Crowd reacts to pro-Great Auditorium comment
Text by Charles Layton, Photos by Paul Goldfinger
Neptune school officials met with more than 200 parents, students and residents Wednesday night to discuss the ACLU’s threat to file suit over use of the Great Auditorium for this year’s high school graduation.
School Board President John Daniels opened the meeting. Standing at a podium on the floor of the high school’s auxiliary gymnasium, Daniels told the crowd that the board “is one hundred percent behind the cause of this event … to continue at the Great Auditorium.”
Superintendent David Mooij then explained the issue and took questions from the audience. But the meeting ended as a kind of pep rally, with people expressing mutual support along with anger and sadness over the possibility that a court might not permit the class of 2011 to graduate in the Great Auditorium, as previous classes have done for at least seven decades.
Neptune Township School Superintendant David Mooij
In addition to the anger and sadness, however, was the obvious sense of the pride the people of Neptune take in Ocean Grove as a place for their seniors to celebrate graduation. One woman said her daughter would be the fifth generation of her family to graduate in the Great Auditorium. Another spoke of the emotion she felt when the American flag lights up behind the auditorium stage. Mooij spoke of the auditorium’s unique historical significance.
Chante Reeves NHS '11
Chante Reeves, a member of the class of 2011, told the crowd, “We’d rather be in the Great Auditorium than any other venue.”
Not a single person rose to defend the ACLU and its client, who are challenging the use of a place of worship for a public school event. (For background on the ACLU’s objections and the school’s response, go here. For a timeline of events, go here.)
Mooij emphasized that no suit has yet been filed. The ACLU and the school board are still negotiating, and the board continues to plan for graduation in the auditorium, he said.
In answer to audience questions, he said the ACLU still had time, before graduation, to file for an injunction to block the use of the auditorium. Should an injunction be granted, he said, “We do not have a backup plan yet,” but he promised that the seniors would have a good place to graduate no matter what. He ruled out holding the graduation outdoors because of the possibility of bad weather. Asked where the school board would get the money to fight a law suit, if it came to that, Mooij said no such money was allocated in the budget but that the board “will do what they have to do in case of a legal challenge.”
He said the administration has considered a few other venues, including the Paramount Theater in Asbury Park. But no other place will have nearly as much seating capacity as the Great Auditorium. Using the auditorium allows the school to distribute from six to eight tickets for each of the 320 graduating seniors, versus three to four tickets per senior at any alternative site, he said. He also made clear that the board would not give up the auditorium unless forced to do so by court order.
He announced that the date of the graduation, originally scheduled for June 20, has been moved up to June 17, which is a Friday. (This had nothing to do with the ACLU dispute.)
Before opening the meeting to audience questions and comments, Mooij asked that everyone “observe decorum” and respect differing opinions. For the most part, the audience members did so. However, emotions ran high, there was much enthusiastic applause at people’s comments, and one woman broke into tears as she tried to describe how much graduation in the Great Auditorium meant to her.
Mooij urged people to make their voices heard by writing letters to the Asbury Park Press and speaking out in other forums. But he also noted that, in the event of a law suit, “it’s the legal arguments that will dictate the outcome” rather than public emotion and rhetoric.
What is happening to this world. First of all, if I lived there or anywhere that forced me to choose a building over God, let me tell you, my child would not attend the ceremony. God should be number 1 to all Christians. He is first and foremost. I understand traditions, but not at God’s expense. Who will start standing up for him? With God being ignored at Neptune, I shudder to think what will happen to that community. Also, aren’t people there offended at some of the language that some of the students use, or the way a few of them dress, or how they drive, or the way they comb their hair? Should we now try to eliminate those bad behaviors? People wake up and start defending your God. God and family are the most important things we have. Would having the ceremony or attending the ceremony at the auditorium seem as important to them if say someone in their family was terminally ill or seriously injured? I would bet that the family and friends would be praying to the God they are trying to keep out and the auditorium graduation would seem so insignificant.
As a former graduate of Neptune High School in 1973 and coming from a family of eight (five of us graduated from Neptune) I know I can speak for all of us when I say stop the insanity. One of Neptune’s most endearing traditions is our graduation from this famous landmark. It is something that is handed down from parent to child and is a rite of passage for the graduates of Neptune High and has been so for the last 70 years. We are proud of our school and where we come from. This a symbol of our past, and we want it to remain a part of who we are.
Terrence M. Hamm
Class of ’73
STAND STRONG NEPTUNE HIGH SCHOOL AND NJ! YOU HAVE RIGHTS TOO!!
YOU HAVE SO MUCH SUPPORT NATIONWIDE!!
WE ARE WATCHING AND BACKING YOU!
SPEAK THE TRUTH WITH BOLDNESS AND DO NOT CAVE!!
Covering a cross is the most disrespectful solution anyone could come up with as it shows a clear lack understanding of religion; just as asking a person of a different religion to remove their head coverings etc. This would be disrespectful to the community of Ocean Grove and the Camp Meeting Association which has been kind enough to open their doors to the seniors long before they were part of our town. This grandmother got her chance to attend her grandchild’s graduation which, I might add, was a beautiful event last year. But because of her, my son’s siblings and definitely his grandparents may not be able to attend this year. Next year when her other grandchild graduates, she may not be so lucky, and the irony is at any other location tickets will be very limited, and she will have nothing to complain about because she wouldn’t have even been there to see it.
Please tell me why our own president can end his speech with “God bless America” only one week before, and the ACLU hasn’t filed a suit; but when a highly respected intelligent young student wishes to express religious overtones in his speech it causes such controversy. The Board of Ed agreed to remove this from future programs because what he said during his use of free speech offended one person. What message are we sending these students?
No, Zelda, not the public. One person. ONE. Not “the public”.
I’m all for the Separation of Church and State, but that doesn’t mean we need a society free of religion, much less a religion you don’t happen to be a member of. You can look at religious iconography and view it as something offensive because you don’t share those beliefs, and thus be an exclusionist instead of an inclusionist, or you can view it as a piece of art or history, and accept all mankind with peace in your heart.
I couldn’t ever imagine this happening in the U.S., but in Mississauga, Ontario, the local Catholic diocese and the city partnered together to buy a property and have a Catholic high school on one side and the town community center on the other. They share costs and space as necessary, and there’s no big to-do about it.
Basically, even churches and religious schools have been acceptable for public use if religious objects are removed, etc.
(as reported quite often in cases covered by the Americans United for Separation of Church and State.)
BPC (Before Politically Correct), even before we were a nation the Meeting House was a staple in every community, a general purpose building large enough to hold meetings of all sorts. They were usually adorned with iconography of all types. It was where government and community issues were discussed, debated, resolved and voted on. It served as a schoolhouse, ceremonial site and yes, even as a church at times where different denominations met (at different hours of the day of course). 😉 It was the type of place where our democratic ideals were nurtured and flourished. Our revolutionary spirit and independence grew from such places. The very Constitutional issues being discussed here found a voice in such structures. It should not be about the structure or what symbols are seen or unseen.
My point is, it’s about the event, the celebration of achievement through hard work. The Auditorium can enhance and facilitate that celebration, give it’s own voice, just as similar structures did BPC.
Are we now to cover the electrified flag on the off chance that someone may take offense? Are the students to be forbidden from wearing any jewelry that may show a Cross, a Star of David or a Crescent Moon simply because it might upset someone? Is an historic building to be altered because it is used as a church on Sundays for a few months in the summer? I hope not!
As I understand it, the graduation ceremony itself has been ‘de-religified’. So why not just let 3000 people celebrate a wonderful accomplishment in a ‘meeting house’ without the fear of weather or litigation looming on the horizon! I think the students and families have that right.
Hey Zelda, how about you just don’t look at the FOUR – wait, one’s just a marketing slogan, not a Biblical quote – THREE antique religious items that could be destroyed if they were removed that offend you, if you even have someone graduating? Cause that’s what most sensible people do when they’re confronted with things that offend them, like billboards and ads on the turnpike and subway. They ignore them and concentrate on the reason why they’re there.
The constitution, as Jerry has explained, is not being violated. Where is anyone’s freedom to worship as they please being compromised by attending a graduation ceremony in a “mixed use” structure. The school board has chosen this venue for its non religious graduation ceremony and anyone can choose not to attend if they are offended by it. Early in our nation’s history similar buildings, adorned with similar symbols, were used as poling places for government elections. I guess maybe the ACLU would have us give up that right.
Zelda,
The Camp Meeting owns the Auditorium and they have every right NOT to cover it. No religious rights are being violated.
How come no one that attends any of the myriads of concerts there ever complained about religious rights being violated.
The Constitution is NOT a living, breathing thing. And, you should also understand that the Constitution NEVER had the words “separation of church and state.” It only said that the government shall not establish a state religion. This separation issue was the creation of an activist Supreme Court, led by Hugo Black where as they took a line from a letter that President Jefferson wrote to a Baptist organization. The Court INTERPRETED something that was never in the Constitution, nor was ever intended by the founders.
ALL THE CONSTITUTION SAYS IS THAT THE GOVERNMENT SHALL NOT FORCE ON THE PEOPLE A STATE RELIGION. Attending a graduation is a choice and it is NOT forced on you, nor is the government forcing one to adopt that religion.
You must also know that the founders were indeed religious people and that God was used quite often. One section of Washington’s Farewell Address stressed the importance of religion. Our Declaration Of Independence spoke of “unalienable rights bestowed upon us by the Creator.”
For most of us, the Constitution says what it means and means what it says, in other words we should live by the exact words in the Constitution, not what people who were not the founders might want to think what it says.
Again, just as people have the right to practice their own religion, no one is making the case that this person who was offended MUST attend the ceremony.
Why is it that people can’t just ignore these things? The next thing that some might request is to remove crosses from Churches so that people driving by won’t be offended. Or they might ask that “In God We Trust”be removed from our money…
But then, that would be silly; wouldn’t it?
The simple and most respectful solution is for the Neptune Board of Ed to cover the religious symbols and signs. Why isn’t the public insisting this be done? Even the editorial in the Asbury Park Press didn’t insist on this solution. It is sad that so many people have no respect for the religious rights that are being violated. Put the pressure where it belongs — on the Board of Ed. The solution is not to ignore the Constitution in favor of tradition, but to tweak tradition to comply with the Constitution. All Americans lose when we don’t protect these rights. I hope the graduating class has been taught the importance of one of the cornerstones of our country — separation of Church and State.