Fahrenheit 9/11 Shown By A Teacher
If you look at this first search, you'll that about half of the people here are ok with showing Fahrenheit 9/11. However, they'll only allow this if they also show Farenhype 9/11, a film where its sole purpose is to ridicule and debunk Fahrenheit 9/11. Whats the point of of showing Fahrenheit 9/11, if they're just going to follow it with a movie that tries to make it irrelevant? It wouldn't be fair, these people want a biased view shown to their kids. The only fair thing to do would be to show a movie debunking Farenhype 9/11.
Nicely done, you just managed to single handedly show what's wrong with the entire public school system as well as what will inevitably lead to the social decay of America in the near or not so near future. I'll let you figure out how you did that - I'll give you a hint, it's the third sentence.
" I'm not sure what you need (personally) to experience to call something a "public outcry", gpw. I'd like to think this should be good enough, look at all the results pertaining to this case. Its not an isolated incident, its all over the net. ABC, MSNBC, Fox News,the Post, NY Times and every other major news outlet. Just because it didn't happen to you, someone you know or in your back yard, it doesn't mean it has been isolated. Its no more quarantined than Katrina, Iraq or 9/11, its out there man."
I don't really need to expierience anything (personally), but seriously (and I'm trying not to be a dick here), you should probably learn the difference between the words 'public' and 'media' as well as 'outcry' and 'exposure', because aparently we're talking about two different things. To illustrate:
"There was a huge public outcry when Apple released their video ipod"
http://www.googlefight.com/index.php?lang=en_GB&word1=brokeback+mountain+shown+by+a+teacher&word2=Video+Ipod+releasedWhile you're in the dictionary there you might also want to read back and look at the context in which I used the word 'isolated'.
Here's another hint: Since all your google hits and media stories are only reffering to one incident, and that's what we're basing this on, we can therefore conclude that this (the situation including the complaint and lawsuit)is most likely an isolated incident.
" I was only able to find one article about The Passion being banned in a community college in Florida, the ban was later lifted". Yeah, that doesn't count. It was banned from being shown on the premises of a community college (not the same thing as a public high school) by a student group. Banned because risk-management dictated that the chances of a complaint and/or suit were high.
"Other than that, the movie has been shown in schools,"I see no evidence of this. I'm not denying it hasn't happened, but you haven't put forth any evidence of it being shown in a public school classroom. Now, that could mean it has been shown without incident, but I think given the secondary option (it just hasn't been shown), the fragmented religious views of the population, and the civil law enviroment in America, I'd bet on the later.
"recommended by teachers"Irrelevant, the social or political views of public school teachers in not the basis of the argument at hand. They can reccomend a student watch whatever they want (within reason I imagine) on their own time without fear of reprisal. It's what they actually subject them to in the classroom that is the issue here (for most people, personally, I'm only criticizing the judgement of the teacher).
field trips by whole church congregations (filled with children). "Also Irrelevant (even more so this time).
"Hell, most of the results of this search were people saying the same thing I was: comparing the consequences of showing this movie instead of Brokeback." Maybe so, but that doesn't actually prove (or really mean) anything. A bunch of people on the internet compairing two movies which have been deemed controversial by certain groups? It's not only an improper appeal to authority, it's also ludicrous that you'd think just mentioning that brings anything to the debate.
I think we would be kidding ourselves if we thought the backlash of would be the same if this movie, where people saw as families in droves, were shown in schools.WE would be, the backlash would be much more considering it would be very close to a breach of the "can not foster or preclude" rule of religion in public schools as well as the very strict "teachers and administrators are prohibited from encouraging or discouraging religion or religious beliefs" guideline. And by guideline I mean 'lose your job, get a new career, change your name, and get ready to get your ass sued off because these are federal guidelines based on precedents set forth in supreme court ruilings" kind of guidleines.
"It could be possible that the 70% of those Christians aren't full fledged Christians, but how do you know their Christian morals aren't still intact? How do you know that those non-full fledged Christians wouldn't take the side of their religion?"To the first part of that, I don't know that, they probably are still in tact. To the second part, I come to my conclusion through the following methods:
-First, I look at the fact that the majority of Americans filling out their census data and handing it it claim to be over 70% christian.
-Secondly, I make the educated assumption that these Americans are a large part of the portion of the population that feels some sort of civic duty or responsibility. I base this on the fact that they participated in the census.
-I conclude that they are also likely to vote in elections and refferendums since their sense of civic duty would urge them to.
-I look at the fact that they are all of the same (general) religion, and as such are a segmented portion of society with many of the same concerns and values. This cross cutting cleavage overrides other socio-political cleavages such as income, race, and georaphical location. It enables them to be easily mobilized if need be, but it probably isn't needed because their values are already so inline.
-I think about my knowledge of the American political system, the nature of the democratic republic in itself, and the ammount of time it would take to 'stack the supreme court deck'
-I recall data on the declining percentage of the population that claims to be christians on census data in recent history.
-I note that America is in no way a theocracy at this point in time.
-I conclude, since chirstians have long been the overwhelming majority religion, as evidenced by the census data, and the educated assumption that those participating in the census also vote that since America is not a theocracy in any way, that a large majority of those over 70% believe in the seperation of church and state, the theory of the two swords, and are Americans first and Christians second.
Or I could just come to the conlusion by looking at the fact that religion in schools is still roughly 35 times as controversal as homosexuality in school.
But, I'll go out of my way and give you the benefit of the doubt here. Lets say they show it in schools all the time, and 70% of the kids and their families are totally in to it. Do you seriously think that in a class of 35 the other 10 or so kids in that class wouldn't raise a complaint (and it only takes one for it to be a news story). Atheists and agnostics aside, that leaves about 2 jewish, muslim, or whatever kids who's parents probably would not be happy. Consideringt he lawsuit-trigger happy nature of your society do you really think they wouldn't raise hell when the rewards are so high and the probably of return is likewise high? Fuck, that's also ignoring the Protestant denominations that publicly took issue with the film. The likely hood for trouble when showing Passion of the Christ far outweighs that of Brokeback Mountain. Precedent has been set, and even if the school/teacher/board could somehow argue that it was being taught based on historical signifigance (with some christian movies this is allowed, here it wouldn't fly) they still have to deal with the question of why they are showing such objectable content in a public school.
