Recently there has been a story in the news about a girl
named Kalei Wilson who was feeling a bit ostracized in her school for her
beliefs, as she was an atheist. She decided to start a nonreligious club in her
school for people like her to feel welcomed at the school. Unfortunately, the
school declined to let her start the club, even though they had already allowed
religious clubs to start before.
After the story gained a lot of popularity, and outside
groups supported Kalei in her decision such as the ACLU, the school decided to
let her open the club. Unfortunately, she eventually chose not to start the
club after receiving a lot of threats and harassment about it from religious
students who felt she shouldn’t be able to have her own club.
When I first heard this story I immediately remembered the religious
discrimination of the Puritans that we were studying in history at the time.
The Puritans’ policy was you were not allowed to even tolerate people from
other religions, or other Puritans that tolerated other religions. This applied
not only to other religions, but different sects of the SAME religion too.
I thought the two were pretty similar, as both were examples
I’d recently heard about of unjust discrimination against those with different
beliefs than you. Of course, the recent example is much less extreme as it is
persecution of lack of religion altogether, and the Puritans persecuted those
who were even in the same religion. I think this means we have come a long way,
but still have a long way to go.
Citations:
Articles detailing the progression of Kalei’s story
Images
Puritans Praying: http://endtimepilgrim.org/puritans03.htm
Great post Jacob. First off that was a great connection from our class to the real world. I applaud you for that. But I wish you went a little more in depth to the topic of Kalei. That was extremely interesting. I also wish you added a little more info on the topic of religious persecution in the past. Besides that the chart was a very nice touch.The pictures were great and the title really caught my eye. Keep bloggin'.
ReplyDeleteJacob,
ReplyDeleteI found your blog post very interesting and I think you did a very good job with it. I like the connection you made, and, although I personally do not entirely agree with all of your points, I was able to appreciate the information you were trying to convey. I particularly liked how eloquent you sounded when you said: "I think this means we have come a long way, but still have a long way to go.", as this summed up your whole post very well. Overall, great job!
-Travis
Great job, this was a very interesting post. Right away I was hooked by your tittle and wanted to read more. This was a great connection of real life and our history class. As said above I would like to know more about Kalei's story because it seemed very interesting and I really could see the connection to history class. It is sad that a hint of religious discrimination is still occurring today. Over all great job!
ReplyDeleteThis is a very good post. I was hooked right away by your pictures and title. You did a great job connecting the story to history class. I would have never thought of that. It is a sad comparison because we like to believe that times have changed but this just proves we still have a long way to go. But you did a great job connecting the story to class.
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