The Enfield story's conclusion

MANIFESTO

The Enfield Board of Education

voted 5-4 Thursday night not to appeal a preliminary injunction by U.S. District Judge Janet Hall, who ruled Monday that it was unconstitutional for the district's two high schools to hold their commencement ceremonies at a church.

This is a situation where everyone looks like fools, which, I suppose, isn't surprising when the two toxic entities of public education and religion are involved.

At any rate, the (you should pardon the expression) self-righteous Alex Luchenitser, senior litigation counsel for Americans United for Separation of Church and State, expressed his satisfaction:

"We're quite pleased about the vote. The board did the right thing to help the students in the community put this behind them. It allows the schools and the principals to finalize graduation instead having plans up in the air. We want to assure every student can enjoy the graduation without it becoming very divisive.”

On the other hand, the Board chair, not so coincidentally a holy-roller himself, has been an idiot about this from the get-go.

Now that the dust has settled a bit, a somewhat reasoned (though poorly written) analysis appears this morning in the Middletown Press wherein the writer—I'm assuming he's a Roman Catholic—opines that

it is a bit of a stretch to conclude that anyone participating in the graduation ceremony at First Cathedral would have been engaged in an unconstitutional religious event. And only neo-pagans who believe in homeopathic magic could assert with some reason, assuming homeopathic magic is reasonable, that buildings are inherently religious, or that religious objects — crosses on Catholic Church buildings, for instance — possess some magical quality that may bend those who see or touch the objects to a certain purpose. Buildings, by themselves, are not magical edifices, and one need not fear that persons who come in contact with them will be, so to speak, religiously polluted.

Yea, verily.