A Texas teen claims she is forbidden from wearing a rosary around her neck in school because the Catholic prayer beads are a gang symbol, MyFOXDFW.com reported.
I've posted on this topic before, and my views haven't changed:
What happens when gangs start adopting school mascots or school uniforms as symbols? What will the kids be allowed to wear to school at that point?
Is banning the only tool in this arsenal?
It is for the unimaginative.
6 comments:
This is huge on the local blogs in Dallas. First of all, rosaries are NOT costume jewelry. I know that this has been an issue in the Northwest, where Hispanic gangs thought they had a free pass to use rosaries as membership insignia that would be protected under freedom of religion statutes. Frankly, this is just as disrespectful of a religious article as wearing a yarmulke with a propeller.
I've been a Catholic all my life, was raised in a majority Catholic area of the country (about 90 miles west of where John Boehner is from, which is why I knew how to pronounce his name before everybody told us), and never in my life have I heard of people wearing rosaries like jewelry. Scapulars, yes (but never outside where they can be seen), but rosaries, no. They're prayer beads, not necklaces. When did people start doing this?
Not being Catholic, I don't know.
Today the girl had to remove the rosary. Her mother, who isn't a practicing Catholic, and the girl, who doesn't attend church, insist it's a religious thing. It's almost like they are treating it like a lucky charm. The Diocese of Dallas isn't happy that gangs are using this and it promises to be the usual ethic/racial/ACLU brouhaha. Funny thing is, now that Dallas ISD has "lost" over $84 MILLION, the ACLU won't get anything if they win.
The way to combat it is to punish the behavior . . .someone wearing all red is not a problem. someone wearing all re, who beats the hell out of someone wearing all blue, is.
So, you punish the behavior -- and, though I hate hate crimes laws, you allow an idiocy clause. If the fight is stupid (You're wearing blue! That sucks!) You punish the person more than if it were a fight about someone calling someone else 'Big Nose', or whatever. Both are bad, but you're much more likely to be able to run your school if you punish the red/blue thing more; you have a justifiable reason for doing it; and, you let people who want to wear red shirts do so.
Dan
And doing so allows you to identify the gang kids much more easily.
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