More on tolerance v. liberty and justice for all. From the ABA Journal:
The American Civil Liberties Union has sued a school board in North Carolina over its suspension of a teenage student for having a peridot stud in a nose-piercing. Because Ariana Iacono belongs, along with her mother, to the Church of Body Modification, the suit contends the suspension violates her constitutional right to freedom of religion, reports the Associated Press. Her mother and the family’s minister has tried to explain the church doctrine that piercings are a pathway to experience their religion.
From that AP story:
The Johnston County school system has a dress code banning facial piercings, along with short skirts, sagging pants, “abnormal hair color” and other items deemed distracting or disruptive.
But the dress code also allows for exemptions based on “sincerely held religious belief,” and says, “the principal or designees shall not attempt to determine whether the religious beliefs are valid, but only whether they are central to religious doctrine and sincerely held.” …
Ariana Iacono has been suspended four times since fall classes started, missing 19 out of 28 school days so far.
Via Walter Olson. More from him on the Church of Body Modification.