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| LOCAL NEWS | THE MERCURY

THURSDAY, JUNE 2, 2016

LIMERICK NUCLEAR PLANT

Prayer
FROM PAGE 1

DIGITAL FIRST MEDIA FILE PHOTO

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission announced Monday

that it has renewed the operating licenses for the two
nuclear reactors at Exelon Nuclears Limerick Generating
Station for another 20 years.

Generator shut down

by minor malfunction
By Mercury Staff

Operators shut
down the Unit 2 nuclear
generator at the Limerick
Generating Station at 9 a.m.
Wednesday due to an electrical component malfunction, according to an announcement from Exelon
Nuclear.
The malfunction impacted the operation of recirculating water pumps,
according to the company.
The water pumps circulate water in the reactor
and are not required for a
safe shut-down, according
to an Exelon statement.
All systems responded
as designed and the Unit 1
generator is still operating
at full power, the company
said.
Technicians will determine the cause of the malfunction and repair and
fully test the system beLIMERICK >>

Students
FROM PAGE 1

as they move on to the next

chapter in their life, Gallion wrote in a Facebook
post announcing the organization of the ceremony.
Hear speeches from a
few seniors on our theme
By Small and Simple
Things. There w ill be
musical performances by
groups from churches in
the community and food.
If you would like to donate
food, please bring it to the

fore returning the unit to

service, according to the
statement issued by Dana
Melia, plant communications director.
All plant safety systems
responded as designed
during the shutdown and
there were no complications, according to Neil
Sheehan, a spokesman for
the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission.
NRC Resident Inspectors
assigned to Limerick on a
full-time basis responded
to the event and monitored
control room operators actions in response to the
shutdown.
No immediate issues
were identified. The resident inspectors will continue to monitor any repairs, the companys restart decision-making and
activities related to a restart of the reactor, Sheehan wrote.
event for the reception afterwards, wrote Gallion,
whose mother Dee Gallion
served on the Pottsgrove
School Board.
Not until the debate in
the community about the
presence of school-sanctioned prayer at the graduation ceremony had any
group or any students
stepped forward to organize a baccalaureate this
year until now.
Being organized by students and not the school
district, the presence of
prayer at the baccalaureate
is not a legal issue.

In a June 12, 2015 email

sent only to Feola and Assistant Superintendent
William Shirk, Rabinowitz
wrote: As a person who
was raised in the Jewish
faith, I am very sensitive
to efforts by Christians to
veil their expressions of
religious belief in non-denominational prayer. Last
year, the invocation and
benediction did, at best, a
poor job of doing this and I
was mightily annoyed. But
I did not want to rain on
the parade of good feeling,
and thus, said nothing directly after the ceremony,
and then the issue dropped
out of my consciousness
until today when the subject came up during dinner
with Dr. Shirk. And, that
was before the OBNOXIOUS invocation by Bernard Steyaert.
In last years email Rabinowitz questioned whether
Pottsgrove High School
Principal William Ziegler
who produces and hosts
a Christian radio program
carried on 700 stations nationwide that deals with
the crossroads of religion
and education had approved the invocation.
(Ziegler told The Mercury this week that he did
not have any contact with
Bernard in regards to his
comments at graduation.)
Rabinowitz also wrote
that because the invocation was so clearly Christian in nature, that from
the beginning, this prayer
offended Jews, Hindus,
Buddhists and even Muslims, which is why, he said,
scheduled public prayer,
at government-sanctioned
events is not legal.
W hen Bernard proclaimed us all sinners,
I nearly lost it. This,
again, is a specifically
Christian notion. It certainly does not exist in
Judaism and I strongly
suspect it doesnt exist
in any other non-Christian religion. Additionally, the tone and tenor of
the prayer was blatantly
slanted to Christianity.
While last years invocation was also slanted, it
at least made an attempt
to appear non-denominational. This year, no such
attempt was made. And
then, finally, the reference to Jesus Christ at
the end, while clearly not
approved (at least I hope
it wasnt) was rude, ignorant and self centered,
Rabinowitz wrote.
This practice of praying at our graduation cer-

This practice
of praying at
our graduation
ceremony has
to stop. I am
hopeful that
you agree and
that you will
just make it go
away.
Rick Rabinowitz, Pottsgrove
School Board President, in a
2015 email to Superintendent
Shellie Feola

Ive heard many names given to

you, bully, tyrant, etc, etc. Your
comments sure make it sound like
bigot should be one of them.
Bill Parker, Pottsgrove School Board member, in a Facebook
comment directed at fellow board member Rick Rabinowitz

emony has to stop. I am

hopeful that you agree
and that you will just
make it go away, Rabinowitz wrote to Feola and
Shirk, noting that he had
not sent the email to the
entire board because two
of its members at the time
were pastors who are not
likely to share my point of
view. I do not wish to offend anyone.
He ended by writing Do
I need to make this a public issue, or can I count on
the two of you to make this
graduation ceremony the
last time we pray?
Contacted Wednesday
by The Mercury, Rabinowitz acknowledged sending
the email last year and said
he regrets some of the language he used. He said that
although he had intended
the email to be read only
by the two administrators, he should have publicly acknowledged that he
was the person who raised
objections when the issue
again became news late
last month.
Ive made several mistakes here, the first of
which was violating my
own rule about not sending email when I am still
emotional about an issue,
Rabinowitz told The Mercury.
Secondly, I did not
word it as carefully as I
should have, and I sent
it while I was still emotional. Third, people have
misinterpreted my feelings about the speech
into criticism of the student himself, and I apologize to the student and
his family for what I said
in an email I never expected to be made public, Rabinowitz said.
And lastly, I am sorry I
didnt immediately say it
was me, although I think
it was probably the worstkept secret on the Internet.
The debate had already become so much about me,
that I did not want to further distract from the Constitutional issue were facing here as a board, he
said.
Nevertheless, Rabinowitz did become the focus
of debate, both a year ago
among former board members via email, and more
recently on Facebook,
among former and current
board members.
My biggest concern is
the disrespect and bullying tactics made directly
to Shellie and Bill, board
member Patti Grimm
wrote last June. This is
wrong. What would we do
if a parent or student put
out an ultimatum? What
actions would we as a
board make? Its not about
religion!
This absolutely should
not have been a private
conversation and more importantly your thoughts if
indeed would lead to a directive or even a disciplinary item should be a public conversation, Justin

Valentine wrote in a June

15, 2015 email to the board.
If it were anything else
we would celebrate (Steyaerts) courage and applaud his efforts to stand
out. I think the public
should hear you on this issue and in particular your
stance that the administration should follow your
directive that this never
happen again, Valentine
wrote. This young mans
First Amendment rights
surely should be defended,
and future classes or staff
should not be punished because you say so.
Valentine, a pastor at
Kingdom Life Church in
Pottstown who lost his seat
on the board in the last
election, supports the continuation of Pottsgroves
graduation prayer traditions and said so in a post
on Rabinowitzs PGSD Discussion Page on Facebook
last month, sparking the
renewed debate just weeks
before graduation.
Discussion there was
heated but for the most
part civil until Valentine posted a link to a legal opinion about school
prayer written by attorneys for Liberty University, the Christian college
established by Moral Majority leader Jerry Falwell.
Rabinowitz replied that
he is more inclined to follow the advice of the districts solicitor than that of
lawyers from Liberty University. But thats not how
Parker interpreted those
comments.
Parker posted that Rabinowitz objected to the
brief from Liberty University because it was written by a Christian.
Parker wrote that the
brief merely quoted court
cases no scripture references, nothing. Ive
heard many names given
to you, bully, tyrant, etc,
etc. Your comments sure
make it sound like bigot
should be one of them,
Parker wrote.
Of all the posts Ive
seen here on both sides
of the fence yours is the
only one that really comes
across anti-Christian. Racists come in all colors, as
do bigots, Parker wrote.
Rabinowitz ultimately
removed the entire discussion, but not before Parkers comments, and reaction to it, had been preserved.
Contacted by The Mercury, and asked if he still
stands by his comments,
Parker did not disavow
them, writing: The comments Mr. Rabinowitz
made about the prayer

from the last two years (not

just last years) and his outrageous comments about a
staff member based on his
Christian beliefs; Mr. Rabinowitzs reaction to a legal
brief written by an attorney affiliated with a Christian University ... One has
to wonder what a person
would be labeled if he or
she said the same thing
about: A Muslim prayer at
graduation; a staff member not being objective because he was Jewish; a legal brief written from an
African-American university.
Rabinowitz told The
Mercury Wednesday that
he was merely pointing
out that Liberty has a political stake in this debate
and he discounts briefs
from its lawyers for that
reason, just as I would
a brief from the American Civil Liberties Union,
which also has a political
stake in this debate.
Parker also did not disavow his assertion that
Rabinowitzs response was
anti-Christian.
For the most part, people honestly shared their
opinions from what their
own understanding of the
law was as well as what
was right. I do not recall
any other negative reactions to a legal brief that
was written by an attorney
who happened to be affiliated with a Christian University, Parker wrote.
Rabinowitz said the fact
that he married a Catholic
and celebrates Christian
holidays with his family,
including Christmas, undermines any assertion
that he is anti-Christian.
Rabinowitz declined
further comment, saying
only I will continue to do
my job and not allow other
peoples personal feelings
about me to get in the way
of fulfilling my responsibilities as a board member and my oath to uphold
the law.
Parker did, however,
draw the line at the interpretation of his comments
as him calling Rabinowitz
a racist.
I in no way was suggesting that Mr. Rabinowitz was a racist, as he
knows. What I was trying to say was just as racists come in all colors, so
do bigots, Parker wrote to
The Mercury.
Again, Mr. Rabinowitz
has never made any comment that I heard or read
to make me think he is a
racist. As far as bigot goes,
Merriam-Webster defines
bigot as: a person who
hates or refuses to accept
the members of a particular group (such as a racial
or religious group).
Parker also said he Absolutely. 100 percent believes the board should follow the advice of the solicitor in the matter of prayer
at the graduation ceremony.

This young mans First

Amendment rights surely should
be defended and future classes
or staff should not be punished
because you say so.
Justin Valentine, former school board president in a 2015 email
to Rabinowitz and copied to the former school board

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