Eileen Smith with In The Pink is fun to read

As I combed through Eileen Smith's blog, I realized a couple of things. She is witty. She critical. She's a cynic. Her posts drip with sarcasm. Her audience is anyone who is generally left leaning and likes to poke a bit of fun at others.

As a left leaning sarcasm dispenser, I love it. Kinda.

In her latest post, entitled We’ve Got Spirit! The Holy Spirit!, Eileen talks about the recent case concerning a certain group of Kountze ISD cheerleaders. For those not in the know, a group of cheerleaders in an East Texas town have gained temporary fame due to their insistence of using bible quotes on their football banners. Once the Kountze ISD told them that they could no longer do this, 15 families filed a lawsuit against the district for violating their freedoms of religion and speech. Thankfully, and Eileen points out, "a state judge stepped in and issued a temporary restraining order against the ban so now the pep rallies can double as prayer vigils and exorcisms." This same judge has also set the trial date to begin in late June of 2013. Strangely this coincides with the end of the school year of these cheerleaders. It's almost as if he is putting this injunction into place just long enough to allow these cheerleaders to do as they please for the rest of the school year.

Almost.

While I do love Eileen's style, and her wit is sharp, I feel as if she falls short of the kill. Her posts are generally short and well written, they don't quite run the whole race. For example, she doesn't directly mention anything about how in the United States, while it is a hot button topic, the general consensus is that it is best to keep religion out of school for many reasons. I wont go into all of the reasons I agree with this. Others have done much more eloquently than I ever will, but I feel that it should at least be mentioned that outside of deeply religious communities this behavior is generally not permitted.

Eileen also fails to mention the part about the judge allowing the cheerleaders to continue proselytizing by setting the case for almost exactly 2 weeks after the Kountze High School Graduation. To me, this is an obvious slap in the face to anyone who agrees with the actions of KISD or  disagrees with the Christian faith. It is blatant, and effectively nullifies the KISD decision to remain religiously neutral.

I also find it strange that there is no mention of the 2011 case with Hillaire Soignet of Sislbee, Texas. (They may seem like completely unrelated cases, but hear me out.) Again, not getting into the details, the court ruled in this case that Hillaire's appeal be thrown out because she "had no right to refuse to applaud her attacker because as a cheerleader in uniform, she was an agent of the school." So, in effect, while in uniform, a cheerleader is an agent of the school. KISD stated that they don't want their agents/cheerleaders to promote their religion while in uniform. And yet, despite the Hillaire Soignet case ruling, a Texas judge is stepping it and saying that it's OK, this time. Because religion. Oh, and the best part? Kountze and Sislbee are less than 10 miles from each other.

So, the bottom line, in my opinion, is that while Eileen Smith is a wonderfully entertaining read, she stops short of the intelligent kill, and remains in the land of fun snark.