Rossford cancels Christian rock band
Posted on December 15th, 2004 by Anthony K. Valley
Local group, Pawn, was to play at anti-drug school assembly next week
Rossford High School officials were considering letting a Christian rock band play during an anti-drug assembly next week, but decided yesterday to cancel the performance because of concerns over having religious music played in a public school.
“We are just shutting the whole thing down,” Rossford Superintendent Luci Gernot said. “There is some controversy, and I’d rather err on this side.”
The school district’s law firm, Whalen & Compton of Akron told school officials yesterday that it “wasn’t appropriate” to let the band Pawn perform at the school, Ms. Gernot said.
A representative of the law firm could not be reached for comment last night.
Pawn’s songs regularly make reference to Jesus and God, said David Kleeberger, the band’s manager who is also a member of the Rossford school board.
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p(small). Source: Toledo Blade © 2004 Toledo Blade
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Filed under: General
i currently attend Rossford High School and i have associated with some of the members of Pawn. During the last couple months i have heard so many different sides to the story that no one is quite sure what is going on, and our school has not informed us on anything. So what i have come to believe is among the many reasons the main reason PAWN is suing the school is because they were denied the first amendment, freedom of speech. Among the other issues one that is most obvious to me is that they were not even given a chance to show the school board what they were planning on performing. PAWN knew and had an agreement that this concert (assembly) was strictly Drug-Free. Just because one parent realized that they were a Christian band, which most the students already knew, doesn’t mean we had to cancel the concert right away. They should have handled it by at least questioning the band and their lyrics planned for that day. I mean if many of the students didn’t want them to play then why would so many of them sign a petition for them to perform. So if we were listening to drug-free lyrics, which probably wouldn’t affect us anyway, we would not be put in the state of mind that we were listening to christian music. Which is most likely not going to change our minds about our religion. If people didn’t realize, most of us probably wouldn’t even listen to the lyrics but enjoy the music. The funny thing is the school did not want to get into a lawsuit to make the situation worse, but their actions were not completely fair and they recieved a lawsuit. Since the first amendment allows me to the freedom of speech, I write this to say this whole situation is ridiculous and that we need to put it in the past and handle it better the next time around.
One has to remember in this situation that these kids are still in high school they are all under 18, with that being said, they have no rights. That and if a school has a band play that takes a religous side, they are then exluding kids of other religons. The last thing a school would want to do is make their peers seperated from one another. The school shouldn’t have entertained the idea of having a Christen band play to begin with. I agree they were mistreated, but at the same time, they should have seen this coming. You can’t have religous bias in a public school system.