More Active Posts
Front Page
Fighting for equal time
 |
 18 Comments |
The Liberty Council, affiliated with Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, launched its annual “Friend or Foe” Graduation Prayer Campaign on Tuesday. The group and the campaign seek “to educate and, if necessary, litigate to ensure that prayer and religious viewpoints are not suppressed.” But before Christians begin picketing graduations, we should ask an important question: could a push for religion in schools actually backfire?
Conservative organizations do need to fight for religious free speech. The ACLU is roving the country, devouring any case with even the slightest fragrance of progressivism, liberalism, and anti-Christian sentiments. But treating religion as a deposed king and advocating for its return to the throne within public schools might have far greater consequences than many realize.
A case in Mount Vernon, OH highlights the difficulty. There, the community is divided over middle school science teacher John Freshwater. His display of a Bible on his desk led to an investigation after some parents accused him of proselytizing. Understandably, people see this as an attack on Christianity and are outraged. But the local paper reported that many parents and students, in their fight for religious expression, have ignored the elephant in the science room: “Religion” means more than Christianity.
A fight for Christianity in schools is a fight for religious expression, and that includes religions other than Christianity. If Christianity is allowed in schools, there’s a strong case to afford Hinduism, Islam, and Wiccan the same opportunity. Christians advocating the Bible be put back in the classroom have to ask themselves if they are alright with the Book of Mormon receiving the same status. And as the Mount Vernon case shows, many are not.
Still, there seems a double standard. Mention the Bible in public schools and the ACLU cries for equality. Mention the Quran, and it falls silent. As Lynn Vincent points out over at worldmagblog, Christians find themselves in a dilemma, “While the ACLU does seem to butter its bread by barring from public school classrooms the Bible and any talk of the Christian God, ‘other’ religions seem to get a pass. But should Christians fight the inequity by quashing the public display of other religions or advocating for equal time?”
 |
Topic: Front Page, The Nation |  |
Email a friend |
 |
Keywords: establishment of religion, John Freshwater, separation-of-church-and-state |  |
RSS 2.0 |
 |
You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed. |  |
Share this: |
Don’t blame racism
In most high school AP humanities classes, the Bible is in the classroom, along with the Torah, the Koran, and other sacred texts. I think that is appropriate. However, whenever a _public school_ begins to favor one religion over another, you have problems.
Regarding the Book of Mormon, it may be awhile before anyone (not just the religious right) is ready for it, even in a humanities-type class. I found this post by Terryl Givens (author of “By the Hand of Mormon,” Oxford University Press, 2003) very telling. In response to a question about what kind of reactions he had received from his colleagues about his research on Mormonism, he wrote:
“The University of Richmond was founded as a Baptist school in 1830. I appreciate the irony, but the founders are probably not resting well in their graves. University administrators are happy with and supportive of any scholar who produces work that is published at the better presses and is well-received critically. Most colleagues here in the South are probably incredulous that anyone outside Utah is reading, let alone publishing, this stuff. Let’s face it: we like to imagine a day when Islamic Studies, Jewish Studies, and Mormon Studies frequently occur in the same breath (and the same campus). But where I live and work, Mormon Studies still sounds a little strange to the ear.
“As an example, my chair recently told me I was up to teach a graduate course the next semester, and would I put together a topic and advise him what it would be. I sent a memo to his secretary, saying simply, “The Book of Mormon as Literature.” Then I phoned the secretary to ask what his reaction had been. She was still laughing. He had rushed out of his office with my memo in hand (he is an excitable type), pulling his hair, and his voice falsetto with anxiety: “what am I going to do? This Mormon stuff is going to Terryl’s head. He can’t teach a course like that here!” Before he could calm down, I followed up with a memo requesting department funding . I wanted monies to take a graduate class on a field trip to Temple Square. At that point, the secretary told me, he saw the gag and laughed sheepishly. Now this is a funny story, but it is also a sad story. Teaching a course in a literature department on a book that helped create a possible world religion, and that has been read by more Americans than any book in history, should not be a joke. In my department, we have had courses on the Mary Tyler Moore show. But the Book of Mormon is unthinkable?” (at http://www.timesandseasons.org/?p=1914#more-1914)
I’d rather study the book of mormon than the Mary Tyler Moore show … more thought-provoking.
“But the Book of Mormon is unthinkable?”
Well it’s not that unthinkable, apparently:
Colleges scramble to offer curriculum on Mormon religion
The real problem for evangelical Christians here is not so much “equal time” as the fact that an academic treatment of their religion is more likely to dissuade students from literal belief than no treatment at all.
I don’t think I was harmed as a child by having to say the Lord’s Prayer or listen to a reading from the Old Testament in school. That said, I also don’t think we want to “return” to that for the very reason mentioned here — equal time for all religions. What we should be mindful of is the belief among school systems that the mere mention of the name of Jesus is forbidden. When a student turns in a picture of his “hero” and it happens to be Jesus — that’s okay. We have a right to expect respect for Christianity just as others have the right to expect respect for their religion. It doesn’t matter that we are the “majority.” That attitude — that Christians don’t have rights — has got to stop.
It would make more sense to allow credits for children to attend parochial schools. Then they would get the religion they want and nobody could be accused of prosyletizing.
Although I don’t think it is wrong for someone to express their faith in a public forum, such as a school, no religion belongs in Public Schools unless there is a class that would teach the history of religions or something like that. But no favoritism toward any particular faith.
Let the free expressions of the people reflect the general convictions of the local community. Let whatever checks and balances of the local community manage the expressions where needed. Federal laws and excessive litigation are no solution. Freedom has worked before and it can still work as long as we all realize that freedom allows for us to hear things we don’t necessarily like to hear. Deal with it.
When I hear things I don’t like in the local public arena, my first impulse is to go talk to that person who spoke up or those who invited him/her and discuss the matter in a civil manner (or write a letter), not to seek some law that would prevent him from speaking freely in the first place.
Expect to hear things you don’t agree with once in a while and be glad to live in a free country.
As a military chaplain-in-training, I work with issues of pluralism all the time. Most times those in my field don’t bat an eyelash as it, because it you do things properly (within guidelines) you can both support religious freedom (for everyone) and stand strong for your faith tradition (presuming the person in charge isn’t against your efforts).
Christians in local areas need to be ready to understand exactly what they can and can’t do in public schools, because guaranteed someone feels freedom to work within guidelines, while others do. And if said people are able to do things, let them rip, because God will bless them in their efforts!
And, the folks on the “outside” need to be patient and understanding of what their roles are in supporting the public squares and its institutions.
So let religion be discussed in philosophy or humanities classes. You could even discuss intelligent design in philosophy class as well, and the ACLU wouldn’t be able to say anything against it (or they shouldn’t be, if you do it properly).
On the other side, students should be allowed to thoroughly analyze and study Darwin and evolution in science class, and learn about its weaknesses as well as strengths (this the ACLU might object to). That’s what school should be all about, though it typically isn’t.
Woo-hoo! Two cheers for civil religionism.
The ACLU is not anti-Christian, it’s pro-civil liberties. It’s taken the side of Christians when they’re the ones being oppressed and it’s sided against them when they’re the ones doing the oppressing.
I know they’re a favorite boogeyman for simpleminded conservative critique, but really, they do have a pretty consistent track record of taking sides based on civil liberties, not the religious affiliations of the people involved in a case.
Also, Jonathon Seidl, the case of the Ohio teacher has been discussed in another thread here and it turns out he was accused of doing quite a bit more than keeping a Bible on his desk. See this thread for more.
The fight should not be for equal time. It should also not be to bring religion into the classroom. It should be about Truth in Learning.
That means that science teachers should be honest about what they know and what they don’t know. This also means being able to have beliefs about the truth and express those beliefs without reprisals.
For example, schools can teach evolution, but should not teach that it is true. People should recognize that anything beyond the lab is cosmology and not science, bordering on religion itself. Kids should be allowed to express their opinions and not be under a gag rule.
Kids should be allowed to put scripture in their yearbooks and express their faith as long as it does not disrupt the school. Religious beliefs that do disrupt the school should be handled locally by the local school board, not by Washington or the courts.
There should be no Federal mandate for equal time. This means that in certain districts where the majority of the population is of a particular religion, the local school could decide to accommodate that religion over others. For example, a school in Brooklyn that is 90% Jewish should be allowed to express Jewish holidays and teach Hebrew, etc.
Get government and the courts out of the classroom and give it back to the parents and teachers.
#10 The problem with the ACLU Steve is that they overstep their bounds. This is a problem with nearly all lawyers - they believe that every question must be decided in the courts. We have become an extremely litigious society.
But their greatest error is that they misinterpret the 1st Amendment. Couple this with activist judges and we get really oppressive “legislation from the bench”.
Since the 1st Amendment begins with “Congress shall make no law…”, therefore there should be no laws for the courts to decide about religion. How can one decide the Constitutionality of laws that according to the Constitution should not exist?
If a purely religious case comes up, the courts should immediately reject it. The gag rule belongs on Congress and the Courts, not on the citizens.
As you know, Xion, the Constitution gets interpreted in Court cases, and over the past 200+ years, a body of case law has developed interpreting the First Amendment to mean governments can’t endorse specific religions.
This isn’t specifically spelled out in the Bill of Rights because it developed over time following the ratification of the First Amendment, but neither is it something that the ACLU made up.
Since the 1st Amendment begins with “Congress shall make no law…”, therefore there should be no laws for the courts to decide about religion. How can one decide the Constitutionality of laws that according to the Constitution should not exist?
The religion clause of the 1st Amendment ends with “… respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Those are the laws the courts decide on … laws that should not exist because they violate the Amendment, but do because boneheaded lawmakers pass them anyway.
That “Congress shall make no law … ” phrase also applies to the other rights enumerated in the 1st Amendment … free speech, freedom of the press, right to peaceably assemble, right to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Would you argue that the mention Congress means the state of Iowa could, at the state level, pass laws to censor free speech and the press, prohibit people from getting together into groups larger than three and take away the ability to petition the government?
If a purely religious case comes up, the courts should immediately reject it. The gag rule belongs on Congress and the Courts, not on the citizens.
Well once again, I believe you say this because you’re envisioning the religion involved as Christianity. I seriously doubt you’d be content to leave it at that if you thought a Muslim or atheist or Hindu teacher were influencing your child.
#30 SteveG …over the past 200+ years, a body of case law has developed interpreting the First Amendment to mean governments can’t endorse specific religions.
No, that is a new interpretation in the last 50 years. The original intent was that there would be no government sponsored religion like Europe and Canada had. It does not mean squash every last vestige of religious thought in the public square. That’s why we need people on the Supreme Court who know their history and can read English.
… laws that should not exist because they violate the Amendment, but do because boneheaded lawmakers pass them anyway.
Yup! We’re on the same page here (maybe). If by bonehead you mean people who value original intent, then I guess we still disagree.
I believe you say this because you’re envisioning the religion involved as Christianity. I seriously doubt you’d be content to leave it at that if you thought a Muslim or atheist or Hindu teacher were influencing your child.
No. Read #11. I am for truth wherever it may be found and I am opposed to indoctrination in any form, except perhaps the military (maybe).
I’ve raised my kids with the specific intent in mind that they would be able to sift through facts and not be pushed around by the indoctrinators. I may have done this too well, because they’ve had me verbally cornered a few times. All I could say was “Touche’, well done! Now do what I said anyway!”
I’ve raised my kids with the specific intent in mind that they would be able to sift through facts and not be pushed around by the indoctrinators.
Excepting yourself, of course!
#14 The original intent was that there would be no government sponsored religion like Europe and Canada had. It does not mean squash every last vestige of religious thought in the public square.
SteveG never said anything about “squashing vestiges.” He said the government cannot “endorse specific religions.” That idea goes all the way back. What’s “evolved” in the last half-century is the meaning of the word “endorse” (in SteveG’s parlance) or “make no law. “State-sponsored institutions like public school are now viewed within the range of entities that cannot be seen as “endorsing” a particular religion.
This is a good thing.
The point is nuanced beyond any useful meaning. This nation began with the Bible as the core curriculum. The long shift away from the God of Abraham is, in my opinion, has resulted in many terrible things; from spending federal dollars slaughtering infants while protecting Alaskan elk from perceived danger. While it is true that we are not a theocracy, it is also not intellectually honest to say that our ideals require us to give equal time to faiths other than Christianity. This fad is a result of our disgustingly weak-kneed culture of candy-ass leaders. Do you want equal time for the Quran? Go to Denmark. Want a Christian nation that respects differing views? That’s us. Or at least it used to be.
Want a Christian nation that respects differing views? That’s us. Or at least it used to be.
Well, if you respect other views, then you politely give them equal time. Simple as that. So yeah, contra what you say, our ideals do require that.
And the simplest solution, is then not to endorse any religion - as Spinoza points out, that is a different thing than “squashing vestiges” - an idea which no one endorses.
It is possible (at least I hope it is) to have neutral and respectful public institutions and policies.