Cross posted from Rational Resistance:
We've written about this before: a local resident, Marilyn Hackett, successfully sued the town of Franklin and this year won an injunction preventing the town fathers from beginning their annual Town Meeting with a prayer.
It was a heroic effort and the news reports at the time documented the abuse she was subjected to based on her willingness to stand up for her principles. Perhaps most shockingly, one of the suggestions from the town was that if she doesn't like the prayer she just shouldn't show up at Town Meeting. That's right, in the view of some of her fellow townspeople it would be reasonable to condition her right to participate in the governance of her town on her acceding to their religious views.
Today the Burlington Free Press has an update, and guess what: bigotry and intolerance are still rampant in Franklin. I think the article is behind their paywall, but here are a couple of key quotes:
“It’s almost like a joke — a cheap shot — to try to knock that thing out of there.”
“I said right from the beginning to have an outsider come into town and all of a sudden she’s changed the way Franklin runs its Town Meeting,” Hartman said. “I think it’s awful.”
“If she (Hackett) was somebody who wanted to be a part of that town, she could’ve overlooked that.”
In addition, the story by Sally Pollak makes clear that Marilyn Hackett continues to be harassed, including by students at the school where she works in nearby Richford.
What do we learn from this episode? A few things.
First, if there were any doubt, today's story illustrates just how brave someone has to be to stand up for principle, especially in a small town.
Second, it confirms the heroism of Marilyn Hackett.
Finally, everything in this story demonstrates how important it was for Marilyn Hackett and the ACLU to bring this case. It's not the people who go along with the majority, who hold popular opinions, who need the Constitution's protection. It is the minorities, people who can't get their way without the protection of the law, the courts, and civil libertarians.
I mean, Franklin isn’t really a 17th Century Puritan colony, is it?
How hard is it to grasp the concept that you can’t subject others to your religion via government activities?
Thank you Mary Hackett for making Franklin’s town meeting open to all citizens.
The only person that is quoted in support of Marilyn is 89-year old journalist Nat Worman. Nat is well known to me as an extremely ethical and thoughtful writer, with a great deal of personal courage, himself.
I rather doubt that he is the only person in Franklin who agrees with Marilyn; rather, he is probably the only one with the courage to speak-up on her behalf.
The second thing that struck me is the manner in which her principal, David Perrigo, chooses to give his perspective on Ms. Hackett’s experience of bullying from the student body. Despite his protestations that this would not be tolerated, it would appear that he is taking the side of the bullying student:
C’mon…
This is followed with a cryptic reference to
Clearly, going just far enough to hint at something improper in Ms. Hackett’s own behavior without crossing the line into defamatory or exculpatory specifics. Just enough “sharing” to make the reader suspect Ms. Hackett.
I suspect this is just what Ms. Hackett has come to expect in her daily interactions.
…should be good enough for VT’s Godless Heathen Teachers. HANG ‘EM IN THE COMMON!
a while since there was a prayer at our town meeting. The moderator forgot to ask for one and no one seems to remember that we used to do it. When asked about it, the pastor said he’s fine with it. He felt uncomfortable leading the prayer at town meeting.
I wish that this controversy had been handled within the community and didn’t become statewide news. While I agree with Marilyn in principle, and I’m appalled by some of the statements quoted above, I’m also disappointed with the way both sides have handled themselves here. Just like with the Morses line issue in Franklin, a perceived (and in some respects actual) injustice was immediately kicked up into a protracted legal mess without any mutual understanding between neighbors. Franklin is not full of bigots and intolerant people, it is full of people that don’t feel that a prayer in the tradition of a majority of the town’s citizens immediately results in the exclusion of those of other faiths, or of no faith from the town’s business at the meeting. I wish we were spending time in Franklin county fighting poverty, bad labor practices, and the onslaught of negativity directed at our schools instead of this particular battle. Kudos to Marilyn for sticking up for what she believes, but I feel like Franklin has lost a lot more than just a town prayer as a result.
how the honorable townspeople who said these things would have reacted had truly native Vermonters, (yes, the ones who were here long before dear han Allen laid a hallowed eye on the verdant hills of our state), said the same, as they came in and built their churches, cleared the land, and generally took over pretty much everything…
Doesn’t care if you are newly arrived or ‘native’. (Actually, it is sad this was the case when talking about true indigenous people, that there was not space for them in our ‘more perfect union’.
‘Native’ Vermonters – and the whole righteous ‘conservative’ piety that goes along with it – get over yourselves.
We are ALL from somewhere else.
to pray in schools or at public meetings. Each individual is free to pray before school or a meeting, or to meet privately together to pray. How about a huddle outside the meeting place, is that a lot to ask?
If these citizens were following the bible instead of religiosity they would not have allowed this to be an issue. The bible is pretty clear, when you pray go into a closet. Interesting wording there. I’m not sure why the followers are not listening. Perhaps they’re not interested in following.