Columbine Ordered to Stop Anti-religious Censorship
NewsMax.com Wires
Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2001
DENVER - The families of two students slain in the Columbine High School massacre two years ago are finally allowed to mount their hand-painted religious tiles in a memorial at the school.
U.S. District Judge Wiley Daniel ruled Monday that a school ban against the religious symbols in the display was an unconstitutional violation of the families' freedom of expression.
After the April 20, 1999, shooting in which 13 people died, the suburban Denver high school invited students, teachers, parents and others to paint the tiles to promote healing. The tiles were mounted in a memorial at the school.
In his ruling, Daniel said the school administration created a "limited public forum," which required the officials to treat all expressions equally, and they failed to do that in the case of religious tiles painted by the families of Daniel Rohrbaugh and Kelly Fleming.
Daniel ordered the tile created by Rohrbaugh mounted within 20 days alongside thousands of other tiles inside the high school. The Fleming family, which abandoned its original plan for a religious tile, was granted time to repaint its tile and include it in the display.
"I didn't feel that I did anything that was not my constitutional right to paint," said Sue Petrone, Rohrbough's mother. She painted a tile with a heart, a cross and her son's name.
The school's attorney said Daniel's anti-censorship ruling would probably be appealed.
Copyright 2001 by United Press International.
All rights reserved.
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