The University of Wisconsin-Whitewater has fallen under criticism for an e-mail announcing a prayer vigil.
School officials allowed the notice of a prayer vigil for Amy Krueger, a former student who was killed earlier this month in the Fort Hood massacre. A notice about the event was posted on the school’s website, which caused confusion over who sponsored the occasion. Julaine Appling, president of Wisconsin Family Action, suspects the root of the problem is nothing more than an opposing organization’s efforts to cause trouble.
“What you have is Freedom From Religion Foundation using its normal bullying and intimidating tactics,” she explains. “The U.W.-Whitewater has done nothing wrong in letting students know about an event that is student-led to honor and to pray for the family of a victim from the Fort Hood shooting. Freedom from Religion is once again looking for a fight.”
The nontheistic Foundation has a history of mailing threatening letters to government bodies nationwide over such things as prayer before meetings, although court rulings say that prayer is allowed to take place. In this case, it claims that the university violated its own rules as a public university by inviting students to pray, and that it further should have changed the “prayer vigil” to a “memorial service.”
However, considering past court rulings, Appling says, “I would trust that school officials will not be intimated by the neighborhood bully.”
The Wisconsin Family Action president believes it is time for officials and organizations, along with levels of government and schools, to stand up to the Freedom From Religion Foundation.
(Source: OneNewsNow)