I've never seen a cross as hateful, just as my pentacle is not hateful. It is a sign of your beliefs. There are no words on them that spout hate. My family is Christian and when they wear their crosses I do not see hate I just see a cross.

When did crosses become hate? Other than when they're burned?

Edited to add: My friend wears a cross as he is a devout Baptist. He's also gay. So does that mean he hates gays because he's wearing a cross?

well, people do seem to forget that a cross is an instrument of execution. the modern day equivalent would be an electric chair.

If your playing devil's advocate, I suppose it could be misconstrued as that, however ,I have never been mistaken for an executioner, for wearing a cross, nor have I ever encounter anyone who think such til now.

The cross to me is a symbol of hope, resurrection, beating death, which is very different then an electric chair.

The noose is also a symbol for hanging, but we still learned how to make them in camp survival training, if you have to catch food, lost in the forest.

Symbols depend sometimes on the context in which they are used. My best friend is gay , he wears an orthodox cross.. It has two horizontals. Someone correct me if I am wrong on the description.


Anyhoo , my goodness I just had a thought if everyone walked around saying whatever they wanted, there would be riots.

P&R mom= love your Yelling fire at 5 vs 18 analogy. You are a great debater/speaker. Simple yet to the point.

the t shirts worn were straight up prostletizing (sp?)

wearing a cross or other symbol is not prostletizing, its your business.

there is a difference between wearing something that simply affirms your own faith and someone thing that either lsams someone elses faith or invites someone to yours.

schools are not the place for preaching, of ANY kind, its a place to go learn the given cirriculum, religion not being part of that.

if someone gets offended by one person wearing a cross or star of david or even hijab, that is there problem, as it is not hurting them, inviting them to join anything, nor insulting their religion, its a symbol, no words, no preaching.

one persons rights end where another persons begin ...

Students in any learning environment have no rights. Just try to stash you weed in your locker, then tell them they need a search warrant - they don't, you have no righs.

They have rights. They have the right to not be beaten, among others.

Thank you! Actually I tend to babble on and on, so I'm trying to work on getting to the point faster!

And there is the difference between wearing, say, a swastika vs. a cross: a swastika is inherently insulting & hurtful --its entire symbolic meaning is of a group of hate-mongers [mongerers?]-- whereas most people most of the time who wear crosses etc. are not advocating hatred or discrimination (can we leave Mel Gibson out of the argument? lol).

Well, if we want to get technical, adults have the right to step in and remove a child from an abusive situation; the child does not have the right to leave the home and go live somewhere else. In other words, children themselves do not have any rights; adults have the right to step in if kids are neglected, skipping school, working 12 hours a day, etc. etc.

While I feel for kids in some situations, please consider how many Columbine-type tragedies have occurred and how many parents said things like, "I didn't know Junior had guns in his closet -- I felt he had a right to privacy." Wrong!

yes some symbols are not socially acceptable, they are inherantly bad as they bring up ideals of racism and predjudice.

I did my student teaching in a public school, a middle school in Ann Arbor which is a fairly liberal community yet there were dress codes for students including what could be on shirts. I am sure many would feel uncomfortable if students were wearing shirts saying Jews Killed Christ or Blacks Are An Inferior Race. And the right to free speech ends when it infringes on the rights of others, there are slander and libel laws.

Well I kind of doubt they expected their kid to have guns. If they didn't see a problem, they'd have no reason to search.