Windsor, Conn., School Board Votes To Stop Holding Graduations At Church

[Adsos Letter]

Source: AU

The Windsor (Conn.) Board of Education voted late Monday to stop holding public high school graduation ceremonies at a local Christian church. With this decision, all five area school districts that had been holding graduations at the church have voted to halt the practice.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State, the ACLU of Connecticut and the American Civil Liberties Union had objected to the school districts’ practice of holding graduations at The First Cathedral in Bloomfield, Conn., a 120,000-square-foot facility steeped in Christian symbols and iconography, calling for the graduations to instead be held at any of a number of secular locations available in the area.

“Changing the location of these schools’ high school graduations acknowledges the important role of diversity in our school systems,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, Americans United Executive Director. “It helps to ensure that students and their families are not made to feel unwelcome at a school event on account of their religious beliefs.”

Americans United and the ACLU last fall sent Freedom of Information Act requests to the Windsor, Enfield, East Hartford and South Windsor Public Schools, as well as the Metropolitan Learning Center Magnet School in Bloomfield, seeking information about their use of The First Cathedral as a high-school graduation venue.


Read more: http://members.au.org/site/MessageViewer?em_id=40981.0&dlv_id=27921

[Abq_Sarah]

1. My graduating class in '81

Was over 700 students. They held the graduation in a Baptist church because at the time there was no local venue that could accommodate a high number of students/parents at a reasonable price. I'm an agnostic and no particular fan of Baptists but this was a non-religious ceremony and I don't recall being offended at the time.

[Warpy]

2. If there's no secular venue, it's perfectly fine to rent a church

for the occasion. It's a building, folks. If the conspicuous Christians try to hijack the secular ceremony and turn it into a bible banger celebration, there's a problem. If it's a secular ceremony in a building usually used by any religion, no problem.

Likewise, I have no problem with bible groups meeting in the school after hours. It's voluntary, it has no bearing on grades or graduation, no problem. However, if some conspicuous Christian insists on grabbing the microphone at school events and exhorting prayer or preaching dogma, BIG problem.

While it looks like I'm picking on conspicuous Christians here, it's because they're most likely to cause the problems in this country. It could just as easily be conspicuous Muslims in the upper midwest. It's wrong no matter who does it.

We still have a line in this country and it doesn't take much thinking to figure out where it is.

[rd_kent]

3. Agreed, if it is the only venue that can hold that many people, I am ok with it.

As long as there are NO prayers, invocations, sermons, references, etc to any religion.