By Bob Unruh
© 2011 WorldNetDaily
 Cross in classroom |
A new international court ruling has found that a parent who was "offended" by a schoolroom display of a cross cannot demand that it be removed, a decision U.S. attorneys say will remove one possible reason for activist judges to attacksymbolsof Christianity in the United States.
The ruling from the European Court of Human Rightsconcerned a complaint raised by Soile Lautsi on behalf of herself and her two children who opposed the presence of a crucifix in school classrooms in the predominantly Catholic nation of Italy.
A lower court has banished thesymbols, but the verdict from the Grand Chamber of the international court concluded that the nation has the right to determine its own teaching atmosphere.
"In deciding to keep crucifixes in the classrooms of the State school attended by the first applicant's children, the authorities acted within the limits of the margin of appreciation left to the respondent State in the context of its obligation to respect, inthe exerciseof the functions it assumes in relation toeducationand teaching, the right of parents to ensure sucheducationand teaching in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions," the ruling said.
"A loss in this case would have meant, in essence, that it would be illegal under the European Convention on Human Rights to have religioussymbolsin any state institution anywhere in Europe," explained Roger Kiska, of theU.S.-based Alliance Defense Fund.The international organization filed a brief as an intervenor in the case.
"That would have set a dangerous example for the rest of the world. For instance, lawsuits that seek to tear down religioussymbolssimply because one person says he or she has been 'offended' are very common in the U.S. In addition to the concerns directly related to this case, ADF wants to head off any opportunity for activists in the U.S. to cite foreign court decisions as patterns to follow. We will continue fighting that battle in all of the cases in which we are involved," Kiska said.
The danger from a decision that went the other way was made clear in a statement from two of the judges who dissented.
In their conclusion, Judges Giorgio Malinverni and Zdravka Kalaydjieva stated, "We now live in a multicultural society, in which the effective protection of religious freedom and of the right toeducationrequires strict Stateneutralityin State-schoolededucationas a fundamental feature of a democratic society… The presence of the crucifix in classrooms goes well beyond the use ofsymbolsin particular historical contexts.
"The presence of crucifixes in schools is capable of infringing religious freedom and schoolchildren's right toeducationto a greater degree than religious apparel that, for example, a teacher might wear, such as the Islamic headscarf," the dissent continued. "In the latter example the teacher in question may invoke her own freedom of religious, which must also be taken into account, and which the state must respect. The public authorities cannot, however, invoke such a right."
Judge Giovanni Bonello, in a special concurrence with the majority, however, set the record straight:
"All the parents of all the 30 puupils in an Italianclassroomenjoy equally the fundamental Convention right to have their children receive teaching in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions, at least analogous to that of the Lautsi children," he wrote. "The parents of one pupil want that to be 'non-crucifix' schooling, and the parents of the other 29, exercising their equally fundamental freedom of decision, want that schooling to be 'crucifix' schooling.
"No one has so far suggested any reason why the will of the parents of one pupil should prevail, and that of the parents of the other 29 pupils should founder. The parents of the 29 have the fundamental right, equivalent in force and commensurate in intensity, to have their children receive teaching in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions."
He continued. "Ms. Lautsi cannot award herself a license to overrule the right of all the other parents of all the other pupils in thatclassroom, who want to exercise the same right she has asked this court to inhibit others from exercising.
"The crucifix purge promoted by Ms. Lautsi would not in any way be a measure to ensure neutrality in theclassroom. It would be an imposition of the crucifix-hostile philosophy of the parents of one pupil," he said.
The ADF was allowed to intervene in the case on behalf of 33 members of the European Parliament, and the organization argued in its legal brief that the lower court decision exceeded its authority.
"The European Court of Human Rights shouldn't overstep its authority and force a member nation to abandon traditions and beliefs that it has a sovereign right to protect if it so chooses," said Kiska.
"The Grand Chamber did the right thing here in choosing to reverse the lower chamber's flawed decision. An outside judicial body demanding that a nation must forsake and discontinue how it handles millennia-old traditions is a step towards an authoritarian system that no country anywhere on the globe should welcome," he said.
The conclusion of the court was that there was no violation of the European Convention on Human Rights and that, therefore, Italy was within its rights under the Convention to allow display of the crucifix in classrooms.
Lautsi, a Finnish and Italian citizen, had demanded that the public school her two children attended in Italy's northeastern province of Padua remove crucifixes from its classrooms.
Denied by the school district, she took her demands to the international court.
The ADF arguments had alerted the court to the fact that the lower court decision applied previous rulings inconsistently and erroneously disregarded "the principle of respect for the cultural sovereignty of member states."
Kiska had warned that a verdict to censor crucifixes "could have disastrous consequences for member states and set a dangerous example for other countries to follow."
"In addition to the concerns directly related to the facts of this case, ADF wants to head off any opportunity for activists in the U.S. to cite foreign court decisions as examples to follow," he said.
Already in the U.S., people whoclaimbeing "offended" have demanded the removal of a seven-foot memorial cross honoring World War I veterans from the Mojave desert. When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled it could stay, critics vandalized the site and removed the cross themselves.
Also,in the United Kingdom,experts have said some rights of Christians cannot be protected because the courts there –the lawsand the judges – have developed a "special animosity" toward Christianity.
Such an attitude has developed to a certain extent in the United States,where one city's formal condemnation of Christianity must be overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court for that formalized hatred of faith to not stand as a precedent.
Read more:'Offended' parent can't remove classroom cross, court decideshttp://www.wnd.com/?pageId=276725#ixzz1H4EfAGsj
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