Let’s Give Recognition To Worthy
This being “award season” in the media, I’ve decided to get into the spirit by announcing the recipients of Rosemond’s Awfully Ludicrous Parenting Honors, or RALPHS, for 1995.
These citations are being given to organizations and individuals who, over the past year, said or did ludicrous, absurd, and/or mindboggling things pertaining to children and families.
The “Naked, If I Want To” award goes to the Connecticut chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union for defending a high school student who was suspended for coming to school sporting pink hair. She was disciplined for “constituting a distraction to the purpose of school,” but the ACLU maintained that the student’s First Amendment right to freedom of expression was unconstitutionally restrained.
And here I’ve been thinking all along that adults have a moral responsibility to restrain how children want to express themselves. Silly me.
The “Only Atheists Can Be Objective About Jesus” award is shared by Dana Ramsey, a ninth-grade English teacher in Tennessee; her principal, superintendent and school board; U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Wiseman; the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals; and the U.S. Department of Justice.
Ramsey refused to allow one of her students, Brittney Settle, to write a research paper on “The Life of Jesus Christ,” and gave Brittney a big fat zero when she did so anyway. Ramsey explained that Brittney’s religious commitments would not permit her to do objective research.
Interestingly, Ramsey allowed other students to write papers on spiritualism, reincarnation and magic, but reportedly told Brittney’s father that those topics weren’t “religious.”
The principal and school board supported the teacher. The Settles filed suit, but Wiseman wouldn’t permit a trial. The Court of Appeals upheld Wiseman’s decision, and the Clinton Justice Department refused to support the Settles petition to the U.S. Supreme Court.
I take it that many of our nation’s educators and jurists feel it is necessary to draw the line regarding children’s rights to free expression when it comes to Jesus Christ. Where is the American Civil Liberties Union when we really need ‘em?
The “Yes, I Signed It, But I Used a Pen with No Ink” award goes to President Clinton for signing (Feb. 23, 1995) the “United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child” which, if ratified by the Senate, will require the United States to recognize the legal rights of American children to “freedom of expression,” “freedom of association,” and the right to “seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers.”
The “I Never Inhaled, Either” award to professor Stuart Hart, president of both the National Committee on the Right of the Child and the Office for the Study of the Psychological Rights of the Child. He claimed, in an editorial, that the “U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child” recognizes and protects the rights of parents.
I take it they called it the “U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child” only because that had a snappier sound to it.
The “We’re All Bozos on This Bus” award goes to Maine’s alcoholic beverage control board for threatening to jerk a Maine restaurateur’s liquor license after he barred children from his place of business. (He reportedly was inspired by a column of mine in which I complained about the behavior of children in fine dining establishments.)
The board said he was - get this - discriminating against children! The restaurateur lifted the ban, but posted a sign that reads “Children with well-behaved parents are welcome.” Very clever, don’t you think?
Well, there you have it. The field was crowded, so there were difficult decisions to make. 1996 is shaping up similarly, so stay tuned!