Easter Candy Ban May Have a Bitter Ending for School
by Jim Brown
April 24, 2006
(AgapePress) - - The mother of a North Carolina second-grader is threatening to sue a public elementary school for prohibiting the boy from passing out Easter candy displaying religious messages.Natalya Hill alleges her son Robert was barred from handing out Easter candy with an attached religious message to his classmates at Leesville Elementary School in Raleigh. Hills' attorney, Delia Van Loenen with the Alliance Defense Fund, has penned and sent a letter to the school demanding that it end its "censorship of student religious expression."
According to Van Loenen, the youngster was told he could not distribute the candy during class time, at lunch, or even during recess. The attorney says that violates the U.S. Constitution.
"The school needs to know that the students have a right to religious expression -- that's protected under the First Amendment," Van Loenen says. " And basically the school has treated this student's religious speech as second-class speech, and it's a blatant violation of his constitutional rights."
Van Loenen says the school has yet to respond to the letter demanding that the student's free-speech rights be restored. "I am assuming that that is probably why they have forbidden this student from passing out candy," he says, "because they think there's going to be some kind of violation of the so-called 'separation of church and state.'"
Principal Edward Gainor would not comment on the alleged incident.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
