"Hell"

[Linkafier]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4179318/

A girl gets suspended for saying the word "hell" as in the biblical place. She's in second grade too. Funny, my teacher said hell out loud and he never got in trouble. God damn school rules.

[Melonhead]

Looks likes its time for another free speech lawsuit.

And besides, hell is used in many important literary works. Perhaps those should be banned in school?

[Starkist]

Profanity is banned in that school, but there is no list saying what is profanity and what is not. That is immaterial anyhow, since the girl said the word 'hell' not as a curse, but as a noun referring to a place.

[Rainman]

They really should look more into the context of how the word was used. However, the rules at the time stated no exception so she wasn't discriminated against or anything. In fact it was quite the opposite and that's what their pissed off about.

[Yoshiman]

Whoa, talk about harsh. Saying the word hell like that isn't considered profanity by me. Now, maybe saying "sh*t" would recieve a detention, but a suspension is far too steep for a second grader.

[phattonez]

I second grader cannot make a decision about what religion they want to be in. They may think they are in something, but are not. A school cannot say that saying religious things are intolerable. This is why I am against seperation of church and state in schools. Why does a public school have to be atheist? These kids are not going to change their religion inside of an elementary school. All those who get offended by people saying something about religion is stupid. Basically, this school is too uptight and has more seious issues to be concerned about.

[Starkist]

The issue is that the school considered her word profane, with no regard to context.

[phattonez]

The problem is that she was not using profanity. Hell has one meaning. Each way, hell means the location. This is comparable to saying damn, you could be saying something about damnation, but out of context, it is profanity to little kids.

[Link 101]

YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME! In my school the teachers say 'hell in the classroom while teaching, and I got to a CATHOLIC SCHOOL! Man, that is WAY beyond harsh.

[Starkist]

You are a little kid to some, remember. ;)

Hell is a place, in Christian and Jewish tradition. "Hell" is also a swear word, inasmuch as people can say "What the hell was that?" They are by no means referring to the place, they are swearing by it. It seems silly, but that is how the language works. People say "damn" all the time without actually thinking about what the word means. That is essentially what profanity is: using words out of context. There are exceptions of course. The F word is quite often used in context but still considered profane.

[phattonez]

But the problem with this is that the person did know what the word referred to and said it in a way that was not harsh. The person was not mad when they said hell, they were just saying what the other person said was wrong. There are more severe cases and those recquire detention or something.

[Starkist]

Actually, it seems the girl in question knew exactly what the word meant. She had been taught, as her father states in the article, that good people go to heaven and bad people go to hell. Her friend was, in her eyes, taking God's name in vain, and the girl informed her friend that she should not do this, for fear of hell.

[phattonez]

I was talking about your example, sorry about not making that clear. Now, the girl in question knew exactly what she was saying, and all she was doing was stating her opinion. What happened to freedom of speech? Is the Patriot Act (I don't like this either) going to take over that too? Americans are losing their rights to athiests who cannot stand to hear anything about God or religion.

[Starkist]

The Patriot Act has nothing to do with a school's profanity policy. :blah:

[phattonez]

I know, I just wanted to say how I don't like the Patriot Act either. I'm venting some of my anger. But to get back on topic, we are losing our rights to uptight people who can't even bother to look at things in cotext.