Imagine a church that is celebrating its 40 anniversary in March but does not want anyone on the ad hoc leadership team for the event (like me) to reach out to past clergy to invite them to attend (and perhaps hang out during the reception). The current clergy, in collaboration with other past clergy and current church leaders, saying it's all hush-hush and confidential and that it's no one's business to know what the problems are/were... and to just, well, not even send an informal email to people who used to spend untold hours working with church members, leading services, attending endless meetings (and no entity has more meetings than a church).
No need to imagine that, it turns out, because that's the deal with the St. Luke's 40 anniversary celebration... clearly, one of the quietest celebrations that can be imagined. But, like a good soldier, I will keep my head down and do may little bit (emceeing the one-hour ceremony).
Also clearly: my understanding of "all are welcome here," repeated endlessly, is too literal.
Now imagine a school yearbook that receives a senior portrait that depicts the soon-to-be-graduate posing with a gun -- he's an avid hunter and, well, doggone it, that gun deserves to be part of the yearbook.
The student editors (and this is in the state law of Colorado) are responsible to all news, opinion and advertising content in the book... and the slippery school district attorney argues that senior portraits are none of those things... and therefore the school administration can force the yearbook staff to include that photo.
Sometimes it's tough to defend lawyers as they feverishly devise strategies to get clients what they want. But the truth is that if the school had a policy that made clear what can be included in senior portraits, perhaps the whole brouhaha could be avoided. The school media program does not have such a policy, unsurprisingly.
I was asked to carefully explain the Colorado student free expression statute this week and ended up wondering why the Eaton HS principal and superintendent were so hell bent on seeing that portrait included in the 2023 book.
In the age of almost weekly school shootings, you might think that the "powers that be" would limit including weapons in a yearbook, and tacitly accepting them as such a key part of a kid's life that his love affair with guns must live forever in Eaton history.
My question was if that kid were welcome to bring his shotgun to graduation... or perhaps to class, as a sort of talisman to idly rub and fondle during a stressful math test. Just a guess here, but I would predict the gun would not be welcome on campus... just in the yearbook.
I would point out that the list of potential props that would have to be allowed in future Eaton yearbooks could be endless. One kid loves his Nintendo Switch and must be pictured holding it. Another loves playing baseball and wants to pose like a batter on a baseball card. Yet another yearns to be an artist's model and provides the book with a tasteful nude portrait -- no nipples or genitals, please.
But part of my week has been spent thinking about a relatively small church trying to ward off history and reality and avoid offending anyone... and a school district that values the political statement that including a gun in a routine senior portrait can make... for at least two adults who are purportedly dedicated to providing the very best education they can to the fine children of Eaton, Colorado.
I'm not paragon of virtue, but I try my best to avoid outright hypocrisy. It seems like the least any of us can do in this life.
I am clearly naive.
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