Tag Archives: Cranston West High School Prayer Banner

Some of you may have read recently about the prayer banner controversy in a Cranston Rhode Island high school. For those who haven’t, it was another example of the ACLU’s illegitimacy in area of Constitutionality, and the exploitation of yet another young person not fully “educated” in the world.

This is something I wrote for a popular Christian newspaper that kind of sums up my individual feelings on the matter. From there I encourage all of you to research and read about the slow undoing of all that makes us who we are.

From “The Good News Today”

Hello Friends,

I’m not so old that I can’t remember my thought process back when I was 15 or 16 years old. Not yet anyway… I suppose I could have been moved to one particular cause or another, but only if prodded or persuaded by someone of age and/or so called “wisdom”. Hence my days as a not so bright “beach cleaner” with limited focus and an equally limited understanding of reality. My point is, it’s certainly a fair statement to say we mature with age. Much of what we believe in our youth is “usually” at the very least influenced by time and life’s future lessons. Therefore, when I hear a young person speak to their belief system(s) one way or another, I take that with a grain of salt and snicker under my breath remembering all of my own journeys.

I live in Barrington now but grew up in Cranston Rhode Island, and I’m familiar with the prayer banner hanging in my old school, Cranston High School West. Notably, I’ve always viewed my home city as a kind of quirky place where “keeping up with the Jones” seemed a way of life. It was hard to pin folks down as the trends changed, religious and otherwise. For this reason hypocrisy will always factor into any analysis of mine concerning events coming out of Cranston. It’s important to note however, this is a personal distinction and not an indictment of the city on mass. Appropriately, the banner is a simple statement and its words give voice to some of the most basic values every student should aspire to regardless of any religious connotation attached to it. Truth be told, the story of Jessica Ahlquist and the prayer banner is somewhat of a non-starter for me based simply on the fact that this young woman is just that, a young woman. She is barely 16 and in the very beginnings of this life developmentally. I certainly will not debate her intellect as she seems intelligent and well-spoken for her age. With that said, it is equally as clear that the ACLU is a major player in this ongoing saga. It is important to note this is an agency with a track record of manipulating puppet causes as a means to forward an agenda focused on the systematic undoing (re-doing) of our Constitution to reflect something very different than the intent of the Framers. So carefully are the Amendments “chosen” to defend, as well as the players who will ultimately be out front of the argument, that all credibility associated with this phony bunch on any subject is subsequently diminished or completely absent.

Appropriately, my Editor has asked that I not bore you with precedent on either side of the “separation clause” as this is can be a political argument I am willing to, and have taken a great distance in the past. I will simply tell you that many of our time seem predisposed to partner with agencies like the ACLU in an effort to steer folks away from what are some of the most fundamental tenets and foundations of our nation. The matter of the Framers and their intent when it came to the first amendment is clear for any who wish to (do their homework). Sadly, the only way away from a life of faith and personal responsibility is to diminish and eventually eradicate that which brought us here in the first place, that which “separates” us from the rest, and that which has allowed for our success as a culture, “one nation under God”. Ironically, it is not Jessica who carries the message of secularism and human vanity, but rather it is her parents and their generation who have failed in every way to give her the unfiltered and non-revisionist history necessary for her to at least make a 16 year olds “educated decision” on the issue. In the end it is free country and (God has given her free will). I suppose I will just have to go back to the beginning of this little piece and pray that life’s lessons may show her differently with time. Unfortunately, the message continues to be watered down with each passing generation and our posterity suffers for it. Soon we may actually find ourselves the, “be all and end all”, and then it will simply be too late…

NOTE: 3/6/12: I have just read today that the city of Cranston will now pay the ACLU $150,000.00 in legal fees after bowing to their threats of litigation. So in setting aside the collective and majority will of the people to leave in place a fundamental and historical piece of a school’s history for fear of paying through the nose, the city of Cranston will pay through the nose anyway. We are giving away our country one lawsuit at a time…

Amen.