European Court of Human Rights: Crucifixes are acceptable in public school classrooms

In some ways the whole thing is so funny.
A Finnish lady from protestant Finland lives of free will in Catholic Italy with her two children brought up as atheists tries to change the traditions in Italian schools. I saw some place that Berlusconi said "A cross in Italy is not a religious symbol but a symbol of Italian culture"
I can´t imagen a Catholic Italian lady living of free will in Finland going to the European Court of Human Rights for not having crucifixes in the Finnish school.
(I don´t know if there are or not crucifixes in the Finnish schools)

So, how does this ruling affect the rest of Europe?

Also, how does this ruling affect the hijab bans effected in some countries in Euope?

I personally believe it is not a good tradition. It's a compulsory thing imposed by the Vatican and Conservative politicians.
Not in a country with a huge population that is not brought up religiously, and certainly not in a country where the Holy See usually interferes with politics.

As a student in Italy, it shook me to find a crucifix in all the classrooms, as they are prohibited in Mexican public schools.
My schoolmates told me that, sadly, it was illegal to take them away. Practically none of them were practicing Catholics, or believers.

In 1986-87, when my son was in kindergarten in Italy, a new provision was made to have religion lessons in all schools. They were not compulsory, I was told, and the other children would be learning about local legends and traditions. Since I wanted my child to mix, I asked the teacher how many children were taking religion classes. 6, was her response. I thought "only 6 out of 20", and told her the boy wouldn't take religion lessons. The teacher didn't hide her happiness with my decision. (But it was not 6 children out of 20 in my boy's class... it was 6 children in the whole school).

Well, now -I'm told- there is a strong pressure for the children to attend those lessons, the priests that give them are paid by the State more than then non-clerical counterparts.

The problem is far more complex than a simple crucifix.

What's even funnier is that someone decided crosses have some hitherto unknown connection to Judaism and tagged this thread "Jewish-Christian".

Thanks for that insight..

What rest? All member states of the Council of Europe have signed and ratified the Convention about the court. That just leaves out Belarus, Kazakhstan, Vatican City and "states with limited recognition".

Those who want to change that, can go to the Courts as well - and I suppose, some have done so already.

This ruling was about crosses in public schools.

It could - according to Scandinavian papers - gone so far that we in Scandinavia and all together I think 19 flags from 19 European countries could have been forced to change our flags.
These 19 countries have a christian symbol in them. The cross in the Scandinavian flags were from the beginning a Christian symbol.

Why that? When you read the ruling, you'll notice that it is only about crosses in classrooms in public schools. (It's about "right of education" - not about "national emblems")

A star was often from the beginning a Christian symbol. A symbol of the Star of Bethlehem, Christmas and advent. Should then also the flags of USA and EU not be allowed to have stars just in case some one would find that against their believes?

The court is the European Court of Human Rights. The USA isn't a member state of the Council of Europe.

The ruling was the crucifixes yes, but had the ruling been yes all crucifixes should go, then others who are against Christian symbols could ask for not only crucifixes to go but also any form of Christian symbols, which are outside of churches.
It was a discussion some time ago.

I know USA is not a member, just happened to think of two countries with stars.

I gave links both to the press release as well as to the full text of the ruling.

So any "buts" and "ifs" can easily be verified.

The idea behind it was that if it had been a yes, some Dane or whatever could have gone to the European Court and said s/he did not accept to see Christian symbols all the time as a cross on the flag.

Following your 'logic', anyone could go to the court, because she/he sees crosses on paintings, church spires, procession crosses in the landscape ...

As said: it was about crosses in classes of public schools.

There is no reason to be critical of me for what others have said. I have not said it is my opinion.
There are some in Sweden being critical that on the cementries are mostly christian symbols on the grave stones. They don´t like that and want it changed.
The non christians have their symbols and I have not heard anybody getting upset about that.

So long as they allow a Jewish child to have a Star of David, or a Muslim to have a short burst from the Koran, and so on for Hindu's etc.....I hope they have big walls .

Seems, you weren't interested in the topic and/or case at the court.

On the other hand, if you think that Jewish children are to be hung on a classroom wall or Muslims ...