A group of Christian attorneys asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear a case involving a former Saginaw student who tried to sell candy canes with a religious message.
UPDATE 12/8/08: Supreme Court declines to hear this case
-- From "Supreme Court asked to consider religious class project case" by LaNia Coleman, The Saginaw [Michigan] News 8/12/08
Monday, the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Alliance Defense Fund petitioned the high court to "consider whether a fifth-grade student's religious expression on a classroom project may be categorically identified as 'offensive' and therefore legitimately censored by state school officials."
In December 2003, former Handley School student Joel Curry, then 11, made candy cane-style Christmas ornaments with a note that school officials considered "religious literature." The note attached to the ornaments, titled "The Meaning of the Candy Cane," referred to Jesus six times and God twice.
. . . School officials told the youngster to remove the message.
"Penalizing Christian students for expressing their beliefs in the classroom is unacceptable under the Constitution," said Alliance Senior Legal Counsel Jeff Shafer. "The First Amendment exists to protect private speakers, not to enable religious discrimination by government officials. The court of appeals' unprecedented classification of student religious speech as an 'offense' worthy of censorship should be reversed."
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