[news] Student will skip graduation because it's in a church -

source:

http://www.examiner.com/atheism-in-atlanta/student-will-skip-graduation-because-it-s-a-church

One of Southwest Dekalb High School's brightest and best students will not be at the altar with her classmates at their graduation ceremony.  (LINK)  Nahkoura Mahnassi is a member of the Beta Club, the magnet program, and carried a 3.8 grade point average.  She's also not a Christian, and feels uncomfortable with the ceremony being held in Bishop Eddie Long's megachurch.  

"People don't all have the same views and that having it at one place where the major views are Christian, it's completely different for some people," said Mahnassi.  Both she and her mother describe themselves as having no religious affiliation.  

Alicia Brown, Nahkoura's mother, called the school to get more information and was told essentially that the church is "just a building."  Brown offered the appropriate objection by suggesting that if it was a Satanist church, Christians might not feel as certain that it was "just a building."  Predictably, it fell on deaf ears.

To be sure, New Birth Baptist Ministry Church isn't just any old venue to a lot of people.  Bishop Eddie Long isn't just another pastor.  His rap sheet reads suspiciously like someone who would be in jail if he weren't an influential, rich religious figure.  (LINK)  His message is one of homophobia, misogyny, and strict Biblical literalism.  He speaks of a "woman's proper place," and of the need for gay people to "pray the gay away."  

Between 1997 and 2000, he performed extremely questionable accounting with regard to over 3 million dollars of tithes and offerings.  It is at least a reasonable speculation that if churches were subject to the same reporting and audit laws as other non-profits, we would be using the words "defrauding" and "embezzlement" instead of "questionable accounting."  

At least 4 young men have settled out of court with the bishop after accusations that the church-sponsored retreats for teens "struggling with homosexuality" were actually recruiting sessions for Long's personal harem of male lovers, to whom he supplied cars, clothes, and hush money.  As this case was making local news, there were protests at the Capitol building demanding the Bishop's resignation.

Although Alicia Brown's question about a Satanist Church was perfectly legitimate, there are better questions she could have asked.  How would school officials feel if the graduation was held in a Muslim mosque headed by an Imam who preached the evils of American Christianity, demanded the implementation of Sharia Law by his followers, and had supported fatwas against dissidents?  On it's face, the suggestion is absurd.  Such a graduation ceremony would never even be considered, right?

Right.  It would never be considered.  It's not really much of an option to begin with in America, since there are no "mega-mosques."  But deep down, we all know the truth.  If there was a perfectly good mosque half a mile closer to the school, it would not be considered as a place for graduation.  Christian students would feel horribly uncomfortable inside a building ordinarily populated by people they believe hate them.  There would be a grain of awareness in every Christian's mind that they were in a building connected -- even if only loosely -- to the attacks on 9/11, to the threat of terrorism, to a huge population of people who believe that all Christians are going to hell.

If this seems like a stretch, consider the fact that an atheist in a Christian church is perfectly justified in feeling exactly the same way.  Atheists do receive death threats from Christian terrorists.  (LINK)  We are regularly told that we are going to hell.  We are made keenly aware that we are hated, reviled, and that if many Christians had their way, we'd be tortured on earth before their god tortures us in hell for eternity.  (LINK)  Christian terrorists regularly attack targets on U.S. soil.  (LINK)  Christian leaders have submitted over 900 bills at the state and federal level trying to implement Christian Law, not only in Christian communities, but as the law of the land. (LINK)

Many of us atheists really do feel the same level of discomfort in a Christian church that "good Christians" would feel in a mosque.  It's not just us, though.  Did the school consider the very real possibility that some of its students are Muslims?  Jehovah's Witnesses?  (If you didn't know, some Jehovah's Witness churches prohibit their members from even stepping foot in a heretical church.)  Mormons?  Wiccans?  Pagans?  Satanists?  Hindus?  Buddhists?  Seventh Day Adventists?  Unitarian Universalists?  Each and every one of these religions has one thing in common -- Bishop Eddie Long preaches that their adherents are all going to hell.

The fact is, churches are not just buildings, and we all know it.  Are we to suppose for even a second that the church will remove every single cross from the premises for the event?  Will there be pictures of Jesus?  Hymnals in the pews?  Stray programs from previous services?  Will the significance of the podium in front of the altar really be completely lost on the attendees?

Of course, the church is undeniably a place of Christian worship, and selecting it as a location for a graduation is a slap in the face to everyone who is not a Christian.  It is a practice which must end, whether by public pressure or legislation to prevent it.  Nahkoura Mahnassi and her mother deserve praise for being brave enough to do something instead of quietly suffering through a clearly sectarian and exclusionary experience.  Theirs is an example for other non-Christians to emulate, and proof that there are things which are much more important than walking across a platform and shaking hands with the principal.