Attack of the Theocrats!: How the Religious Right Harms Us All—and What We Can Do About It by Sean Faircloth Read Free Book Online
Authors: Sean Faircloth
than the church in presenting his views: “If there is a God, he is a malign thug.”
Twain also wrote, “I cannot see how a man of any large degree of humorous perception can ever be religious—unless he purposely shuts the eyes of his mind and keeps them shut by force.” There was a time when America believed that a person with Mark Twain’s views on religion should be included as an equal part of the American tapestry.
The chain of open skeptics and freethinkers continues from Walt Whitman to Thomas Edison to Andrew Carnegie to Clarence Darrow. Inspiring people all, and all central to the American story. They must be included as equal voices in American life.
One person who thought this group should be included was John F. Kennedy. President Kennedy was more clear on separation of church and state than any president since Madison. “The separation of church and state is absolute,” Kennedy said. “[America is] . . . where every man has the same right to attend or not attend the church of his choice.”
In more recent years, a nun who served as a parochial school administrator said publicly at a conference that when a child enters a parochial school, they leave any constitutional right at the door. She said, if you want those constitutional rights, “you will have to leave.” Court rulings support her view that private religious schools have far more leeway to restrict students than do public schools, but Kennedy was clear: “No church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference”—zero tax dollars for such religious schools. Religious schools have expelled students with AIDS and expelled students who were not sufficiently religious. Some religious schools refuse to offer special education. Such neglect and discrimination is not an option available to public schools. Federal law requires just treatment of children with mental disabilities. Public schools must accept all comers. Not so religious schools.
Kennedy’s policies contrast with the America of recent decades, in which private religious schools receive tax dollars through textbook aid, vouchers, and transportation subsidies—yet they remain free from most state and federal regulations. The Golden Christian School in Cleveland had a curriculum based exclusively on watching videos. This religious school got your tax money. Another religious school hired a convicted murderer and had no fire alarms. That religious school got your tax money, too.
Kennedy’s view was the mainstream view, both in his era and throughout most of America’s history. He encouraged acceptance of the 1962 Supreme Court decision that prohibited government-run prayer in schools. Fundamentalists argued that the ruling “banned” prayer in school when in fact individual children were quite free to pray. The court simply said the government can’t orchestrate school prayer. The 1962 decision left that choice to children and their families. It’s called freedom.
One of the greatest Supreme Court justices in American history, William Brennan, like Kennedy, was a Catholic. Brennan put it best about schools and religion: “Families entrust public schools with the education of their children, but condition their trust on the understanding that the classroom will not purposefully be used to advance religious views that may conflict with the private beliefs of the student and their family.” Religion and publicly funded schools do not mix well.
Politics and religion do mix in that each of us is, like Dr. Martin Luther King, entirely welcome to bring our values, religious or not, to any debate. Yet it was Dr. King who said of school-sponsored prayer: “It would be better if the school day began with a reading of the Bill of Rights rather than the Bible.”
The Seductive Simplicity of Certainty
Thomas Jefferson believed that “reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error.” The Enlightenment philosophy of our Founders got
Twain also wrote, “I cannot see how a man of any large degree of humorous perception can ever be religious—unless he purposely shuts the eyes of his mind and keeps them shut by force.” There was a time when America believed that a person with Mark Twain’s views on religion should be included as an equal part of the American tapestry.
The chain of open skeptics and freethinkers continues from Walt Whitman to Thomas Edison to Andrew Carnegie to Clarence Darrow. Inspiring people all, and all central to the American story. They must be included as equal voices in American life.
One person who thought this group should be included was John F. Kennedy. President Kennedy was more clear on separation of church and state than any president since Madison. “The separation of church and state is absolute,” Kennedy said. “[America is] . . . where every man has the same right to attend or not attend the church of his choice.”
In more recent years, a nun who served as a parochial school administrator said publicly at a conference that when a child enters a parochial school, they leave any constitutional right at the door. She said, if you want those constitutional rights, “you will have to leave.” Court rulings support her view that private religious schools have far more leeway to restrict students than do public schools, but Kennedy was clear: “No church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference”—zero tax dollars for such religious schools. Religious schools have expelled students with AIDS and expelled students who were not sufficiently religious. Some religious schools refuse to offer special education. Such neglect and discrimination is not an option available to public schools. Federal law requires just treatment of children with mental disabilities. Public schools must accept all comers. Not so religious schools.
Kennedy’s policies contrast with the America of recent decades, in which private religious schools receive tax dollars through textbook aid, vouchers, and transportation subsidies—yet they remain free from most state and federal regulations. The Golden Christian School in Cleveland had a curriculum based exclusively on watching videos. This religious school got your tax money. Another religious school hired a convicted murderer and had no fire alarms. That religious school got your tax money, too.
Kennedy’s view was the mainstream view, both in his era and throughout most of America’s history. He encouraged acceptance of the 1962 Supreme Court decision that prohibited government-run prayer in schools. Fundamentalists argued that the ruling “banned” prayer in school when in fact individual children were quite free to pray. The court simply said the government can’t orchestrate school prayer. The 1962 decision left that choice to children and their families. It’s called freedom.
One of the greatest Supreme Court justices in American history, William Brennan, like Kennedy, was a Catholic. Brennan put it best about schools and religion: “Families entrust public schools with the education of their children, but condition their trust on the understanding that the classroom will not purposefully be used to advance religious views that may conflict with the private beliefs of the student and their family.” Religion and publicly funded schools do not mix well.
Politics and religion do mix in that each of us is, like Dr. Martin Luther King, entirely welcome to bring our values, religious or not, to any debate. Yet it was Dr. King who said of school-sponsored prayer: “It would be better if the school day began with a reading of the Bill of Rights rather than the Bible.”
The Seductive Simplicity of Certainty
Thomas Jefferson believed that “reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error.” The Enlightenment philosophy of our Founders got
Similar Books
When We Were Sisters
Emilie Richards
Working Class Boy
Jimmy Barnes
Daughter of Deliverance
Gilbert Morris
Forgotten Sea
Virginia Kantra
Bloodraven
P. L. Nunn
The Old Road
Hilaire Belloc
Wolf Hall
Hilary Mantel
King's Virgin
Adriana Hunter
