Fingerprints=Mark of the beast

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Fingerprints=Mark of the beast

So a teacher is suing the state(50 points if you guess which state) because she believes that having her fingerprints taken will give her the mark of the beast and doom her to hell. Where to start with this one? Firstly, how does someone who actually believes that get qualified to teach. I wouldn't want her teaching my kid anything, even if it's just drawing. Can you imagine her teaching science..

Then there's the fact that the school board is doing their best to accomodate her' religious beliefs' it wouldn't surprise me if she gets her way in the end, therefore defeating the whole puepose of fingerprinting and background checks, to, you know, protect the kids. Next time a peodophile wants to be a teacher, try the religious objection.

And just to make the whole thing that bit worse, some of the comments actually seem to agree with her..sigh

http://www.ktre.com/Global/story.asp?S=11458231

 

LUFKIN, TX (KTRE) - A Polk County teacher is suing the state for requiring her to be fingerprinted for a background check, saying it violates her religious freedom.

According to her attorney, Scott Skelton, of Lufkin, Pam McLaurin believes the book of Revelation literally and that getting a fingerprint would bear her the mark of the beast and she would be "be tormented in burning sulfur."

McLaurin teaches at Big Sandy School District in Dallardsville, which is in Polk County.

Skelton said the case, which will be heard in the Lufkin federal court, is the only religious freedom case he knows of taken place in Lufkin and the only fingerprint case he is aware of in the United States.

Skelton said McLaurin, who has taught at the district for 20 years, is willing to undergo any other type of background check.

"She just doesn't want to be fingerprinted. That's all she doesn't want to have to do. She doesn't mind her background being checked out. She just doesn't want to submit to that. But TEA is not allowing an exception and so she is in this predicament," said Skelton.

He said the state is enforcing the rule on McLaurin, even though it is not supposed to go into effect until 2011.

Superintendent Kenneth Graham said the district will do whatever the state requires, but hopes it will allow McLaurin to continue teaching without being fingerprinted.

"A person's religious convictions are their own and we're not going to judge them as far as I'm concerned," Graham said. "My only consideration is that she does a good job for us and she is good for our children."

Wayne Haglund is the lawyer for the Big Sandy School District.

"The Constitution issues are very, very interesting, from a stand point of a conflict between a teacher's sincere upheld religious beliefs under the first amendment to the United States Constitution and the state's intent in providing a safe environment for children in the public schools," said Haglund.

Skelton said a preliminary injunction hearing is set in Beaumont on Nov. 12 to determine if the Texas  Education Agency can terminate McLaurin's license.

Revelation 13:16-17 in the King James Version states, "He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name."

Revelation 14:9-11 states, "A third angel followed them and said in a loud voice: "If anyone worships the beast and his image and receives his mark on the forehead or on the hand, he, too, will drink of the wine of God's fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. He will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment rises for ever and ever. There is no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and his image, or for anyone who receives the mark of his name."

Graham said McLaurin keeps her religious beliefs to herself and does not push them on students or other staff.

Skelton said McLaurin wished to not speak to the media about the matter.

 

Psalm 14:1 "the fool hath said in his heart there is a God"-From a 1763 misprinted edition of the bible

dudeofthemoment wrote:
This is getting redudnant. My patience with the unteachable[atheists] is limited.

Argument from Sadism: Theist presents argument in a wall of text with no punctuation and wrong spelling. Atheist cannot read and is forced to concede.


Atheistextremist
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Oh god no!

 

"If anyone worships the beast and his image and receives his mark on the forehead or on the hand he...will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment rises for ever and ever. "

 

So - when i'm being incinerated, naked, in hell for eternity, screaming and writhing, with my tackle jiggling as my skin sloughs away and my eyeballs bubble, the holy angels and the lamb will be WATCHING???

But I'm a stall man...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck


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Loc wrote:Then there's the

Loc wrote:

Then there's the fact that the school board is doing their best to accomodate her' religious beliefs' it wouldn't surprise me if she gets her way in the end, therefore defeating the whole puepose of fingerprinting and background checks, to, you know, protect the kids. Next time a peodophile wants to be a teacher, try the religious objection.

 

Ah yes, 'for the children.' The mantra by which many terrible laws and policies are justified by.

 

Loc wrote:

kelton said McLaurin, who has taught at the district for 20 years, is willing to undergo any other type of background check.

So the kids are actually going to be safe since she is consenting to all background checks that don't require fingerprints. And since background checks don't actually bother to compare your finger prints to criminal records (what with the very high likelihood of false positives) this all won't matter anyways.

I really don't see the problem here. I have refused to give my fingerprints to my state goverment and they made an exception for me rather than risk this winding up in a court. Those bastards still have one of my thumb prints, but I've stopped them from getting the rest. I'm glad that she is refusing. I don't approve of the religious justification that she is concocting for all this, but I like that she refuses to hand over the prints. If a court agrees with her that religion is a justification for refusing finger prints, then I'll be using that reasoning in the future. Hopefully the school is wise enough to not try and demand that she hand over the prints. If they do, they could wind up in court paying a lot of lawyer's fees and still end up losing. They'll probably just fold on this matter rather than press it. And that's the way things should be.

"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."
British General Charles Napier while in India


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:3

 In Georgia they are called Satan's Ridges.


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what burns me up is that if

what burns me up is that if she were a muslim woman fighting for her "right" to interrupt classes in order to say her prayers or something like that, i guarantee that NONE of these texas schoolboard motherfuckers would be going to bat for her.  in fact, i'm sure a muslim woman would never have been hired to begin with.  of course, one superstition is as bad as another, but this is obviously more bible belt encroachment on jefferson's wall masquerading as "religious freedom" and i'm so fucking sick of it.

"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson


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No matter who goes to bat

No matter who goes to bat for her, she will fail. The police will not stand for having one of their most successful and scientific methods being thrown out the window, which is exactly what would happen if the suit were successful. There is no rational reason to not submit for fingerprinting, and plenty of reasons why it's a good idea. Even if the judge is religiously stupid, it'll get nuked on appeal. I see it as a good thing. It'll set one more precedent in the courts against religion. So ironic that by desperately searching for ways to force religion on people, they're actually crippling themselves suit by suit.

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Excuse me?

NO rational reason to not submit for fingerprinting?

How's about, "innocent until proven guilty"?

How's about, "the burden of proof lies on the accusor"?

How's about, "I'm not giving you my goddam fingerprints for your records because they aren't yours"?

This teacher is fighting the right thing for the wrong reasons, but at least she's fighting it and I will cheer for her when she wins.  The  idea that "if you aren't guilty, you have nothing to hide," is a dangerous one.  The sooner it dies, the happier I'll be.

 

Robb

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  As an atheist I find the

  As an atheist I find the religious nature of her objection hard to take but she obviously has the right to her own opinion.  Nevertheless as a person who tends to support libertarian politics I do see the School Board as being excessively vigilant.

  My current understanding of the situation is that School Boards across the nation resort to tactics such as this in order to protect themselves from liability in the event of accusations of sexual impropriety between an employee and their students.  The intrusive background check is simply an ass-saving measure for the School Board, most likely predicated on the advice of their attorneys.

  She may prevail but I doubt it.


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You are likely right...

Quote:

 

"My current understanding of the situation is that School Boards across the nation resort to tactics such as this in order to protect themselves from liability in the event of accusations of sexual impropriety between an employee and their students.  The intrusive background check is simply an ass-saving measure for the School Board, most likely predicated on the advice of their attorneys. "  - ProzacDeathWish

 

Probably true, but it doesn't make it right.

"The general opinion is not always the perfect truth..."
- Giordano Bruno


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GodlessMonk

GodlessMonk wrote:

Quote:

 

"My current understanding of the situation is that School Boards across the nation resort to tactics such as this in order to protect themselves from liability in the event of accusations of sexual impropriety between an employee and their students.  The intrusive background check is simply an ass-saving measure for the School Board, most likely predicated on the advice of their attorneys. "  - ProzacDeathWish

 

Probably true, but it doesn't make it right.

  Agreed.  Bad laws abound.  ( can you say Patriot Act.  ? )


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"NO rational reason to not

"NO rational reason to not submit for fingerprinting?"

Indeed.

"How's about, "innocent until proven guilty"?How's about, "the burden of proof lies on the accusor"?"

She isn't being accused of a crime.

"How's about, "I'm not giving you my goddam fingerprints for your records because they aren't yours"?"

Cops are prohibited from keeping records on fingerprints from people that haven't been charged. Maybe the law is different there. If so, I suppose that grants a bit more validity to her refusal, but not much. If she's not a criminal, then she has nothing to hide. If she is one, then there is no defense against being caught. Unless you're going to bring out some conspiracy theory perhaps. That could be entertaining.

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Why is everyone so

Why is everyone so supportive of not having to give fingerprints? If having a database of the populations fingerprints could help catch criminals, I would support it. Is everyone scared of big brother tracking them?

What confuses me is how she has gotten to her age without ever having her fingerprints taken. I have had mine taken many times, when applying for ID, passport, licenses

Psalm 14:1 "the fool hath said in his heart there is a God"-From a 1763 misprinted edition of the bible

dudeofthemoment wrote:
This is getting redudnant. My patience with the unteachable[atheists] is limited.

Argument from Sadism: Theist presents argument in a wall of text with no punctuation and wrong spelling. Atheist cannot read and is forced to concede.


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Ugh.

Just so we're clear, I should say that I'm Canadian as well, so I really have to wonder where your idea of justice comes from. 

I, myself, believe I have nothing to hide, but I will fight tooth and nail ANYONE that tries to take my fingerprints to record.  I will also have a lawyer present BEFORE anyone tries to search my house, my person or anything that I have any influence over.  I will, however, submit to these things only if proven to me and my lawyer if there is a reasonable amount of evidence pointing toward my guilt in a real crime. 

As it happens, my brother was fingerprinted many years back because he was suspected of being involved in a break-and-enter.  When the charges were dropped (due to a complete lack of evidence) he requested that his prints be destroyed.  He was told by the officer at the time that they would be kept on file.  My brother had to seek legal help in order to see that they were destroyed.  Sadly, I never heard the outcome of it, but wouldn't be surprised if they are still on record somewhere.  I mean, would YOU destroy them if you didn't really have to?

But I digress.  My opinion is stated and now I am sorry if I derailed this thread.  We can pick this up again, if you wish, in the appropriate forum.

By-the-by, getting me started about the "Patriot" Act may not be advisable.

 

Robb

"The general opinion is not always the perfect truth..."
- Giordano Bruno


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I work in the electronic security industry

 

and have done for more than 20 years and there's a lot of this gear available but its penetration into the market is almost zero. The number of companies which have gone under trying to survive on income from biometrics is legion.

People don't like biometrics and that's flat. I think a viable alternative is a biometric (it's no more than a bunch of numbers that indicate distances between selected grid points) that is stored on a credential that you carry - like a smart card.

Instead of an access control system containing a database that could be accessed widely (very arguably, let's face it), the reader simply matches the cardholder to the measurements on their credential. A system like this is an excellent compromise.

Nevertheless, end users have a lot of trouble selling biometrics to their staff. There's the fingerprint thing, the number of the beast thing, the everything. We have clients who make this stuff but even given that I understand it, I am not a great fan.

I don't think anyone should have to give a fingerprint unless security is a big concern. The lady should be allowed to carry a prox or mifare swipe card instead - it's just a school after all. I think you'll find the school is less interested in the 

increased security levels of biometrics and more interested in saving money on managing physical cards. The cost of administering thousands of cards that get lost, stolen, broken, is a serious expense. Fingers are wholly maintained by their owners.

It's generally feared that there's a network of computer systems out there that are all talking to each other and sharing this sort of information but I can assure you no security manager worth his salt would expose a quality networked access control or video

surveillance system to a general data network.  In almost all cases these systems run on subnets that are physically corralled apart from wider networks and access is controlled by direct connection to a handful of authorised local workstations.

If there was some freaky biometric sharing arrangement between multiple corporate and government bodies on a wide scale I would have heard about it. I never have and I've examined hundreds of security management systems.

Having said all this, the technical capacity for the number of the beast not only exists, it has done for say, ten years. Maybe the general biometric capability has been around longer than this but the network infrastructure has always been inadequate. 

Part of me thinks Osama's biggest 9/11 achievement is the increased penetration of identity management solutions, particularly in customs environments, in the West. You would have had have to assaulted America and beat the living shit out of her to

implement this stuff ten years ago and now the DHS and its global equivalents are serving it up with coffee and 2 sugars. Creepy.

Biometrics should come down to choice. That's what I'd want.

 

"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck


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GodlessMonk wrote:I, myself,

GodlessMonk wrote:

I, myself, believe I have nothing to hide, but I will fight tooth and nail ANYONE that tries to take my fingerprints to record.  I will also have a lawyer present BEFORE anyone tries to search my house, my person or anything that I have any influence over.

Can I hear an "Amen!"? This is the attitude that all people should hold at all times regarding police searches and any form of information gathering by law enforcement. Multiple U.S. Supreme Court justices have claimed that under no circumstance should anyone ever make any form of statement to the police. You should not even give the simplest statement to someone who's only job is to get you charged with crimes. You should not believe the lies that they were trained to tell you in order to trick you into making them statements. You should never, for any imaginable reason, consent to any form of search. Announce your refusal to give consent and then do nothing but refuse to respond to police questioning. If they search anyways, then your lawyer can try (and in all likelihood succeed) to get any evidence found (no matter how damning) thrown out due to a lack of probable cause. But, if you give consent, then you can not possibly contest evidence found against you. If your refusal to consent doesn't do the trick, announcing that you will sue will hopefully scare the cop into backing down. If he threatens you and you are on the police cruiser's camera, then you are almost guarenteed an extremely large settlement in a law suit against the station. US police stations have been bankrupted when wronged citizens sued over unconstitutional searches. Lawsuits that hurt station's finances have succeeded in cleaning up stations that simply refuse to respect the US Constitution. It is sad that the basis of all law in the US is held in lower regard by some police stations than lawsuits for damages.

I highly recommend that any American who is unsure on their uncontestable rights against unreasonable searches watch these videos:

http://www.flexyourrights.org/

The videos that they make have bad actors and mediocre scripts, but they describe, in easy-to-understand terms, all that you need to know about abjectly refusing to consent to any form of search for any circumstance. Sorry Canadians, but these videos focus only on the US Constitution and its iron-clad rules that will save an American's ass when the police don't follow the Constitution's rules regarding searches.

"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."
British General Charles Napier while in India


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"I, myself, believe I have

"I, myself, believe I have nothing to hide, but I will fight tooth and nail ANYONE that tries to take my fingerprints to record.  I will also have a lawyer present BEFORE anyone tries to search my house, my person or anything that I have any influence over.  I will, however, submit to these things only if proven to me and my lawyer if there is a reasonable amount of evidence pointing toward my guilt in a real crime."

So will I (except fingerprints, we don't live in the USSR or Nazi Germany). But I don't see any record keeping taking place here. Merely an insurance that a criminal isn't in the class room. If something turns up, then her prints were ALREADY on record, the police just didn't know who they belonged to. It's nothing more sinister than a name check or a credit check or a criminal record check, which are more common practice than fingerprint checks.

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"As it happens ~ I mean,

"As it happens ~ I mean, would YOU destroy them if you didn't really have to?"

Well they should have been destroyed. If they weren't, they wouldn't stand up for a second in a court in the future. A first year apprentice lawyer would know enough to turn the proceedings upside down over violation of a court order.
But even if the laws have changed since I was last familiar with them, or even in the unlikely event that I understood them incorrectly, I wouldn't really have a problem with it. There are enough protections to civillians in our laws to prevent malicious prosecution and harassment, and evidence obtained illegally is inadmissable.

Besides, if you're dumb enough to leave your fingerprints at a crime scene you deserve to get caught.

The patriot act is filth.

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Vastet wrote:But I don't see

Vastet wrote:
But I don't see any record keeping taking place here. Merely an insurance that a criminal isn't in the class room. If something turns up, then her prints were ALREADY on record, the police just didn't know who they belonged to.

But these kinds of background checks don't compare your fingerprints to those on file. They just keep your finger prints for some later use. I don't even know what that later use could be, but that is the reason for taking them: to keep them on record and not compare them to the fingerprints of criminals. They don't bother with the comparison because of the extremely high likelihood of false positives. There is nothing to gain by having them have your fingerprints during a background check. They aren't doing a comparison, so they are just taking fingerprints for the sake of taking fingerprints. I guess it is some sort of liability thing like the way one of my previous employers demanded two letters of recommendation, never even opened them the whole time I worked there, and kept the letters in a file. I can't understand the utility of collecting letters like that if they aren't going to be read (just like collecting fingerprints that won't be ran through criminal records), but I suppose that there is some liability based reason for having letters of recommendation on hand for every employee.

"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."
British General Charles Napier while in India


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Well if they aren't even

Well if they aren't even being used for the very purpose of taking them anyway, then it seems pretty dumb to bother taking them in the first place. There's no valid reason or purpose to take them in such a scenario unless you're going all the way and fingerprinting everyone at birth. Which probably wouldn't hurt crime at all, and would only force people to be smarter criminals.
Your equivalent to SIN (SSN?) should be sufficient in the scenario you lay out. Someone should propose legislation to stop wasting time and money on the practice.

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Jormungander wrote:But these

Jormungander wrote:
But these kinds of background checks don't compare your fingerprints to those on file. They just keep your finger prints for some later use. I don't even know what that later use could be, but that is the reason for taking them: to keep them on record and not compare them to the fingerprints of criminals. They don't bother with the comparison because of the extremely high likelihood of false positives.

Like one of the previous posters (Atheistextremeist) I have a background in security (career prior to present career), though more in the crypto / trusted computing area than biometrics.  I forget the first time my prints were taken (ca. 1980 or so), but I always assumed they were taken to make sure I'd not lied about who I am.  Which makes me wonder how true what you wrote is, because if they aren't taking prints to verify identity, then why the hell bother?  On account of I know the FBI and others have my prints, I don't complain about having them taken -- add 'em to the collection, I figure.

What I don't understand is how the woman in question is making this into a religious liberty issue.  There are an infinite number of behaviors ("Aardvark Animation" -- my religion requires me to make animated cartoons of aardvarks ... ) that can be claimed as "religious liberty issues", many of which are incompatible with varying national (for varying values of "national" ) laws.  So merely claiming "religious liberty" is not a strong argument.  I'd think she'd have to find an established religious doctrine which teaches that "finger printing" is contrary to religious liberty as a first hurdle.

And I disagree with the logic about "not opening" letters of recommendation, or "not checking" fingerprints as a liability reducing mechanism.  Not something I'd want coming out during pre-trial discovery if I were being sued and hadn't done Due Diligence.

"Obviously I'm convinced of the existence of G-d. I'm equally convinced that Atheists who've led good lives will be in Olam HaBa going "How the heck did I wind up in this place?!?" while Christians who've treated people like dirt will be in some other place asking the exact same question."


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GodlessMonk wrote:NO

GodlessMonk wrote:

NO rational reason to not submit for fingerprinting?

How's about, "innocent until proven guilty"?

How's about, "the burden of proof lies on the accusor"?

How's about, "I'm not giving you my goddam fingerprints for your records because they aren't yours"?

This teacher is fighting the right thing for the wrong reasons, but at least she's fighting it and I will cheer for her when she wins.  The  idea that "if you aren't guilty, you have nothing to hide," is a dangerous one.  The sooner it dies, the happier I'll be.

 

Robb

It's a requirement for a job, she could always find another job somewhere that doesn't have this requirement. This to me, is no different than a job requiring a piss test. If someone complained of how pissing into a cup will send them to hell, should the job work around that??? That doesn't exactly seem fair to all the other applicants who don't have wacky beliefs.

Free your mind.


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Ivon wrote:It's a

Ivon wrote:

It's a requirement for a job, she could always find another job somewhere that doesn't have this requirement. This to me, is no different than a job requiring a piss test. If someone complained of how pissing into a cup will send them to hell, should the job work around that??? That doesn't exactly seem fair to all the other applicants who don't have wacky beliefs.

Legally, "It's a wacky belief" isn't sufficient reason NOT to retain her as a teacher.  There has to be a legitimate state interest (which is starting to sound questionable, if the State isn't using the fingerprints at all) when there is a religious liberty issue that conflicts with the law.  Bad cases make for bad laws, and if the school districts aren't performing background checks with the fingerprints, this case could wind up making that impossible.

"Obviously I'm convinced of the existence of G-d. I'm equally convinced that Atheists who've led good lives will be in Olam HaBa going "How the heck did I wind up in this place?!?" while Christians who've treated people like dirt will be in some other place asking the exact same question."


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They want to build up these

They want to build up these databases just for the sake of making the databases. The fingerprints aren't used in the sense that they are compared to the fingerprints of criminals. They are used in the sense that if a crime is commited on campus and fingerprints are found they already have all faculty prints and can do a comparison. So the database is built for its own sake and maybe someday it could be used. Probably not, but it is possible that they could do a future comparision between the fingerprints of teachers and fingerprints found on some crime scene.

"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."
British General Charles Napier while in India


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Well how is it decided what

Well how is it decided what rituals can't you or must you perform for your religion? Would the law require a text and congregation? If she followed some of the guidelines but not all of them, would it make her whole argument invalid? ie. She won't have "the mark of the beast", but she will poop in a public place (dumb example of something she isn't supposed to do in accordance to her religion but does anyway)