These rejected letters are probably what got me "kicked off" the approved-for-publication list at AV Press for many months. All three were black-holed.
At the time, the "Letters" maven at the paper was a Christian fundamentalist, a guy who made (& makes) no bones about his belief that government in America is supposed to be overtly sectarian Christian. I believe they moved him briefly to the position of "Religion" editor, but now he is apparently only a contributor, writing a regular religion column.
If you missed it at the time, there really WAS a fundamentalist campaign against AOL's use of "I am"...I am not making it up....Oops, I did it again. I am sorry. Shit, there it is again....
I note AOL's ad campaign "I am instant messaging" is under fire as blasphemy by fundamentalist Christians. Using "I am" (English for Yahweh) takes God's name in vain.
I am not making this up. Oops...sorry.
Apparently it isn't only far-out bible belts that have active anti-evolution creationists on the local school board. Fortunately for our local education system they do not yet seem to be an absolute majority here:
Weird stuff in today’s Press. Apple computers will now be running Windows? The president of the Lancaster School Board supports teaching kids that, because technically speaking a theory is never really “proven”, scientific theories should be actively questioned and countered (as in…wink-wink…disbelieved)?
Yet strangely, out of all the millions of theories their policy covers it specifically mentions only ONE, doesn’t it? How very, very odd (wink-wink again).
The complexity of the referenced case can't be derived from this letter, so it may appear to make little sense now that the incident is forgotten. It involved a girl who was supposedly writing a "comparative religion" term paper but essentially produced a tract for her chosen sect...and got an "F" in return.
AV Press reports...and editorializes...that the "free speech rights" of a student were violated because she received an "F" on her term paper for incorporating the capitalized "God" (thereby specifying the 'one true religion' to the exclusion of all other beliefs).
Here's my take on it: The student intentionally violated her instructor's specific guidelines for the term paper. She has that right. The instructor gave her an "F". He has that right. All right?