Dress Codes

The subject of dress codes is very interesting to me because this school year, my old school introduced uniforms. It is a public school, but all students must wear khaki, navy or black tailored pants and a collared shirt in green, blue or white. The dress code at my old high school is very severe and in my opinion, violates the first amendment because it really inhibits the students' ability to express themselves. However, the dress code here is quite different. I was actually surprised to find that they have a dress code at NCSA, but basically, you just have to have your privates covered. I think that our dress code is constitutional because we are allowed to freely express ourselves through our clothing as long as we do not choose to express ourselves with nudity. This protects our freedom of speech, while upholding the law against public indecency.

Flag Burning

In the United States of America it is legal to burn our country flag. In the case of Texas v Johnson, after Johnson was originally convicted because of a Texan law outlawing flag-burning, the Supreme Court then found that this act is protected under the First Amendment. Johnson said that he burned the flag as a means of protest against the Reagan administration policies; however, i feel that burning the flag does not protest just a President's actions, but the whole country in general. I feel that burning the American flag is disrespectful to our country. If you do burn our flag it sends the message that you don't like America and if a person really doesn't like American that much, then there are other places to live. There are other ways to speak your mind without burning the flag of our home.

Westboro Baptist Church

My first reaction to the Westboro Baptist Church is absolute horror. I cannot imagine any human being thinking that it is acceptable to picket a funeral and shout obscene things to the mourning family. However, even though I am repulsed by their actions, I support their right to protest. I think that we must protect the Westboro Baptist Church member's right to protest because even though they shout awful things, they never physically hurt anyone. I think that we must protect their right to protest because if we censor them, we no longer have a clear definition of what is censor-worthy and what is acceptable public speech. If we say that the protest of the church members is too offensive and unconstitutional, we run the risk of people claiming that all types of protest are too offensive to be allowed. Everyone's viewpoint offends at least one person, and if we censor one group, then it is possible that every protest group will eventually be banned. I personally think that the beliefs of the Westboro Baptist Church are awful, but I think that the right to protest is far to important to sacrifice simply to shut them up.

First Amendment Test

Before I took this test, I thought I knew quite a bit about the first amendment and I was fairly sure that I knew my rights. However, when I took the test, I only got 20 out of 30 questions correct. So, I ended up learning quite a bit from taking the quiz!

One of the questions which surprised me was number 19

19. The First Amendment prohibits private schools that accept government funding from censoring or punishing students who participate in lawful and peaceful on-campus speech activities.

a. true
b. false

I chose answer A. However, the correct answer is B, because even though the school accepts government money, it is still a private school and therefore can do pretty much anything they want. I thought that it was interesting that even though the government sort of supports the school, it cannot regulate the rules of the school simply because it is not classified as a public school.

Can Rastafarians in the United States legally use marijuana as part of their religious practice?

“Another commonly held belief among the Rastafarians is their emphasis on the smoking of marijuana. "Likewise, ganga or marijuana is considered to be the `holy herb' mentioned in the Bible and its smoking is a holy sacrament to many" (Ibid, June/July 1994, p. 76). As Barrett explains, through the use of ganga, the Rastafarian reaches an altered state of consciousness. In this altered state, "the revelation that Haile Selassie is God and that Ethiopia is the home of the Black" is realized. "The herb is the key to new understanding of the self, the universe, and God. It is the vehicle to cosmic consciousness" (The Rastafarians, pp. 254-255).”
(http://www.rasta-man.co.uk/religion.htm)

No. I don’t believe it would be a good idea for Rastafarians in the United States to legally use marijuana as part of their religious practice. I think this because people would begin to take advantage of this religious practice and pretend to be a part of this religion but not use it for religious purposes which could actually be really insulting to those who take this religion seriously. I think marijuana should either be legal for illegal for everyone or no one at all. If the United States only made exceptions for certain people, tt would cause this huge controversy which would cause more problems between different ethnicity‘s and race. This issue is very similar to the Saudi Arabian woman who had refused to take off her veil and reveal her face for her driver’s license causing her to not receive her license. When one person does something different, many follow so these actions would cause a chain reaction and soon enough everyone would be wearing veils and giving their license to underage people which could cause very serious risks for people driving. Same with marijuana; it would be easier for people to get their hands on this drug and it would begin to be used not for religious purposes but for their personal reasons which wouldn’t be right.