Published: August 20, 2006 04:31 am            

‘Why can’t other people respect my religion?’

Queen: Battle over Jesus portrait about religious liberty

FAIRMONT — For Mike Queen, the Harrison County School Board member leading the fight to defend the longtime exhibition of a portrait of Jesus at Bridgeport High School, the controversy is about religious liberty.

Growing up in Clarksburg’s East View neighborhood, Queen said he remembers his school bus driver.

“She kept a medallion of St. Christopher on the dashboard of the bus,” he said.

He also remembers a school janitor, who kept copies of devotional prayers to Jesus and other religious tracts in his locker.

“These were adults in the school system who were role models for me and other students,” Queen said. “They’re among my fondest memories of my early school days.”

School employees don’t have to give up their religious identity when they go to work, he said. “They don’t become Godless individuals when they step foot on school property.”

The pending lawsuit in federal district court — two parents filed the suit in late June, charging the school board, the school superintendent and Bridgeport High principal Lindy Bennett with endorsing Christianity over other religions — may help state and local school officials draft a policy on how school employees can express their religious affiliation on the job, Queen said.

“There is no policy now. Who gets to say what the limitations are, and what are the limitations?” he said.

The painting is a print of artist Warner Sallman’s “Head of Christ.” It has been hanging outside the principal’s office for about 37 years. Various stories about how the painting came to be exhibited in the hallway leading to the principal’s office are circulating. One of the tasks for lawyers on both sides will be to research its history at the school.

Queen said he’s heard that school officials at the time took the picture out of a counselor’s office to hide some graffiti that had been scrawled on the wall. The students back then had defaced a portrait of the high school principal, according to this tale, Queen said.

In any event, “The picture wasn’t put up for a religious reason,” he said.

“There were no ceremonies, no church service ever around that portrait,” he said. He believes there are probably 300 to 400 other public schools around the nation that display the same portrait in some manner.

The complaining parents “have a right to bring this lawsuit.”

“But we Christians have a right to defend ourselves, too.”

“I’m a Christian. I respect all religions, and I want others to respect me as much as I respect them and their religion,” he said.

“I’m getting tired of feeling like I have to apologize for being a Christian. I really do. Why can’t other people respect my religion?”

On Friday, the school board agreed by a 4-1 vote to accept the offer by the Alliance Defense Fund to defend the school board, School Superintendent Dr. Carl Friebel Jr. and principal Bennett. Bennett was also promoted Friday to a central office position where he will supervise the county’s high school and middle school principals.

The grievances voiced by Queen and private donors who quickly raised $150,000 to pay for legal fees, court costs and possibly even punitive damages if the school board loses the case are what motivates the lawyers in The Alliance Defense Fund.

On its Web site — www.telladf.org — the ADF states that today “the rights of Christians are especially vulnerable.”

“For more than 50 years, the ACLU and other radical activist groups have attempted to eliminate public expression of our nation’s faith and heritage,” the ADF Web site states.

The ACLU has done this “through fear, intimidation, disinformation and the filing of lawsuits (or threats of lawsuits) that would:

• Eliminate Christian and historic faith symbols from government documents, buildings and monuments.

• Ban public prayer in schools and at school functions.

• Deny Christians the right to use public facilities that are open to other groups.

• Prevent Christians from expressing their faith in the workplace.

“Through attacks like these, the ACLU and its allies have sought to limit the spread and influence of the Gospel in the United States,” the ADF Web site claims.

The ADF has won court cases that have: “Stopped discrimination against Christian employees; enabled Christian groups to use public facilities on the same terms as other organizations; and preserved historic and Christian acknowledgment in public places.”

The ADF was founded by the leaders of 35 ministries in 1994. They included Dr. James Dobson, Dr. D. James Kennedy, the late Dr. Bill Bright, the late Larry Burkett and the late Marlin Maddoux.

“Their prime concern was the dramatic loss of religious freedom in America’s courts and the resulting challenges to people of faith to live and proclaim the Gospel,” the Web site states.

Gary McCaleb, an ADF senior vice president, said Friday the organization wants to litigate the case because of the “valuable constitutional issues at stake.”

The ADF is working to restore the Founding Fathers’ intent to understanding the Constitution, he said. The founders had no problem with the use of the Bible to teach morality in public schools, he said.

“In our view, the Constitution is a bedrock document. If it is to be changed, then it should be changed by the people, not by activist judges,” McCaleb said.

But the parents who filed the suit believe their religious freedom is being infringed on by school officials.

Harold Sklar is Jewish. He is a lawyer with the U.S. Justice Department and has lived in Bridgeport for 13 years, according to the legal complaint filed in federal district court in Clarksburg.

Sklar is active in the community, is a member of the Civil Air Patrol and has been a leader for Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops. He has also taught Sunday School classes at Vincent Memorial Methodist Church.

He has been a guest lecturer at Bridgeport High School and taught a course on ACT preparation.

He has three children, including a son who graduated from Bridgeport High in 2004 and a daughter at Bridgeport Middle.

“As a parent, Mr. Sklar believes that it is his responsibility — not the Harrison County School District’s — to provide for his children’s education,” the suit states.

By hanging the Jesus portrait, school officials are elevating Christianity over other religions and non-religion, the suit states.

Jacqueline McKenzie is the other parent who is a plaintiff in the suit.

A Roman Catholic, McKenzie has been a teacher since 1969. She has worked as a substitute teacher at Bridgeport High.

Her daughter and three stepsons all attended the school. Her stepsons are not Christians.

She objects to “the school district’s imposition of its preferred religious expression on her, and most especially by the fact she must subject herself to the school district’s official religious expression in order to fulfill her obligations as a substitute teacher and as a volunteer at the school.”

McKenzie made complaints between 1991 and 1995 to school officials about the portrait. Sklar first complained about the portrait in 1996, the complaint states.

Sklar even told school officials about a U.S. Sixth District court decision involving the same “Head of Christ” portrait (Washegesic v. Bloomingdale Public School Board, 1994) where the court ruled the display of the portrait violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment.

But Sklar never received a formal response.

Other parents and students have also complained over the years about the display of the portrait, supporters of its removal state.

School officials even took to hiding the portrait when the school was inspected by outside Blue Ribbon Schools panels.

Dr. Friebel himself took the portrait down about five years ago in response to complaints about it, the suit claims.

“Within days, however, the school board insisted that Friebel restore it to the school,” the suit states.

“Obeying the board’s directive, Friebel had the portrait returned to the wall outside the principal’s office,” the complaint says.

Sklar and McKenzie decided to go to court this summer after being rebuffed again by the board this spring. The West Virginia chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State are representing them.

Despite the theft of the portrait early last Thursday morning, Richard B. Katskee, the assistant legal director for Americans United, said the lawsuit will go forward.

“The board has to make a decision whether it wants to continue this fight when it knows that it is fighting a losing battle,” he said.

The board is “running roughshod over a fundamental constitutional precept,” he said in a press release earlier this month.

“The Constitution forbids government to favor one faith over others.”

E-mail Bill Byrd at bbyrd@timeswv.com.

        

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