<p>This is a story about how one all-girls private HS in our town used religious undertones in an attack poster in anticipation of a lacrosse game. Their opponent is a Catholic all girls school. </p>
<p>Poster read: “School A CRUXIFIES School B”.<br>
The word “cruxifies” had blood dripping down from its letters. </p>
<p>I was appalled. Why does it seem that the Catholic church is “fair game”, and yet no one would EVER dare to ridicule another religion. What should be done?</p>
<p>Cruxifies? That’s not even a word.</p>
<p>Maybe the Catholic school can ridicule the other school’s spelling.</p>
<p>HA, ha…</p>
<p>it was “School A Crucifies School B”. (Obviously I was thinking of cricifix.)</p>
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<p>Nothing, except stop looking for religion-bashing where there isn’t any.</p>
<p>Well, I’m no fan of religion, personally, but I don’t think it’s a reach to see religion bashing in that poster. Whether that’s a big deal or not is another question. I tend to think not, but different people see these thing differently.</p>
<p>While it may not have been in the best taste given the circumstances, I agree that you might be over-reacting slightly. I have heard the word “crucified” used fairly frequently in reference to athletic competitions, as in “We crucified them!!” and honestly, it never crossed my mind that it might be a religious reference (but then I am not a religious person).</p>
<p>A play on words La-CROSS-e. Kids trying to be clever. I wouldn’t read much into it.</p>
<p>I suppose the wordplay wouldn’t irk me, except it was directly aimed at the CATHOLIC girl’s team. The dripping blood simply made it unmistakeable. I usually don’t get annoyed by these things (and my own kids go to the public school so I don’t normally even hear about these things), but the poster was truly meant to offend.</p>
<p>Well, I’m a big fan of taking everything in humor and not overracting to anything, even anti-religious jokes. Conversely, though, that includes not making a big deal if a kid wants to bring a Bible to school and talk about it with his friends, draw a religious picture, do a prayer, whatever. I’m not religious at all, but I’m definitely not afraid of it and am comfortable having my kids discussing religion at any time. I’m also not a fan of suspending little kids for bringing their plastic butter knives to school, and boy scouts for having a tiny survival knife in their car. Or kids getting suspended for bringing aspirin to school. There has to be some common sense, and it’s best to not get offended even if the joke is about something you hold dear. Does seem to be the trend lately to make fun of any Christian religion, though.</p>
<p>It certainly wasn’t meant to offend but rather to be clever.</p>
<p>At the absolute worst it was poking fun at Catholics and I doubt that was the case. Even if it was, it still doesn’t matter. Catholicism is the biggest denomination of Christianity in the world. Stop complaining every time some random high school pokes fun at it.</p>
<p>Those punning sports headlines have been around forever. Sharks extinguish Flames; Chiefs lasso Broncos; Patriots hijack Jets. It means nothing other than someone trying to be clever using the name or attributes of their opponents.</p>
<p>Sorry, but you are applying a Taliban-like definition of “offense”. Sure, if any secular appropriation of a religious symbol is blasphemy, then this was intentional blasphemy. But for most of us, it’s just a semi-clever way of using a word associated with an athletic opponent to predict victory, just as fans of Florida Marlins opponents may yell “Fry the Fish!” </p>
<p>There’s animus involved, of course, but it’s athletic animus, not religious animus. School A wants its team to beat School B’s team; since School B is associated with crosses, we’ll crucify 'em. And next week, when we play the Rams of School C, we’ll fleece 'em.</p>
<p>What exactly is the religious animus you see here? Surely you don’t think it is meant to be seen as a call to martyr Catholics? At worst, it is a disrespectful appropriation of an important, and holy, set of symbols from Catholic doctrine. But it’s high school sports! You expect theological sensitivity?</p>
<p>Ever heard of freedom of speech? Besides thats not even religious… stop reading into things…</p>
<p>Poor taste, more than anything else.</p>
<p>I attended a Catholic high school and we competed against other Catholic schools. We used all kinds of religious imagery; you should have seen our “Beat Pope Pius!” posters.</p>
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<p>Oh, please, spare me this nonsense.</p>
<p>This is in poor taste. If the school was playing a Jewish school, no one would use some “holocaust” term to describe beating them at a game.</p>
<p>Apologies are in order.</p>
<p>I agree completely with mom2collegekids. Really poor judgment.</p>
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Wow! Talk about over-reacting. Do you honestly believe other religions aren’t ridiculed, EVER??? While I agree the poster may have been in (somewhat) poor taste, IMO it’s certainly not something to get quite so hot and bothered about.</p>
<p>The point is that this behavior encourages disrespect for another’s religion. I don’t even like it when one school uses the word “hate” in its sports posters. </p>
<p>IF one high school was predominately a certain ethnic group, a reference to that ethnic group in a sports poster would be inappropriate.</p>
<p>High schools can control such things…High schools kids do not have full “free speech” rights.</p>
<p>High School sports posters should reflect school spirit, and desire to defeat the opponent, but not in a way that insults religion, ethnicity, gender, etc.</p>
<p>I can remember the local sports’ page headlines on Saturday mornings when I was in high school:</p>
<p>“St. Mary Massacres Sacred Heart”</p>
<p>“Pope Pius Creams Holy Family”</p>
<p>And so on.</p>