Nearly 50 years ago the U.S. Supreme Court decided School District of Abington Township v. Schempp and held that public school courses that use the Bible in a purely secular manner, and which do not cross the line into religious instruction or present the subject from a particular religious viewpoint, are acceptable.
Ever since, religiously fervent school teachers, stubborn school districts, and posturing politicians have done their level best to show their contempt of the high court.
“The Bible as Literature,” “Biblical History,” and similarly-titled electives occasionally popped up. The content of these courses has always been suspect. In recent years the prevalence of these courses has ramped up.
We live in an era of state legislators passing laws directing schools to teach the Bible. Texas is famous for having done it first. Other states followed: Georgia, Tennessee, Oklahoma, and, most recently, Arizona. Other states have bills pending that would permit it, including Arkansas. Notably absent from these laws are directives on teaching non-Biblical religious texts. Also notable about these laws is that they purport to make legal something that is already legal. They are pointless posturing for the religious right. They serve as a rallying cry and a way to legitimize proselytizing in the public classroom.
The Texas Freedom Network is an activist coalition of religious and community leaders dedicated to fighting the religious right’s agenda in that state. Its Education Fund sponsored a study of the Bible classes permitted by Texas law in public schools. The study was conducted by Mark A. Chancey, a Religious Studies Professor at Southern Methodist University’s Dedman College of Arts and Humanities. Professor Chancey has worked with the Texas Freedom Network for years. He has published a lot of material about the prevalence of religious instruction in supposedly secular classrooms.
The study found that at least 60 Texas school districts teach Christian creationism as science, and teach the Bible from a religious viewpoint.
Most of the teachers have no specific training in how to teach the Bible in a secular framework; some of the teachers of these classes are actually ministers. Of the ten school districts that did provide some training for the teachers of these classes, most used a one-day session geared toward the Bible Literacy Project’s textbook whether or not that textbook was actually used. Quite often, texts supplementing the Bible were “written specifically for Christian audiences for purposes of strengthening their faith.” (Curriculums that stayed close to the Bible Literacy Project tended to be of the highest quality.)
The content of the courses was rife with factual errors. Many relied on rote memorization of biblical passages and eschewed critical thinking entirely. Those that supplemented the textbook usually did so with books designed to bolster religious faith. Mitch Albom and C.S. Lewis featured prominently, and even Hal Lindsey’s absurd icon of eschatology, The Late Great Planet Earth, gets time and serious study.
(Whenever I write the word “eschatology,” I want to write “scatology.” Why are these words so similar? Coincidence? I think not.)
Unsurprisingly, given the lack of training and lack of a coherent curriculum for these courses, teachers present conservative Protestant theological claims and interpretations as widely accepted – and true – in Texas classrooms.
I expect conservative evangelical Christians in Texas to howl about a biased report. They may be right.
While the report does have some positive things to say about the Bible Literacy Project’s curriculum, it is definitely not an independent report. The Texas Freedom Network is a group of both secularists and religious leaders who want to maintain the integrity of a secular public classroom. The organization is not solely secularist. That fact lends it more credibility than if an anti-theist group (read: we, us, the atheists) produced it. Nevertheless, the group works hard to fight the religious right. I expect supporters of classroom Bible study to perceive the report as an attack on baby Jesus.
Things have been sort of insane in my life over the last few weeks, so I’m horribly late posting legal updates – for which I apologize. I was the target of a home-invasion robbery the night of December 6 – you can read about it on my blog – and the details of putting my home back together right before Christmas have been more than a little challenging and time-consuming. I still don’t have a cell phone, for instance, and my normal Christmas shopping has consisted of just giving up and getting gift cards for everyone – not exactly my usual holiday modus operandi. Hopefully things will return to normal relatively soon.
In the meantime, here are a few updates of important legal maneuverings around the world. I’ve tried to hit the highlights of those that haven’t gotten a ton of press coverage over the last month. If there’s something specific you want to hear more about, just ask.
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An open letter signed by 260 Christian and Jewish religious leaders in Illinoissupports the proposed Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act, which would legalize same-sex marriage in the state. Illinois already has a law allowing civil unions or domestic partnerships. The bill could come up for a vote in early January, before the new members of the state legislature elected in November take office, but its sponsors say they don’t want a vote at all if they aren’t sure the bill will pass.
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In a rare “no” to the Catholic Church, the Philippines has approved birth control even for poor women. According to an LA Times article:
The measure, which President Benigno Aquino III has pledged to sign, would override the de facto ban on contraceptives in Manila’s public health clinics, make sex education mandatory in public schools, and require hospitals to provide postabortion care, even though abortions will remain illegal.
American politicians should pay attention to this, too.
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In a story with a weird twist, FFRF successfully got the illegal nativity scene removed from public property in Century, Florida, but local news station WKRG reports that the proponents of the nativity scene – but not the city officials – claim, “next year the nativity scene will be bigger and better with plans to use the whole building for the manger scene, complete with angels and live music.” I’m not sure if that means that the people who capitulated to FFRF this year are going to dig in and have themselves a little lawsuit next year, or what. Maybe some outside group is fired up to file something. It sounds like what they want ought to be banned in the interest of good taste, not just in the interest of separation of church and state.
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Want to know the real reason that socialist Muslim Kenyan Barack HUSSEIN Obama won the election? According to Catholic Online, the atheists are totally to blame. Seems we wanted a “secular agenda.” And not only do we want a secular agenda, but our numbers are growing so significantly (up to 20% of the whole American population! OMG!) that the voters among us (12% of all the voters nationwide! ZOMG!) can elect whomever we please. I guess this means we’re in charge now, and can run our Evil Satanist Empire™ exactly as we damn well please. What a relief to know that my job here is done! Finally, I can relax and watch Honey Boo-Booin peace.
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I doubt that I have to tell you that Westboro Baptist Church is a hate group if ever there was one. They’ve threatened to picket the funerals of those killed in the Newtown, Connecticut school shooting – because clearly, those 6 and 7 year old first graders were fag lovers who deserved to die for their sins. Someone started a couple of petitions to have the White House declare them a hate group. The Supreme Court has said that these hatemongers have a right to protest, even though to the rest of us it appears that the church members prey on bereaved people at their lowest emotional ebb and at the most stressful moments of their lives.
What will an executive order declaring Westboro Baptist Church to be a hate group accomplish? Not much. But their tax status might be jeopardized, which apparently is the point of the exercise.
The Anti-Defamation League (focused mostly on antisemitism and racism) and the Southern Poverty Law Center both maintain lists of violent and nonviolent hate groups, and Westboro Baptist Church is on bothlists. The FBI monitors the groups, too, but its list of hate groups is not public. The FBI will only act if federal law is violated, which generally means violence must be involved. Unfortunately, Westboro Baptist Church is made up of a family of lawyers, so they know to be nonviolent and they make their money by suing cities whose police forces do not protect them from counter-protests.
Serah Blain, executive director of the Secular Coalition of Arizona, says that the goal is “to stop [the] reign of terror” by the ultra-conservative Center for Arizona Policy, a group with an innocuous name but deadly and horrific ideas for controlling women’s health.
The Secular Coalition of Arizona is not just focused on women’s health. It plans to lobby hard for a death-with-dignity law that resembles Oregon’s, as well as for science-based sex education in public schools.
The Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers, also commonly known as Atheists in Foxholes, has succeeded in stopping a live nativity that was planned on a US military base in Bahrain. The military atheists’ concerns were twofold: first, that the nativity unconstitutionally promoted Christianity as the official religion of the military base; and second, that local Muslims would believe that the military was Christian rather than secular.
We in the Bible Belt think that we are working behind enemy lines. Given the evangelical bent of much of the military, these guys are not just behind enemy lines, but in the thick of hostile fire. Bravo for their perseverance!
The Christian Family Coalition persuaded the Miami-Dade County Commissioners to institute a prayer to start off each meeting. Commissioner Dennis Moss was understandably upset at the passage of the ordinance, and objected vociferously, which displeased the CFC. It seems that they expect their elected officials never to defend the wall of separation of church and state. One of the prongs of the CFC’s mission is to “protest anti-Christian bias and defend the legal rights of Christians.” I kid you not. Apparently they believe Christians are oppressed. From where I sit, just the opposite seems to be the case. The ACLU is monitoring the situation, and may file suit if the council’s prayers slide into sectarian territory.
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In a no-brainer of a lawsuit, FFRF sued a school district in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, in September over a Ten Commandments monolith in the school yard. In their answer to the suit filed just this week, the school district’s lawyers said that the monument had to be placed there during the otherwise completely lawless 1950’s, when school children had no code of conduct from any other source. (Yes, that’s what the report says. Well, pretty much. Click the link if you don’t believe me.) The school district’s attorneys, desperate for an argument – any argument! – said that the outdoor monument was not really a problem because it has an eagle (the school’s mascot) the Eye of Ra on it, so it’s all nonreligious and stuff. Plus, objecting students can simply avert their eyes.
Jessica Ahlquist, Constitutional Champ
Let’s ask Jessica Ahlquist about how the law sees such a solution, shall we? I’ll bet she can answer us without blinking.
The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, a project of the Pew Center for Research, reported on the religious affiliations of the 113th congress a couple of weeks ago. We know that we have our first Hindu (Hawaii Democrat Tulsi Gabbard) in either house and our first Buddhist Senator (Hawaii Democrat Mazie K. Hirono, whose house seat Gabbard won). For the first time a religiously unaffiliated person, Arizona Democrat Kyrsten Sinema, has been elected to a new seat in Congress. She has so far resisted saying whether or not she is actually atheist, but she’s openly bisexual. California’s Pete Stark had been in office for well over a decade when he came out as atheist in 2007. He is the only known atheist ever to serve in Congress, although Dave Silverman of American Atheists claims that there are at least 20 closeted non-theists currently in office.
When the 113th Congress takes office in January, 393 members of the House of Representatives will be Christian (246 Protestant, 134 Catholic, 8 Mormon, 5 Christian Orthodox), 22 Jewish, 2 Buddhist, 2 Muslim, 1 Hindu, 1 Unitarian, and 1 unaffiliated. Eight members of the House did not specify their religious persuasions.
Eighty-seven Senators are Christian (53 Protestant, 27 Catholic, 7 Mormon), 10 are Jewish, 1 is Buddhist, and two did not specify a religious preference.
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We expect to see blasphemy in the headlines from theocratic Muslim countries, but it is more startling to hear that countries that make up the European Union still have blasphemy laws on the books. Despite its intensely Catholic history and its role in the Protestant Reformation, Europe seems to be in the process of abandoning its religious roots, relegating religion to a curiosity that existed in its history, but which rarely plays a part now. Today’s Europe is increasingly secular, amused by unscientific fundamentalism, and irreverent.
There are eight notable exceptions: Denmark, Germany, Greece Ireland, Italy, Malta, the Netherlands, and Poland. A couple of weeks ago, I told you about the iconoclastic Greek play that resulted in blasphemy charges for its actors, director, and producers. Ireland has a blasphemy law on the books, and its abortion prohibitions are so strict that even when the mother’s life, and thereby the fetus’, are at risk, still no abortion can be performed. That nightmare scenario played out to devastating and preventable results not long ago.
Last week the Dutch parliament moved to scrap its blasphemy law, too. The Dutch law, passed in the 1930’s, has not been used in more than 50 years. Feel free to marvel at the social change that took place within a single lifetime. A majority of the political parties in the Netherlands agree that such a law is no longer relevant to modern Dutch life, where the freedom of speech and tolerance are treasured.
I am also pleased to report that here is hope for Ireland. This week,Ireland opened a constitutional convention that may result in eight significant changes in its laws, especially with respect to human rights. Among those possible changes are the elimination of the blasphemy law passed as recently as 2009 and approval of same-sex marriage. Last year Taoiseach Enda Kenny proved himself not to be in religion’s back pocket when he blasted the Catholic Church in his address to Parliament regarding the Cloyne Report. The report marked a devastating blow to the Vatican because it revealed the involvement of the Vatican – not just local church officials – in covering up child sexual abuse by priests in one Irish diocese. In the opening speeches Saturday, Tanaiste Eamon Gilmore advocated significant changes from the 1937 constitution, saying it “reflected the aspirations for our country as they were in the 1930s, which was a time when one church had a special place when women were second class citizens and homosexuality was a criminal offence.”
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The United Nations gets two upvotes this week. First, it has condemned female genital mutilation, a religious and cultural practice confined mostly to Africa and the Middle East, but which, because of widespread immigration, has become an issue worldwide. The World Health Organization has said that female circumcision has no health benefits, and indeed, that the procedure actually “interferes with the natural functions” of the female body.
Recently a woman from Gambia sought political asylum in the U.K. because of the genital mutilation she had suffered, and the fear that her three-year-old daughter would be subjected to is they returned there. The United States and Canada have both granted asylum based on realistic fears of genital mutilation – in fact, our kind neighbors to the north were the first country to recognize that females as a minority social group faced persecution in the form of genital mutilation if they were forced to return to certain countries, and to grant them asylum because of it.
Male circumcision has fallen into worldwide disfavor in recent years, and made the news last week when Grace Adeleye, a nurse-midwife, went on trial for the death of a four week old baby who bled to death after she circumcised him. The circumcision was done without anesthetic in the home of the baby’s Nigerian-immigrant parents. Adeleye used forceps, olive oil, and a pair of scissors to do the job.
In 1999, the American Academy of Pediatrics changed from a neutral stance on circumcision to one in which it stated that there was “insufficient information available to recommend” circumcision, although it did say that the health benefits of circumcision outweigh the risks. Because of the potential health benefits, the World Health Organization says that male circumcision is partial protection against AIDS. According to the CDC, “Male circumcision reduces the risk that a man will acquire HIV from an infected female partner, and also lowers the risk of other STDs , penile cancer, and infant urinary tract infection. In female partners, it reduces the risk of cervical cancer, genital ulceration, bacterial vaginosis, trichomoniasis, and HPV. Although male circumcision has risks including pain, bleeding, and infection, more serious complications are rare.” Some human rights organizations claim that the male circumcision studies relied upon by the UN, WHO, and CDC are flawed.
This week’s second upvote for the United Nations results from its recognition of Palestine as a state. The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) has held the status of a non-member observer entity” since 1974, but this change in status implies that the U.N. recognizes Palestine as a state, putting it on equal footing with the Vatican within the U.N.’s hierarchical framework of nation-states. Palestine is understandably jubilant about its recognition. However, theU.S. and Israel refused to go along with the designation, for which they both earn downvotes from me. Like I really count.
Apartheid is apartheid, denying people basic human rights based on their religion violates those rights, reservations for indigenous people are a form of oppression, and killing children is wrong, no matter whether you are God’s Chosen People or God’s Country. Sorry.
The United Kingdom now requires its free schools to teach evolution by natural selection, or risk losing government funding. Free schools can be run by religious organizations and other creationists, and are not the same as regular public schools in the U.K.; they do not have to follow the government-mandated curriculum. In a massive victory for the children’s education, this new rule means that children attending these schools have to be taught real science, not creation science. We in the United States, who have dealt with individual teachers, administrators and even entire public school boards who don’t mind giving evolution short shrift, wish the U.K. well in enforcing the law. We hope the U.K. is successful and that we can pick up some good pointers.
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Alternative medicine is often called “alternative” because it’s not real medicine and it doesn’t really work. In the world on homophobic excesses, the good news is that a new lawsuit isn’t against homophobic Christians this time. It’s against JONAH, the Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing. The Southern Poverty Law Center, a watchdog for hate groups including anti-gay groups, has filed suit on behalf of four plaintiffs who were teenagers when JONAH attempted to “cure” them of their homosexuality by conversion therapy. Two other plaintiffs are the Orthodox Jewish parents of the patients. JONAH’s “therapy” consisted of having the young men beat effigies of their mothers (who “made them gay”), inappropriate physical contact and genital displays, and subjecting the patients to name-calling.
So, there’s this statue of the Madonna that sits in a small grotto near Ballinspittle, County Cork, Ireland, that allegedly started breathing and gesturing when it was approached by some worshippers back in 1985. “It’s a miracle!” cried devout Irish Catholics, who flocked to observe the moving, floating statue by the thousands. Since then, more than a quarter of a million people have made pilgrimages to the little grotto. “Even skeptics go away converted!” enthused a BBC report, despite the on-camera skepticism of the local Catholic bishop. “Seven out of ten people really see it move!”
As I reported last week, Indian skeptic Sanal Edamaruku is on the lam from the blasphemy charges leveled against him in India for exposing the bloody toes of the Jesus getting washed by physics instead of by miracles. He was in the neighborhood of Europe, so Atheist Ireland invited him to visit Ballinspittle to check out their local miracle. Not having anything more interesting to do, Edamaruku accepted. Geometry and magic laser beams ensued.
I truly hope he continues going around debunking miracle silliness while he’s on vacation from India’s ridiculously medieval laws.
What’s the big deal? Why can’t public school children go see that Charlie Brown Christmas play?
Answer:
The law of separation of church and state, as it applies to public school field trips, as explained by the Appignani Humanist Legal Center’s Bill Burgess in a letter sent Monday:
November 26, 2012
Sandra Register
Principal
Terry Elementary School
10800 Mara Lynn Drive
Little Rock, Arkansas 72211
Dr. Morris Holmes
Little Rock School District
810 West Markham Street
Little Rock, Arkansas 72201
cc: Little Rock School District Board of Education
Re: Public Elementary School Field Trip to Church to See Christian Play
Ladies and Gentlemen:
I am writing to alert you to a serious separation of church and state concern. We have recently received a request for legal assistance from the Arkansas Society of Freethinkers and the Central Arkansas Coalition of Reason on behalf of the parents of a student at Terry Elementary School. They informed us that the school has scheduled a field trip for students to view a production of “Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown!,” a Christmas play with a sectarian theme, staged at and by Agape Church, a local evangelical Christian church,[1] the week of December 14.
The American Humanist Association is a national nonprofit organization with over 10,000 members and 20,000 supporters across the country, including in Arkansas. The purpose of AHA’s legal center is to protect one of the most fundamental legal principles of our democracy: the constitutional mandate requiring separation of church and state, embodied in the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.[2]
As you must know, the Supreme Court has made clear that the “First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state” and that this “wall must be kept high and impregnable.” Everson v. Bd. of Ed. of Ewing Twp., 330 U.S. 1, 18 (1947). To do so, “the Constitution mandates that the government remain secular.” County of Allegheny v. ACLU, 492 U.S. 573, 610 (1989). In order to secure this freedom from state-backed religion, the Constitution requires that any governmental “practice which touches upon religion, if it is to be permissible under the Establishment Clause,” must have a “secular purpose” and not “advance . . . religion.” Id. at 590. Specifically, the government “may not promote or affiliate itself with any religious doctrine or organization.” Id. Courts “pay particularly close attention to whether the challenged governmental practice either has the purpose or effect of [unconstitutionally] ‘endorsing’ religion.” Id. at 591. Endorsement includes “conveying or attempting to convey a message that religion or a particular religious belief is favored or preferred.” Id. at 593.
In short, “religion must be a private matter for the individual, the family, and the institutions of private choice,” not the state. Lemon v. Kurtzman,403 U.S. 602, 625 (1971). In addition, the Supreme Court has in particular expressed especially “heightened concern” about preventing any sort of public school involvement with religion because of the risk of “subtle coercive pressure in the elementary and secondary public schools” environment. Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577, 592 (1992).
Applying these general constitutional rules to the issue at hand, we have reason to believe that the school’s actions are in violation of the Establishment Clause. The school is encouraging impressionable young students to attend an event in a Christian venue with a Christian message. The effect is to affiliate the school with that message, encouraging its adoption by the students by means of this endorsement.
In the play, following a raucous and disjointed attempt to put on a Christmas pageant, Charlie Brown expresses frustration. Linus says he can tell Charlie Brown “what Christmas is all about.” He then quotes verbatim the New Testament of the Bible, Luke 2:8-14:
And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.
The characters then cease bickering, adopt this religious view (rejecting the supposed “commercialism” of a secular Christmas celebration), and, in the immediately following final scenes, sing “Hark the Herald Angels Sing”:
Hark the herald angels sing
“Glory to the newborn King!”
Peace on earth and mercy mild
God and sinners reconciled
Joyful, all ye nations rise
Join the triumph of the skies
With the angelic host proclaim:
“Christ is born in Bethlehem.”
Hark! The herald angels sing
“Glory to the newborn King!”
The message of the play is clear: Jesus Christ is the son of God and the messiah, and the real meaning of Christmas is to celebrate the anniversary of his birth. It is completely sectarian in nature and expressly rejects any secular version of Christmas.
A church is of course free to spread this religious message. Our public schools, however, are not free to take part in the effort. They may not choose to promote it by encouraging students to attend, let alone by organizing and funding attendance by means of an official field trip. Although objecting students may decline to attend, they will face the subtly coercive pressure of their peers to do so (in addition of course to the explicit encouragement of the school). Because of this, the Supreme Court has made clear that an Establishment Clause violation is not “mitigated by the fact that individual students may absent themselves upon parental request.” Abington School Dist. v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203, 224-25 (1963).
The Establishment Clause forbids our schools from promoting a religious message in this way. This trip must therefore be canceled. In the alternative, it may be modified to be instead a visit to a secular Christmas-themed theatrical performance, such as the Nutcracker, would of course present no issue.
Please notify us in writing about the steps you are taking to avoid this constitutional violation so that we may avoid any potential litigation. Thank you for your time and attention to this matter.
Sincerely,
William J. Burgess
Appignani Humanist Legal Center
American Humanist Association
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[1] https://www.agape-church.org/.
[2] The very first sentence of the Bill of Rights mandates that the state be secular: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” This provision, known as the Establishment Clause, “build[s] a wall of separation between church and State.” See Reynolds v. United States, 98 U.S. 145, 164 (1878). The Supreme Court “has given the [Establishment Clause] a ‘broad interpretation . . . in the light of its history and the evils it was designed forever to suppress. . . .’ [finding that it] afford[s] protection against religious establishment far more extensive than merely to forbid a national or state church.” McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U. S. 420, 442 (1961).
For this week’s legal roundup, and the arrows are back with a vengeance.
Today’s first item just gets all sorts of my tacky little arrows. It’s awesomeness really deserves twinkling lights and a neon border, too, but I can’t tart up JT’s blog too much or he’ll stop me from posting. Writer Suzanne Lamb and her cohorts from the SSA at Western Kentucky University have taken on religion in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky. Since the school district has allowed religious organizations including the Gideons to pass out Bibles and other Christian literature, Lamb asked for – and received – the same opportunity. She and the SSA are attending after-hours school-sponsored events and passing out FFRF info and copies of Dan Barker’s book, Godless, at Muhlenberg County high schools. The school board has a “community use” policy that permitted any nonprofit organization to distribute literature on school grounds.
One particularly outraged Kentuckian said, “I think it’s giving them an opportunity to impose their views and their values where they shouldn’t have a right to do that.” He added, “No one … should be allowed to go into the schools to go in and push their doctrine and their belief, which I believe to be a false belief – on any children. They’re opening the door for anybody to go in, and that would be including the atheists!”
Halleluiah, he gets it!
And so does the school superintendent, who said that the schools would not discriminate among nonprofit groups wanting to spread their information to students. Horrified that atheists (gasp!) have access to school children, the school board is likely to change the policy for the next school year to prohibit all nonprofit organizations from distributing literature at the public schools. My hat is off to Suzanne Lamb, and I hope others reading this blog and wanting ideas for way to be activists without risking arrest will take a page from her playbook. Lamb alerted me by email that there is a Canadian family doing the same thing in Ontario. This means FFRF reaches across borders to help spread secularism.
I encourage you to check out Lamb’s blog, What to Tell the Neighbors, in which she chronicles more details about her battle with the schools. One recent post contains an especially poignant email from a former Muhlenberg County student, who thought he was the only atheist around. Those of us who grew up without religion or who never managed to buy into the faith of our parents know exactly how that young person felt.
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Sanal J. Edamaruku is on a mission. He is traveling all over Europe to raise awareness of India’s colonial-era blasphemy laws. He hopes that the negative international attention will pressure India’s government to repeal them. He has a reason – he’s had to flee the country because of them and because of the death threats he received when he proved last March that Jesus Never Wept. As the founder of Rationalist International, Edamaruku is pretty much the James Randi of India. He’s the guy who challenged a tantrik, or black magician, to kill him – using only magic – on television a few years ago. The three-minute attempt was broadcast live, and when it failed even after Edamaruku graciously allowed the tantrick to continue trying to kill him for five hours, the magician declared that Edamaruku was clearly under the protection of a powerful god. Edamaruku replied, “Nope; I’m atheist,” and jaws dropped all over the religious world.
In Mumbai earlier this year, a big, wooden crucifix started dripping water from the bloody toes of the Jesus, so of course the natural thing for most people to do was to declare a miracle and commence with the pilgrimages and the bottling of the water, ’cause ain’t nothing holier than a leaky crucifix. Edamaruku showed – once again on live TV – that Jesus’ toes were crying over a clogged drain and the resulting capillary action that funneled the water through a nail hole in the crucifix, and that the wooden Jesus was not bothered in the least by the gruesome depiction of his death. The Catholic Church was very upset that its miracle was really science. Angered by Edamaruku’s accusation of “miracle-mongering,” the local bishop filed a formal complaint against him for “hurting the religious sentiments of the community,” which carries up to a three-year prison sentence. (Thanks, Mom, for not punishing Sis and me like this for hurting each other’s feelings as kids.)
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Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. has appealed the decision by a federal trial judge that they have to provide coverage for contraceptives in its company health care policy. Interestingly, at one time the employee insurance plan did include these emergency contraceptives. When the employers realized this, they removed two emergency contraceptive drugs from the approved list. The judge indicated that he was sympathetic to the situation of the companies and their owners, but that the court was required to follow the law.
The judge refused to grant an injunction in favor of Hobby Lobby, its sister Corporation Mardel, and the owners of the two companies, despite their claims that they are religious employers and therefore should be exempted from contraceptive coverage required under the Affordable Care Act. The trial judge pointed out that to qualify as a “religious employer,” the purpose of the companies and their owners must be to companies and their owners must be a nonprofit organization primarily engaged in the business of religious indoctrination, that their employees must share the employer’s religious tenets, and that the employer must primarily serve people who share the religious tenets of the organization. Obviously, these companies do not meet these criteria.
Hobby Lobby also argued that the Obamacare contraceptive mandate requires them to violate their religious beliefs and “substantially burdens their religious exercise.” This language invoked the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which says that the “government shall not substantially burden a person’s exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability” unless the burden furthers a “compelling governmental interest; and is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling governmental interest.” The trial judge said that while the owners of the companies obviously had religious views, the companies themselves were incapable of holding religious views, because corporations are not people for every constitutional purpose, and because general business corporations do not exercise religion.
Despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which assured corporations a right to free speech and unlimited spending on that speech even in politics, the trial judge noted that not every constitutional right has been granted to corporations. Religious liberty is intended to protect an individual’s liberty. If a law restricting religious conduct – as opposed to religious thought or belief – is both neutral in its treatment of religion and is generally applicable no matter what, it only has to be “rationally related to a legitimate governmental interest to survive a constitutional challenge.”
Hobby Lobby could not prove to the trial court that the contraceptive mandate was religious in nature, or that the mandate was intended to do anything other than to promote gender equality and public health. What’s really bad, the court said, is that the constitutional rights of the employees are affected: procreation, marriage contraception, and abortion are private matters within the domain of the individual to exercise or not.
The Chester County, Pennsylvania, Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster! ‘Tis the season to remind local governments that there is more to celebrate each December than a baby who might or might not have been born in unsanitary circumstances somewhere in the Middle East 2012 years and one month ago. (The Pope says he wasn’t – can you believe that Benedict XVI actually gets an upvote this week for helping to debunk Christian myths? I know! Me either!)
Evangelical Pastafarian (did you know there were such?) Tracy McPherson bravely challenged the Chester County Commissioners, who have failed so far to include Pastafarianism in the county’s seasonal displays. She demanded that her religion be acknowledged alongside the Jewish Menorah and Christian Nativity Scene. More of us should design seasonal displays and demand they be given equal time.
William Cox has stepped up to the plate in an FFRF lawsuit that was in danger of being dismissed. He agreed to be a named plaintiff in a lawsuit to remove a religious statue from a Montana ski slope. FFRF had sued in its own name on behalf of its members, but the Catholic men’s organization Knights of Columbus, which erected the statue, objected to FFRF’s legal standing without a person actually named as a plaintiff. Thank you, William Cox! According to news reports, “several out-of-state conservative and religious groups have pledged their support in defending the statue’s existence on its 25-by-25 foot patch of land, saying it represents the history and heritage of the region.” I wonder what the dozen or so tribes of people indigenous to the region have to say about the religious history of their region?
A judge in Oklahoma sentenced a juvenile who was convicted of manslaughter to church instead of prison. Tyler Alred’s friend was killed when the car Alred was driving crashed. The teenagers had been drinking. While I don’t think prison is a healthy place for anyone, and certainly not for a juvenile, I can’t help but wish something could be done about this aspect of the young man’s sentence. If the juvenile appeals his sentence and it is found to be unconstitutional, he might be re-sentenced and sent to prison. So this judge, who has apparently sentenced other defendants to church, will not only get away with it but keep on doing it. A 16-year-old who accidentally kills his friend will live with that horror for the rest of his life, anyway. Alred has a laundry list of other requirements to meet that are common to rules of probation or parole: things like finishing school, finding a job, and more. If he doesn’t do as he has been ordered, he’ll spend up to ten years in prison. The victim’s family did not want him to serve time. “We don’t need to see two lives wasted for a mistake,” said the victim’s sister. How many of us might agree to suffer through ten years of church?
In response to the 9/11 attacks, the Kentucky legislature made an official “finding” in 2002 that the “safety and security of the Commonwealth cannot be achieved apart from reliance upon Almighty God.” Aided by American Atheists, secularist plaintiffs won at the trial level when the trial judge agreed that the state had “created an official government position on God.” But the state appellate court said something to the effect of “oh, those are just words, you know?” so now the plaintiffs are asking the United States Supreme Court to weigh in. When Alternet reported this story yesterday, its article, which got widespread attention, said that the state’s citizens had to acknowledge the existence of “Almighty God” or be prosecuted and punished with up to a year in prison. That’s not exactly the case. The article corrected itself later, by accurately reporting that a plaque with a religious statement attributing public safety and homeland security to Almighty God had to be placed on the wall of the state’s homeland security building, or the executive director of the agency risked a year in jail for a misdemeanor violation. Kentucky Revised Statute 39G.010(2) says, in relevant part:
The executive director shall: (a) Publicize the findings of the General Assembly stressing the dependence on Almighty God as being vital to the security of the Commonwealth by including the provisions of KRS 39A.285(3) in its agency training and educational materials. The executive director shall also be responsible for prominently displaying a permanent plaque at the entrance to the state’s Emergency Operations Center stating the text of KRS 39A.285(3)[.]
The legislative finding referred to in the above statute is in KRS 9A.285. The italicized words are what the Executive Director of Kentucky Homeland Security is supposed to post on the wall of the building:
The General Assembly hereby finds that:
(1) No government by itself can guarantee perfect security from acts of war or terrorism.
(2) The security and well-being of the public depend not just on government, but rest in large measure upon individual citizens of the Commonwealth and their level of understanding, preparation, and vigilance.
(3) The safety and security of the Commonwealth cannot be achieved apart from reliance upon Almighty God as set forth in the public speeches and proclamations of American Presidents, including Abraham Lincoln’s historic March 30, 1863, Presidential Proclamation urging Americans to pray and fast during one of the most dangerous hours in American history, and the text of President John F. Kennedy’s November 22, 1963, national security speech which concluded: “For as was written long ago: ‘Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.’ “
The second statute, with the italicized language, went into effect March 28, 2002. The posting requirements were not passed into law until 2006 when the American Atheists lawsuit was initiated.
Something to point out about this is the fact that the Kentucky Legislature mentions a November 22, 1963, JFK speech about national security. That speech was not given 49 years ago today in Dallas, Texas, by President John F. Kennedy. On his way to the luncheon where he was to deliver it, Kennedy was assassinated.
What the Kentucky legislature chose to ignore was the fact that John F. Kennedy had given another speech in Texas three years earlier, making it crystal clear that, despite his strongly held personal religious beliefs, Kennedy also believed that keeping church and state separate was of absolute paramount importance.
Let’s hope the conservative United States Supreme Court does the right thing.
The Speaker of Uganda’s Parliament, Rebecca Kadaga, says that Uganda’s new “Kill the Gays” bill will be passed before the end of 2012 despite vigorous and vocal international criticism of the legislation. She called it a “Christmas gift” to Uganda’s Christian population. Uganda already criminalizes homosexual behavior, but the new bill adds different levels of seriousness to the crime of being gay, punishment for which ranges from life imprisonment to death:
‘Aggravated homosexuality’ is defined as gay acts committed by parents or authority figures, HIV-positive people, pedophiles and repeat offenders. If convicted, they will face the death penalty.
The ‘offense of homosexuality’ includes same-sex sexual acts or being in a gay relationship, and will be prosecuted by life imprisonment.
According to one report, Several European countries have threatened to cut aid to Uganda if it passes, with the UK government warning Uganda it would face severe reductions in financial help. President Obama has described it as ‘odious’, and Canadian politician John Baird has said it is ‘vile, abhorrent, and offends decency’.
Uganda is notorious for its superstitions, childsacrifice by witch doctors. Burningsuspected witches alive is still prevalent in the country. (Warning: This video is a graphic recording of an alleged witch being burned alive in Uganda in 2011.)
So, yeah, modern American Christian evangelism does serious harm in today’s world, in case there are any fence-sitters out there reading this. U.S. District Judge Audrey B. Collins said that the city of Santa Monica, California, did not have to allow any seasonal displays, religious or otherwise, in its park. Last year, to the dismay of the Christians who had previously dominated the annual seasonal display in the park, a number of atheists got 18 out of 21 spaces that Santa Monica regularly let religious groups use to erect seasonal displays. About half of the non-theist displays were vandalized, so the city ended its tradition of allowing the seasonal displays. The city decided to stop all displays in the park. In court Monday, Deputy City Attorney Yibin Shen said the ban had been under consideration for 20 years and was ultimately motivated by the cost to the city after the number of applicants spiked in recent years. The department in charge of running the lottery for booth spaces doubled its staff and spent 245 hours annually running the system and reviewing applications.
Americans United for Separation of Church and State and eight other groups representing Jewish, Unitarian Universalist, and secular organizations have filed an amicus brief in a death penalty case in Florida. Amici curiae, or “friends of the court” briefs are filed by individuals or groups who are not parties to the lawsuit in question, but who feel they have something important to add to the issue under consideration. Frequently these groups want to influence public policy which will result from the decision. In this case, the defendant was sentenced to death after the prosecutor quoted extensively from the Bible, specifically from the book of Romans, in his cross-examination of a minister in the sentencing phase of the case. The passages he quoted demanded the death penalty. The organizations asked to file the brief because, despite their various religious viewpoints, they are “united in the view that the decision between life and death in a capital case should not turn on the jury’s interpretation of religious doctrine.”
In matters of legal amusement, private funds paid for a monument with the Ten Commandments to be erected on the lawn of the Oklahoma State Capitol. Many are snickering at its misspellings, which are expected to be corrected. Oklahoma’s ACLU is determining whether a legal challenge will be made. Since the existence of the ten commandments on government property has repeatedly been held to violate the Constitution, a legal challenge has a high likelihood of success. The Oklahoma ACLU’s organizer, Ryan Kiesel, was a Democratic House member at the time the law was passed allowing the erection of the monument. He was among 16 absent when the final vote in the Oklahoma House passed the law allowing placement of the monument 83-2. I have no clue why Kiesel was absent that day.
Greece has brought blasphemy charges against the performers, producer, and director of an Athens production of Terrence McNally’s play “Corpus Christi.” The play portrays Jesus and the disciples as gay men living in Texas.
The play’s director told Reuters he was stunned that prosecutors had chosen to go after him rather than pursue tax evaders and others blamed for driving Greece to near-bankruptcy.
“What I see is that there are people who have robbed the country blind who are not in jail and the prosecutor turns against art,” Albanian-born Laertis Vasiliou said.
If they are convicted, the men would face several months in jail. That’s not as dire as the situation faced by Alber Saber in Egypt, but still – to think that a country as advanced as Greece, and a member of the EU to boot, would prosecute people for religious speech and iconoclastic beliefs is beyond the pale.
Obama said that if any petition could gain 25,000 signatures in a month he’d consider it. Will he? I don’t know. You have to create an account to sign the petition, but I did so quite some time ago and haven’t yet received any spam because of it. Yes, most of the petitions look to be pretty far from a reasonable request, and as of this writing, there seem to be a lot of them that, if denied, will result in another Civil War. Like, “ALLOW ALASKA TO SECEDE FROM A DYSFUNCTIONAL UNION.” Yes, it’s all in caps. There seems to be one or more of those for each state. But seriously, Here are a couple of Petitions you might consider signing.
First is one that asks that the law be changed to require religious organizations to pay taxes. It has been posted for a week, and as of yesterday had 5,880 signatures. It’s short and sweet. It will remain posted until December 14 to gather the necessary signatures. Let’s blow the doors off the thing. This one is important.
The second one asks to remove references to God from our money and the Pledge of Allegiance. It expires December 12. When I added my name, this petition had over 11,000 signatures and had only been posted since November 12. I don’t have a lot of hope that this will go anywhere since we have 533 people in the halls of Congress who claim to believe in that whole God thing, but the more noise we make, the more attention we’ll get. Right?
The third is one to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). This one is getting close. It closes December 7, and as of this writing has more than met its quota. I’d like to see this one make a point, though, and garner lots of extra signatures.
A point about all three of these petitions: they all ask for laws to be passed or repealed, which is something only Congress can do. Just because the President is asked to take action does not mean that Congress will go along with it. The President can’t make or repeal laws by himself. He can issue executive orders, which set his administration’s policy and occasionally – and temporarily – take on the quasi-character of a law, but an executive order and a “pretty please” to his supporters in Congress is about the best he can do.
Yes, Twinkies Lovers, that means you are likely to feel the disaster first and foremost, and there’s no telling how long it will last. It may last forever.
But this time? This time it’s going to be worse. Much worse.
When “normal” returns, it may not be the same “normal” we know and love. Like Bill O’Reilly lamenting the loss of the normal United States populated by Ward, June, Wally and the Beave, the new normal may be damn near unrecognizable.
Fine, so I had to insert a tiny smidgeon of political commentary. Nevertheless, dammit, Hostess is depriving Traditional America of Twinkies on a timetable that resembles greased lightning.
There is no time to waste.
Stop reading this blog immediately and get thee to thy local Twinkies Distribution Point post haste. It is expected that on Monday – just three days hence – the bankruptcy court will let Hostess shut down operations.
I’m not sure whether an upvote or a downvote is due to the University of Louisville Hospital and University Medical Center for its new arrangement with the Catholic Health Initiatives. Financially it will be good. Whether reproductive health care will suffer for it is another issue entirely. There has been drama for about two years over the attempts by the university’s president to merge the public hospital and medical center with CHI. Kentucky’s governor ultimately rejected a year ago saying that “The risks to the public outweigh the potential benefits.” The merger also would have included a Jewish hospital in Louisville. The current arrangement, which is a joint operating agreement and not a merger, apparently preserves the women’s reproductive health care services that CHI would have restricted considerably. Other Catholic hospitals are moving to join operations with public hospitals, including one in Little Rock, Arkansas. It remains to be seen whether women’s reproductive health care will be affected.
Egypt is still busily prosecuting Alber Saber, the guy who was accused of spreading The Innocence of Muslims – that ridiculous movie that may have helped escalate the Benghazi attacks to the level of Major International Incident – and other irreligious stuff on his Facebook page. He faces up to five years in prison for his crime of blasphemy if he is found guilty. According to his defense team, a confession was tortured out of him, his laptop was seized without a warrant, and the police allowed him to be assaulted while in their custody after his arrest in September. The trial is over, and briefs have been submitted to the court. A decision is expected November 28.
In fairness, it’s hardly news that the Catholic bishops in the United States are resisting the contraception mandate in the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). Or that they are dancing jigs over the defeat of Massachusetts’ Death with Dignity Act. After all, it’s not God’s plan that we control our own lives and bodies. In an interview with the National Catholic Register, Richard Doerflinger, who is the Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, set out the Catholic strategy for imposing religion on people stuck with getting their health insurance through Catholic employers. Looks like we, in addition to people who don’t think employers should be allowed to impose their religion on employees, ought to take the same page from the Catholic playbook and do the same. Write your congressman, just like Doerflinger suggests.
Sikhs are so peaceful, it’s hard to think their brand of religion is bad, right? Well, not so much. At a Sikh shrine in California, violence erupted this week between two rival groups wanting control of the religious site. These Sikhs have been fighting in court as well as in the streets for control of the place of worship. Lovely.
Mike Huckabee thinks we’re idiots. His appearance on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart Monday night had me seeing red – as in red-state Republican, bloody damn preacher in politics scaring the shit out of those gullible people who think they will burn in hell for not voting the way the Bible tells them to. I ranted about this already,so I won’t repeat myself here. (Shameless plug.)
Federal Courts. Free speech for one group equates free speech for all, they said when the Islamophobic American Freedom Defense Initiative sued to get pro-Christian, pro-Israel, Anti-Islam ads put on buses in D.C. and New York. The ads are now running on Chicago buses, and the Southern Poverty Law Center has noted the ad campaign in its Hatewatch Headlines. AFDI is headed by Pam Geller, who fervently believes Barack Obama is beholden to his Islamic overlords and is the love child of Malcolm X. Yes, it’s best we know who the hate groups are, no matter who they hate, than to have them work in secret where we can’t see them.
And, no, it’s not law-related, but did you guys see the Washington post article about The Friendly Atheist Hemant Mehta and teenage atheist hero Jessica Ahlquist at Skepticon? The more coverage atheists and atheism get in the mainstream popular media for good stuff, the better!
I’m just going to use this graphic for them from now on. They’ve earned it.
If I could adorn it with sparkly glitter and blinky neon lights without risking an epileptic seizure or a migraine, I’d probably do it.
Yesterday, FFRF sued the Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service. No shit. And yes, they sued because the IRS won’t friggin’ enforce the rule about churches electioneering. Basically, this is a claim of a sort of nonfeasance or dereliction of duty, something that isn’t very common. By not doing his job – by not enforcing the law – FFRF says that the Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service has violated the Equal Protection Clauses of the Constitution.
FFRF wants a declaratory judgment against the Commissioner – in other words, a judgment that says that the Commissioner has done wrong. It has asked for an injunction against the Commissioner’s refusal to enforce the law, which is a convoluted way of saying that it wants the court to issue an order requiring the Commissioner to enforce the law. (I know – why couldn’t they just say that?) FFRF also wants the court to order the Commissioner of the IRS to designate someone as a high-level official who can take the complaints from IRS Form 13909 and investigate them.
The lawsuit asserts that under the administration of Commissioner Shulman, the Internal Revenue Service, under the direction of the IRS “has followed and continues to follow a policy of non-enforcement of the electioneering restrictions of §501(c)(3) against churches and other religious organizations.” You tell ’em, FFRF!
And the complaint continues: “As a result, in recent years, churches and religious organizations have been blatantly and deliberately flaunting the electioneering restrictions of §501(c)(3), including during the presidential election year of 2012.” Ya think? Just to be certain that the court is aware of the kinds of things that are going on, FFRF lists a few of them:
Illinois Bishop Daniel Jenky required that a partisan letter be read by every celebrating priest in the diocese to congregants the weekend before the recent Presidential election;
On October 7, 2012, more than 1500 clergy, in a deliberate and coordinated display of noncompliance with the electioneering restrictions of §501(c)(3), including prominent megachurches, flagrantly violated the law against churches electioneering;
The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, one of the most prominent and respected religious ministries in the country, ran blatantly partisan full-page ads in October of 2012 in the Wisconsin State Journal;
Just prior to the November 6, 2012 election, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association also ran blatantly partisan ads in the the New York Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, and more than a dozen national and battle ground state newspapers
The Association also published expressly partisanship on its website just prior to the election;
Open and notorious violations of the electioneering restrictions of §501(c)(3) by churches and other religious organizations have been occurring since at least 2008, with churches recording their own partisan activities and sending the evidence to the IRS.
Did you catch that last bit? In case you hadn’t heard, the churches are violating the law and taunting the IRS by sending proof of their blatant disregard for the law to the IRS themselves! And the IRS sits there with its thumb up its ass and does nothing but admire the wallpaper.
Understandably, FFRF, which itself is a 501(c)(3) organization, is somewhat miffed by this, and in the lawsuit it said so. Why does FFRF have to obey the law but these religious organizations do not? This is religious discrimination. Selective non-enforcement of the law based on religious criteria violates the Establishment Clause and the Equal Protection Clause, and, to add insult to injury,
The preferential tax-exemption that churches and other religious organizations obtain, despite noncompliance with electioneering restrictions, amounts to more than $100,000,000,000 annually in tax-free contributions made to churches and religious organizations in the United States.
I don’t know how or where FFRF came up with that number, but if it’s true, that’s about thirty-five billion – with a B – dollars in lost tax revenue. Money that we owe China. Money that would sure help with deficit reduction.
FFRF wants a level playing field and an end to the preferential treatment. It demands that the law is enforced. By not enforcing the law with respect to religious institutions, the government is effectively giving religion a $35,000,000,000 tax subsidy. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is establishment of religion.
A private attorney, Richard Bolton, is representing FFRF on this one. Bolton is a respected civil rights lawyer in Madison, Wisconsin, where FFRF is located. I would imagine he’s going to be getting a lot of hate mail in the near future, so let’s give him some love, shall we? Thanksgiving is coming next week, and he’s someone we might just want to thank.
You can read FFRF’s own press release and the complaint against the IRS on the FFRF website. If you aren’t a member of FFRF already, it’s time to join. Even if you don’t join, please donate. FFRF isn’t electioneering, so contributions to it will remain tax-deductible. The Freedom From Religion Foundation works tirelessly to protect our rights. They deserve some love, too.
And so does the school superintendent, who said that the schools would not discriminate among nonprofit groups wanting to spread their information to students. Horrified that atheists (gasp!) have access to school children, the school board is likely to change the policy for the next school year to prohibit all nonprofit organizations from distributing literature at the public schools. My hat is off to Suzanne Lamb, and I hope others reading this blog and wanting ideas for way to be activists without risking arrest will take a page from her playbook. Lamb alerted me by email that there is 
Sanal J. Edamaruku is on a mission. He is 
Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. 
Despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, which assured corporations a right to free speech and unlimited spending on that speech even in politics, the trial judge noted that not every constitutional right has been granted to corporations. Religious liberty is intended to protect an individual’s liberty. If a law restricting religious conduct – as opposed to religious thought or belief – is both neutral in its treatment of religion and is generally applicable no matter what, it only has to be “rationally related to a legitimate governmental interest to survive a constitutional challenge.”
Evangelical Pastafarian (did you know there were such?) Tracy McPherson bravely 
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