Guns and knives in school. Kids having sex in the bathroom. Disrespecting the teacher and failing to show up for class. Illiteracy. Drug use. And for what similar heinous offense did they suspend little Brandy McKenith?

It would seem she uttered the word "hell" in its appropriate context:

7-year-old Brandy McKenith says she was only warning the boy about the eternal comeuppance he could face for saying: "I swear to God." "I said, 'You're going to go to hell for swearing to God'," Brandy was quoted as saying in an article that appeared on the website of the Pittsburgh Tribune Review on Wednesday.

Her father comments:

McKenith, a suburban Pittsburgh police detective, said family members aren't "religious fanatics," but there's a healthy respect for the Lord, so he accepts her daughter's explanation. "She's under the assumption that good people go to heaven and ... bad people go to hell," he said Wednesday.

So are they planning to ban Dante's Inferno, the Bible and all other books which reference the word "hell"?

No, it's obvious what the real issue is here: Brandy's words invoked the idea of sin, and implied someone might be subject to moral judgement from God, a notion far more obscene to some than any four-letter word. The word 'hell' was just the most convenient excuse to punish her for this crime. I can hear the lecture now: "You do not tell people they're going to hell!"

Yeah, I'm sure that would have been very effective with Jesus.

So who is being more "judgemental" here? The little girl who stated her convictions about God's pending future judgement, or school staff who suspended a little girl because she holds the "wrong" set of religious beliefs, and had the audacity to speak them?

I understand that nobody likes to be told they're going to hell. But there's a billion Muslims out there who say that of me, and I'm coping with it fine. (In fact, I'd be thrilled if all they did about it was just say it, like little Brandy.) But the mere possibility of preventing hurt feelings is a poor tradeoff to make for the first ammendment.