EDITORIAL – Bong and Jesus make odd couple

The religious right and the American Civil Liberties Union don’t tend to agree on many… The religious right and the American Civil Liberties Union don’t tend to agree on many things, but recently there is one thing they do agree on – a student’s freedom to “Bong Hits 4 Jesus.”

No, it’s not some new-age religion mixing marijuana and Christ. Rather, it’s a Supreme Court case about high school students’ free-speech rights that has made strange bedfellows of conservative religious groups and the left.

The New York Times reported that students at a Juneau, Alaska, high school displayed a 14-foot sign reading “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” in front of TV cameras filming the Olympic Torch relay as it traveled through the streets of Juneau in 2002 on its way to Salt Lake City. Students were allowed to leave school grounds that day to watch the torch relay and performances from the cheerleading squad and band.

As students unrolled the large banner, school principal Deborah Morse demanded that they take down the sign, and when they did not comply, she ripped it down. Morse suspended student Joseph Fredericks for 10 days following the incident. Fredericks later described the slogan as “meaningless and funny.” He selected it because he saw it on a snowboard and thought it was outrageous enough to land him his 15 minutes of fame on television. Public attention was all Fredericks was after, and it seems like that’s just what he’s got.

Not only has Fredericks become the patron saint of class clowns everywhere because of the attention this case is getting, but school officials have also managed to unite conservative religious groups and free-speech advocates in opposition. The school’s apparent over-reaction to the “meaningless” phrase spawned a lawsuit that Fredericks has won so far, protecting his right to free speech. The Supreme Court is now reviewing the lower court’s decision.

Naturally, Fredericks has the support of the ACLU and the National Coalition Against Censorship. The conservative religious groups rallying in support of Fredericks are what make this case unique when compared to other cases of students challenging authority. The religious groups, including the American Center for Law and Justice, founded by the Rev. Pat Robertson, are concerned with preserving students’ right to religious freedom and the First Amendment.

The school board is arguing that it can curtail free speech of students if it is inconsistent with its mission, as in suppressing pro-drug messages when its mission is anti-drug. According to The New York Times, this is particularly distressing to religious groups who fear that school boards could freely define their missions at their discretion and at the expense of free speech and religious freedoms. What we’re worried about is how seemingly innocent cases like these are allowed to explode into giant messes. How ridiculous is it that Pat Robertson and the ACLU are storming the Supreme Court hand in hand in defense of bonging and Jesus?

“Bong Hits 4 Jesus” is not a libelous or defamatory statement, and this case further illuminates some schools’ crippling inability to pick and choose their battles. In uniting these two groups, they’ve succeeded in making everyone hate them. Wouldn’t the school’s money be better spent on things like books or computers?