No Coercion

Many Wake County residents (and plenty of other folks) may be interested in knowing that the Wake County Public School System has recently implemented something called the Adopt-a-School Initiative, which seeks to partner every school in the system with a “faith-based organization” in order (ostensibly) to mentor problem students. To begin with, it turns out that not all “faith-based organizations” appear to be welcome. The program is headed by Assistant Superintendent of Student Support Services, Dr. Marvin Connelly, who also happens to be a Baptist pastor and is active in the Wake Baptist Missionary Association. At last check, hundreds of local Protestant churches had been notified of this program–no Catholic churches, and no non-Christian religious organizations. Very interesting.

And it gets even better. The “training” for participating individuals has been farmed out to a hardcore Protestant group called Another Step Forward Ministries. Their training brochure says the Adopt-a-School Initiative “links faith in God and good works for the improvement of life and the lives of others” and “seeks to build strong individuals, families, faith-based organizations, business and communities from a Kingdom perspective.” Really? This somehow didn’t seem problematic to the WCPSS Board?

This is almost certainly a violation of the First Amendment’s establishment clause, as well as objectively immoral since it involves the public school system that is funded with our tax dollars.  It was Thomas Jefferson who said, “To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.”

[I submitted basically what you see above as a letter to the editor of the News & Observer.]

These kinds of problems are inherent in a government school system and just another reason to abolish it and prevent government from having anything to do with education. Then people could simply send their kids to whatever private schools best suit them. But in the meantime, the only fair solution is to not allow mingling of government and religion.

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A Florida high school principal and athletic director are “facing criminal charges and up to six months in jail” for violating a court order not to promote religion at school-sponsored events. This particular school (and the type of employees it seems to attract) has long been infamous for unconstitutionally promoting religion:

“The defendants all admitted wrongdoing,” said Daniel Mach, director of litigation for its [the ACLU’s] freedom of religion program. “For example, the Pace High School teachers handbook asks teachers to ‘embrace every opportunity to inculcate, by precept and example, the practice of every Christian virtue.’ “

I have virtually no sympathy for these people. They, as part of the government, and being paid with tax dollars, promoted a religion at school events and in their capacity as agents of the government. There can be no excuse for this abuse of power and violation of individual rights (the right not to have their taxes spent to support someone’s religion).

What is so hard for so many people to understand about the phrase, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…”? When combined with the 14th Amendment, this restriction applies to the states, too (as determined by the courts). Almost exactly the same language is in Florida’s constitution. But even if this rule was not part of the U.S. or Florida constitutions, it would still be clearly immoral for government to take any actions to promote religion.

Whether $1M or a single penny, the spending of tax payer money to print religious sayings on money, to engrave religious sayings on public buildings, or to pay the salary of someone who is leading prayer in their capacity as a government agent is, to varying extents, an establishment of religion that violates the 1st Amendment as well as basic moral decency and the secular principles of our country.

Now maybe jail is a little harsh for these jokers, but is what they did really much different than if they had come up to you, robbed you at gunpoint, and used the stolen cash to spread their religion? In fact, the only difference is that they got the tax collecting arm of the government to do the robbing for them.

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The following is a passage from George H. Smith’s Why Atheism?

Suppose that a person who believes in the existence of invisible elves (let us call him an “elfist”) does not have the sole burden of proof, and that a person who does not believe in their existence (an “aelfist”) has an equal responsibility to prove that invisible elves do not exist. “Granted,” says the elfist, “I cannot offer even a scintilla of evidence to support my claim, so I do not expect the aelfist to believe as I do. Nevertheless, the aelfist cannot prove me wrong: He cannot prove that invisible elves do not exist. If the aelfist cannot see what I do, this is because he does not have the faith that is necessary if one is to perceive invisible elves. For these elves, sensitive critters that they are, will not reveal themselves to skeptics and disbelievers. You must have faith, you must first believe that they exist, before you can see them as I do. If the aelfist does not wish to make this commitment of faith, then that is his right, but it is not his right to dismiss my belief as unjustified merely because I cannot prove what I say. On the contrary, since the aelfist cannot prove that my elves do not exist, his disbelief is no more justified than my belief.

It of course is meant to show that the theist has the burden of proof when claiming the existence of a god, but I tend to think it equally shows that those who believe in the legitimacy of government (talking compulsory government here, not some sort of voluntary organization) also have the burden of proof because they’re demanding the acceptance of an entity that necessarily violates certain natural rights (at a minimum, it uses compulsory taxation and forcible prevention of competing defense organizations and legal systems). It seems like those who advocate such a coercive entity have a lot of splainin’ to do.

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No, not Reason Magazine…but they’re pretty awesome, too.

I’m referring to the National Day of Reason. It’s the day organized by groups and individuals (both non-religious and religious) who believe in bringing back the separation of church and state that was one of the founding principles of the United States. It’s intended as an opposing force to the National Day of Prayer, which, like “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance and “In God We Trust” as our national motto, was legislated in the 1950s.

As a free society, we should not allow religion and government to become entangled for any reason or to any degree. The National Day of Reason is a reminder of that basic tenet of liberty.

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Well, the government is up to its old tricks, this time in my own back yard. A divorce court judge in Wake County is apparently ordering a divorcing couple’s kids into government schools after having been home schooled by their mother for the past few years. The mother’s curriculum seems to be based on the Biblical teachings of some kind of fundamentalist Christian sect, and the father is opposed to such education (as is the judge, it would seem).

Now I’m certainly no fan of religious education and all its attendant absurdities. It’s always disheartening to know that there are people out there teaching their children that many of the foundations of modern science are wrong, that two of every living thing on the planet were carried around in a big boat while the whole planet was underwater, that long-extinct creatures (like dinosaurs) were included in that big boat party, that people were healed and raised from the dead and walked on water through some supernatural means, that an ancient book of history combined with mythology (that has had its inherent absurdity compounded by being thoroughly garbled by a multitude of poor translations and intentional additions, deletions, and redactions) is the infallible word of an apparently schizophrenic supreme being, and that they will be tortured forever after they die if they break any number of ridiculous rules.

Nevertheless, it’s every parent’s inherent natural right, as the trustee of their dependent children, to determine how and whether their children are educated. Disagreements between parents on the issue should be settled through private, voluntary means—not compulsory action by others (i.e. the state). The state is committing a gross violation of natural rights by making and enforcing laws that require children to be educated, using force to cause the vast majority of children to go to the state’s institutions where they are then taught for years on end to view the compulsion foisted on them by the government in a positive light and to not attempt to reject it or defend themselves against it, and by funding all these actions through funds taken by force from all of us.

If someone wants their kids to worship Yahweh, Zeus, Odin, or the great and powerful Tom Cruise, we should perhaps feel sorry for them but should never use the illegitimate power of the state to force them to do otherwise. Hell, we probably have less to fear from people who worship mythological characters (with a few notable exceptions) than we do from people who worship the very real and very dangerous state.

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I woke up this morning to the Drudge Report headline screaming at me, “No Bible Used at Obama Re-Swear,” in huge red letters. Apparently, Matt Drudge is disturbed that more than 230 years after the founding of the world’s first secular republic, the guy taking over as its head honcho recited the oath of office without his hand on a religious text (although he did use one the day before when they screwed up the oath).

Also, Obama does not appear to have said “so help me God” during the oath do-over. Oh, the horror!

It seems to me that Drudge and anyone else upset by the absence of mystic overtones in the transition of power in a secular state should be thanking whatever magical beings they believe in that we may finally be moving toward living out the ideal of a country that doesn’t mix religion with government. Not only would that better adhere to the 1st Amendment and end the abhorrent practice (as Jefferson wrote about long ago) of using non-Christians’ tax money to endorse Christianity (or non-believers’ tax money to endorse supernatural belief in general), but it would protect those particular Christians’ delicate sensibilities in the possible future instance of someone outside the non-dominant religion becoming President. After all, what would they think if a Muslim President was sworn in on a Quran or if a Satanist President (okay, that’s an unlikely scenario) was sworn in on whatever book Satanists follow?

Update: someone has just informed me that they saw the video on CNN, and he did once again include the “so help me God” thing.

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