to attract anybody to the area, including African Americans. I'm there several times a year for baseball and scholastic tournaments and never noticed anything weird about the place.

Map of Alabama's African-American population (Cu = Cullman Co.):

http://www.indexmundi.com/facts/united- ... entage#map

That said, why can't these people just pray for the new school year in their churches, or at home? Why do they have to make a big display about it? Will God not hear their prayers unless they're galavanting around the county drawing attention to themselves? I haven't been to church or cracked a Bible in a while, but it seems like there's a verse about this very thing....

:doh:

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Hang on, not having black people makes a place creepy? I live in a country that's 98% white; guess we're creepy :P

Sorry, I'm not getting how the racial make up of the place makes it creepy :shrug:

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I don't think the posters above were saying Cullman is creepy because it's white. I think they were saying it's creepy and it happens to be all white. I'm not sure why they think it's creepy.

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Oh, OK. It read to me like the two were conflated. I know racially homogeneous communities can seem really odd when you're coming from a more diverse place, but creepy was new to me :D

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This article explains it better than I can. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/magaz ... d=all&_r=0

The Klan was and is strong in Cullman, and the influence is still very much present. That's the part that's creepy to me-- while there's some racism all over the South, it's overt in Cullman.

Editing to add: This article talks about things changing there, and that's very encouraging-- very much so. I lived south of Cullman in the early 90s, and the people who grew up in the old Cullman were alive, well, and influential. I truly hope things are changing and that they can leave a very ugly past behind, but old attitudes that worked in their time die hard.

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Oh, OK, so it's not simply that there were no people of colour so much as that that fact is symptomatic of the racism of the area?

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Yes-- the Ku Klux Klan was almost incomprehensibly powerful there for decades, and the current social structure still bears the marks of that.

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One of the good things about Cullman County, AL is Smith Lake. My SO and I have been there many times, and my grandfather loved to go fishing there.

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This link was in my FB news feed: http://www.waff.com/story/22972537/freedom-from-religion-demands-prayer-caravan-be-cancelled

Officials with the Freedom From Religion Foundation are giving school leaders in Cullman a little more than a week to cancel their prayer caravan.

A letter from the Freedom From Religion Foundation went out Tuesday to the Cullman County Board of Education demanding action by August 7th. A prayer caravan, an event where community members go from school to school to say a prayer, was scheduled for August 10th.

The letter dated for Tuesday, July 30th, stated that since the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) sent their initial letter, other families have reported more constitutional problems that violate their First Amendment rights with Cullman County Schools, things like praying at Cullman County Schools and events, Cullman County Schools hosting events in churches and more.

The letter goes on to say the FFRF appreciates the Superintendent, Billy Coleman removing the prayer caravan information from the districts website and Facebook page, but removing it is not enough and they want it canceled.

The letter also says that Cullman County Schools has a lot of work to do to conform to the First Amendment of United States Constitution. Specifically, it should:

Cancel the prayer caravan

Inform all employees that organized prayer in school or at school events is unconstitutional and opens Cullman County Schools (CCS) to legal liability.

Remove any and all special access preachers and other religious leaders have to CCS.

Cancel or reschedule any CCS events set to be held in a house of worship.

The letter also says if Superintendent Coleman wishes to pray for the schools at church or home, that's fine, but they don't want him using his title or power to promote religion. Members of Cullman County schools have yet to comment to the media regarding the latest letter.

Video is included, just click on the link. Note that the news report is from WAFF 48, an NBC affiliate in Huntsville, AL.

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When I was in school (south of France, with a mayor communist or socialist since 1945, in a very atheist area), we were not allowed to wear cross, or veil, or kippa, or Che Guevara, or Nazi's Cross (what is forbidden everywhere), or anything who shows our religion or our politics ideas (because there was a "war" between sort of neonazis and antifascist group - I broke my arm in this, haha.) It was so... good. School was a place of neutrality, and it was good because we were very... herm... teenager. Can't imagine the number of conflict if this type of caravan were in the school. Or if a teacher say one day he was christian or socialist, etc...

I guess it's different for you because you are a Christian country, and you're more open-minded thant here (not difficult :roll: ) but, it surprised me every time i read something like that about school and religion. When our American correspondent were in school (2007, 2008 and 2009), they said that "well, no, school in America is very secular, teacher don't speak about God or whatever, it's like your school !". They come from Floride.

Re: The bolded - We (the USA) are NOT a Christian country. That is EXACTLY what "separation of church & state" means. The United States has NO "official" religion - we can't, it's unconstitutional. The majority of our residents are Christian, but that does not make us a Christian country. (Can you tell this is one of my hot buttons?)

ETA: I'm sorry if that comes across as really rageful - I get tired of people (mostly Fundies) saying that we're a "Christian country" when we aren't.

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It's one of my hot buttons too (which is why I started the thread in the first place), and I AM a Christian.

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Re: The bolded - We (the USA) are NOT a Christian country. That is EXACTLY what "separation of church & state" means. The United States has NO "official" religion - we can't, it's unconstitutional. The majority of our residents are Christian, but that does not make us a Christian country. (Can you tell this is one of my hot buttons?)

ETA: I'm sorry if that comes across as really rageful - I get tired of people (mostly Fundies) saying that we're a "Christian country" when we aren't.

I know that the US is officially not a Christian country, but I can see how Marianne mistook it for such, because while many Western European countries do have an official religion (though France isn't one of them), it enters the public sphere far less often and plays a smaller role than in the US.

I'm amused at the notion that the US is more open-minded than France, however. Living in the UK, most of the TV I watch is either American or British, but I recently watched a French programme (Les Revenants) and, uh, suffice it to say there was a lot more boob than I'm used to seeing on my TV screen ;) Obviously that's only one area, though, and there are probably areas in which France is less open-minded than the US.

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One of the good things about Cullman County, AL is Smith Lake. My SO and I have been there many times, and my grandfather loved to go fishing there.

Smith Lake is awesome. :D

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Every TVA lake I've ever been to is awesome. Those mega-engineering projects boggle my mind. Cue George Clooney (because, why not?):

9RTPdAAdw30

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What's a TVA lake? I tried looking it up, but I'm still not sure. It seems to be something connected to a power plant?

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