{"id":1115,"date":"2008-12-11T18:16:37","date_gmt":"2008-12-11T18:16:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2008\/12\/supreme-court-declines-to-hear.php"},"modified":"2008-12-11T18:16:37","modified_gmt":"2008-12-11T18:16:37","slug":"supreme-court-declines-to-hear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/12\/supreme-court-declines-to-hear","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court Declines to Hear `Candy Cane’ Speech Case"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAGINAW, Mich. (RNS) The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal in a case involving a Michigan fifth-grader who tried to sell candy canes with a religious message at his school.
\nThe high court on Monday (Dec. 8) denied the petition that the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Alliance Defense Fund filed on behalf of Joel Curry.
\nCurry was 11 in 2003 when he made candy cane-style Christmas ornaments with notes that school officials considered “religious literature.” The notes attached to the ornaments, titled “The Meaning of the Candy Cane,” referred to Jesus six times and God twice.
\nCurry copied the message from an ornament at a Christian bookstore.
\nHe made the ornaments as part of a class project in which students developed and sold products. He faced no discipline, though school officials told him to remove the message, and received an `A’ on the assignment.
\nNow a 15-year-old high school sophomore, Curry said he was disappointed in the high court’s ruling, but the incident happened “a long time ago” and he doesn’t “think about it much” anymore.
\n“They should have heard it because it’s an important issue involving the Constitution and people’s First Amendment right to freedom of speech,” he said.
\nThe Alliance Defense Fund had asked the high court to “consider whether a fifth-grade student’s religious expression on a classroom project may be categorically identified as `offensive’ and therefore legitimately censored by state school officials.”
\nADF attorneys filed a lawsuit against the Saginaw School District and Curry’s principal in 2004, claiming that the principal violated the Constitution’s equal protection clause because, in the past, she allowed other students to sell religious-themed items.
\nIn September 2006, a federal judge ruled that the principal violated Curry’s First Amendment rights. A three-judge panel for the Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals later reversed that decision.
\nBy LaNia Coleman
\nCopyright 2008 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SAGINAW, Mich. (RNS) The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal in a case involving a Michigan fifth-grader who tried to sell candy canes with a religious message at his school. The high court on Monday (Dec. 8) denied the petition that the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Alliance Defense Fund filed on behalf of Joel…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nSupreme Court Declines to Hear `Candy Cane' Speech Case<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/12\/supreme-court-declines-to-hear\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Supreme Court Declines to Hear `Candy Cane' Speech Case\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"SAGINAW, Mich. (RNS) The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal in a case involving a Michigan fifth-grader who tried to sell candy canes with a religious message at his school. 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(RNS) The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal in a case involving a Michigan fifth-grader who tried to sell candy canes with a religious message at his school. The high court on Monday (Dec. 8) denied the petition that the Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Alliance Defense Fund filed on behalf of Joel…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/12\/supreme-court-declines-to-hear","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2008-12-11T18:16:37+00:00","author":"nsymmonds","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/12\/supreme-court-declines-to-hear","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/12\/supreme-court-declines-to-hear","name":"Supreme Court Declines to Hear `Candy Cane' Speech Case","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2008-12-11T18:16:37+00:00","dateModified":"2008-12-11T18:16:37+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/f960b23e9c3a51222269c557a209b4f2"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/12\/supreme-court-declines-to-hear#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/12\/supreme-court-declines-to-hear"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2008\/12\/supreme-court-declines-to-hear#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Supreme Court Declines to Hear `Candy Cane’ Speech Case"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/f960b23e9c3a51222269c557a209b4f2","name":"nsymmonds","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/13d\/13ddfa3407d6847bc2fbd32a13b67708x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/13d\/13ddfa3407d6847bc2fbd32a13b67708x96.jpg","caption":"nsymmonds"},"description":"Nicole Symmonds is Beliefnet\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Prayer editor and also covers Christianity. A New Yorker by birth but a Floridian by tenure, Nicole graduated from Florida A&M University with a B.S. in Public Relations and a minor in Sociology. She moved to NY to pursue a career in journalism which started at In Style magazine. There she learned the ropes of magazine reporting, researching, and writing\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand became exponentially more stylish. But what seemed like a deep interest in fashion and entertainment would soon be revealed as merely the vehicle that moved her closer to discovering her purpose, writing and covering matters of the Christian faith. While in her purpose-driven vehicle she can be found traveling between Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens for life, work and worship, respectively. 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