Do you think the Religious Right would agree to this???

[Cats Against Frist]

I was just reading a bunch of crow from some loonie religious contingent linked from that "other political website," that makes no bones about finding it appropriate to indoctrinate my children with Christian mythology in the public schools.

Though I respect the philosophical teachings of Jesus Christ, I am, as several of our founders, including Thomas Jefferson, not a devotee of any version of a "prime mover," besides some sort of vague possibility -- truthfully, I don't care that much. But what I DO care about are innocent children that could be subjected to the Bibically revised Mammon Jesus of the Religious Right, if these whack-os get their way in the public schools.

I've read the web page for the pro-Christian legal organization that Pat "Shine on Crazy Diamond" Robertson and the ever-pompous Jay Sekulow founded, and they have some examples of some things that I find pretty egregious, though I don't believe that most "godless liberals" are necessary clamoring for: prohibition of children and teachers wearing religious symbols in schools, Christian fellowship groups that meet on school property, etc.

It's not exactly 99 points, but here's my appeal to the Christian Right. This seems fair, and is kind of a bridge between the two philosophies:

Things that would be permitted:

For parents, teachers and children to hold a voluntary SCHEDULED prayer session BEFORE or AFTER, but not DURING, football games, graduations, the school day, school board meetings, etc. This could also include holiday celebrations, organized outside of school, but which could possibly make use of school property.

Christian children should be permitted to do their work on religious subjects WHEN APPROPRIATE, like religious books for book reports (though it would have to be a piece of caliber -- in other words, no "Stephen King," no "Left Behind").

For space given and permission to organize Bible or religious groups on campus -- with the same privileges given to any other extracurricular activity -- provided that it is before or after the school day, AND not funded, in any way, by the school budget, except for maybe personnell to lock or unlock the building.

For all teachers and students to be able to wear crosses or religious clothing, provided that it is reasonable, and not hatefully offensive (I know this is vague) to any other groups, including gays, people who support pro-choice, which is LEGAL in the U.S.A., and any other group the Christians have singled out for hell while ignoring the Beatitudes and the teachings of Christ.

That there be no religious holidays from school, including Good Friday and Easter, but that school be shut down for a spring break and a winter break to accomodate family and traditional time.

That all religions of every student who attends the school, including if the only damn thing the kid believes in is Santa be represented in displays, if appropriate, to the time, and that Christmas trees and Santa Claus and non-religious Christmas songs are considered appropriate and secular. And if a bunch of kids believe in Satan, and they want to put a goat head on the tree -- they should be allowed, just as the Christians would be allowed to put a halo or a cross or whatever.

That a special cultures class be set aside to discuss major world religions, their tenets, their criticisms, which could include the fact that Christians, Flat Earthers and those clinically diagnosed with hyperreligiosity as a mental disorder, believe some things that you won't hear in your science class, and that science class, and all other scholarly classes should be FOCUSED ON SCIENCE AND SCHOLARSHIP, and not religion.

What would NOT be permitted:

ANY endorsement, during CLASSROOM TIME of ANY religion, by ANY teacher or school official, during the scheduled time of official school-designated events or during the tenure of the school day. And YES this includes the pledge and the "moment of silence."


Do you think they would agree? Or is this basically how it already is and they seriously want to force their God down the throat of my son, in which case, I'm going to bang my head against every legal avenue that I have to stop them from doing it?

Why do they have to have indoctrination? Why do they feel that they have to have their ONE religion as part of the school day?

I'm really concerned about this, because I want my son to grow up and be in an an environment where he is not introduced to a bunch of constructs, particularly those developed and manipulated by power elite, made "legitimate" by his teachers, who are entrusted by me, as a tax payer to teach him scholarship, not religious indoctrination.

Why doesn't the religious right see that I have a right to not have the government tell my son that there is a god, or what god to worship? I simply don't get it.

I'm wondering if there's something they're not understanding -- like they think that we hate religion, or that because some of us think it's archaic, mythological bullshit, that they don't have the right to practice that mythological bullshit free from government interference, OR with the collusion of government?

Because I don't. I have my list above about what I'd tolerate, and it seems pretty reasonable.

[gaia_gardener]

1. They would never agree

As far as they are concerned, they have an inalienable right to convert people to christianity at any time, period. Never mind anyone else's rights. They don't think anyone else has any religious rights.

[Cats Against Frist]

4. That's what I'm afraid of

but I had hoped that, at least for the majority of them, maybe just religious conservatives, meaning reasonable moderate conservatives (and conservative democrats) who happen to be Christians, rather than reactionary Christians and religious-right Christians, would respect my son's right to not have a person, who is telling him many, many things that I want him to learn, that there is a specific God, or that there is even a God.

I guess I once thought that reasonable people could come to reasonable solutions.

[TransitJohn]

2. No,they wouldn't.

They want an exclusive right to do these things, and not extend that right to Moslems, Satanists, Wiccans, Scientologists, Heaven's Gate, Native Americans, or anybody else.

[elshiva]

3. This does seem reasonable, Cats Against Frist,

only "That there be no religious holidays from school, including Good Friday and Easter, but that school be shut down for a spring break and a winter break to accomodate family and traditional time." Hopefully this would overlap with Christmas and Good Friday, which are solemn days. Easter is always on a Sunday, so no problem there.
However, you have a point here. Growing up half-Jewish, I used to take off school Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. If we were to accomodate all religious holidays, to be fair, there would not be enough school time (think Ramadan, plus Hindu holidays such as Diwali, the former lasts a month, the latter a week).
As a half-Jew, I respect your wanting not to have religion rammed down your son's throat. Forced religion is no religion at all, it is an assault to human dignity, which persons of all religions and no religion should oppose vigorously.

[Cats Against Frist]

5. Oh, definitely

Plus, you have to believe that there are some contradictions in the idea of evangelizing -- I mean, don't they believe that if you say some wacky credo that you're automatically "chosen?" Never mind that you might be, say, a drunk rich kid who embezzled from the taxpayers and would grow up to be a mass murderer and near tyrant?

Excuse me, but I thought that religion, if not necessarily justified by deeds, would at least say, require some contemplation.

Plus, there's the whole thing in the Bible about praying on streetcorners, and whatnot. Of course, the Religious Right has practically revised all the important stuff out. I read an extra-long-bullshit essay by some Dominionist about how "meek" as in "the meek shall inherit the Earth," didn't mean "humble," "deferrent" or "persecuted," but that it meant people who had a lot of money and pushed other people around -- so long as they "claimed" they did it for whatever version or interpretation of God they felt was most convenient, which in this case, was the GOP Mammon Jesus of White Domination. No shit.

This is the crap that I don't want them teaching my son.

[elshiva]

6. They misrepresent Christianity...

I come from a Jewish-Christian household that values charity, radical non-judgement, and pluralism. We are universalists, which means everyone gets into heaven.
I just believe in the end the golden, silver, and pagan rules.
Golden(Christian, Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim): Do unto others as you would have do to you.
Silver(Confucian): What is hateful to you do not do to others.
Pagan (Wiccan, etc.): Harm ye none.