Miscellanea Agnostica

Sharron Angle, who’s running for the US Senate in Nevada against current majority leader Harry Reid, recently was interviewed by a Christian radio host. In the course of the interview she revealed herself as a militant Christian religiofascist. The Las Vegas Sun reports on this interview, which — until the Sun took note of it — had gone under the radar of the media (WebCite cached article):

And [Angle said] these programs that you mentioned — that Obama has going with Reid and Pelosi pushing them forward — are all entitlement programs built to make government our God. And that’s really what’s happening in this country is a violation of the First Commandment. We have become a country entrenched in idolatry, and that idolatry is the dependency upon our government. We’re supposed to depend upon God for our protection and our provision and for our daily bread, not for our government.

Here, Angle reiterates the laughable whine of Georgia Congressional candidate Ed Martin that government — or more specifically, President Obama — is getting between Christians and their deity.

I never fail to be amazed at the amount of sheer power these people attribute to things other than God … when at the same time they claim their God is all-powerful and can never be overcome or thwarted by anything.

That assumes, of course, that their objections to government are rational. The truth is that they’re not. Neither Sharron Angle, nor Ed Martin, nor anyone else in the Religious Right objected to entitlement spending while George W. Bush was in office and the Religious Right controlled Congress. Their objections to government only made themselves apparent as they began to lose power — first in the 2006 mid-term elections when they lost control of Congress, and more seriously in 2008 when they lost the White House.

In other words, it’s nothing but sour grapes … and it’s childish. Well, boo freakin’ hoo, Ms Angle.

Hat tip: Religion Dispatches.

Photo credit: TPM.

About 6 weeks ago I blogged about Enfield (CT) Public Schools and their religionist determination to proselytize to high school graduates and their families by holding commencements for its two high schools in a church in nearby Bloomfield. As I expected, a federal judge has prevented this arrangement. The Hartford Courant reports on this decision (WebCite cached article):

A federal judge on Monday ruled that Enfield High School and Enrico Fermi High School will not be able to hold their graduation ceremonies at First Cathedral.

U.S. District Court Judge Janet Hall heard closing arguments last week in a legal challenge that five Enfield residents — two high school seniors and three parents — filed to block the town from renting the 3,000-seat mega-church in neighboring Bloomfield. The graduations are scheduled for June 23 and 24.

“By attempting to ‘neutralize’ the First cathedral by covering up many (albeit not all) of its religious images, Enfield Public Schools unconstitutionally entangles itself with religion,” Hall wrote in her decision dated Monday. “And … by requiring a graduating senior — or parent of one — to enter First Cathedral in order to be able to participate in his or her graduation — or to watch their child graduate — Enfield Public Schools has coerced plaintiffs to support religion.”

Although the Courant story discusses the religious imagery in First Cathedral, and inadequate attempts to cover it up, that isn’t the only problem cited. Another claim that Enfield Public Schools have made is that they cannot locate any alternative facilities for the same price; thus, by comparison, First Cathedral is their only available choice. In her decision, however, Judge Hall points out that the school board’s attempts to find alternatives were insincere:

The Board’s evaluation of alternative venues in March and April 2010 does not appear to be an open-minded consideration of legitimate available alternatives. First Cathedral was never included in the written comparisons offered at either the March 23 or April 13, 2010 Board meetings, and the minutes of those meetings reflect no discussion as to First Cathedral’s actual price or amenities. Furthermore, the Board was aware that several locations offered similar accommodations for graduation ceremonies at a price less than the $32,000 budget. The rental fee for Symphony Hall, for example, totals $11,400 for both schools — a figure that is at least $5000 less than the rental fee charged by First Cathedral. Although the facility seats 2611 graduates and spectators would likely require Enfield Schools to limit each graduate to eight (8) tickets each, it was deemed “that should not be a huge issue.”

Chairman Stokes noted that there were other ways in which Symphony Hall did not match First Cathedral in meeting particular criteria that the Board was looking for, but the Board never generated a concrete list of the precise criteria that needed to be met. Indeed, certain requirements that Chairman Stokes claims the Board believed a venue had to satisfy seem designed to eliminate First Cathedral’s competitors. During the May 24, 2010 hearing, for example, the court asked Stokes, “What size is a minimum size that you think makes a facility acceptable?” Chairman Stokes replied, “I think that being able to have unlimited seating where anybody can come in and celebrate with their families is probably where I have leaned to.” When the court inquired further and asked what constitutes “unlimited seating,” Stokes replied, “In this case here it is about 3000 seats.” First Cathedral’s seating capacity is 3000.

Looks like the board’s putative “search for alternatives” was cleverly skewed so as to arrive at the predetermined result. This means it was not a genuine “search” and thus, by claiming to have actually “searched” for alternatives when they never intended to permit the graduation to be held anywhere else, Enfield Public Schools is guilty of disingenuity.

This places them into my “lying liars for Jesus” club.

Something else that ought to be noted is that the chairman of the Enfield school board, Greg Stokes, is the pastor of Cornerstone Church, a Protestant evangelical church in East Windsor CT (just south of Enfield) (cached version of page). First Cathedral in Bloomfield is also — you guessed it! — a Protestant evangelical church (cached version of page). I wonder, Pastor Stokes … could there possibly be a conflict of interest here? Maybe? Ya think? Hmm.

Let’s see: Dishonesty, and failure to admit to an obvious conflict of interest … yep, Chairman Stokes has managed to live down to all my expectations of fundamentalist Christians. Way to go, Pastor Greg!

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Yes, it’s true. And there is no other explanation for their ruling. The United States Supreme Court has declared that the federal government can erect monuments to specific religions on federal property and refuse to build them for other religions. The effect is that they’re allowing the federal government to proselytize for Christianity. The New York Times reports on the decision they handed down (WebCite cached article):

A badly fractured Supreme Court, with six justices writing opinions, reopened the possibility on Wednesday that a large cross serving as a war memorial in a remote part of the Mojave Desert may be permitted to remain there.

The Court ranged far afield — both literally and metaphorically — in order to arrive at this conclusion:

“A Latin cross is not merely a reaffirmation of Christian beliefs,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote in a plurality opinion joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. “It evokes thousands of small crosses in foreign fields marking the graves of Americans who fell in battles, battles whose tragedies would be compounded if the fallen are forgotten.”

I’m not quite sure how all those fallen Christian soldiers would have to end up “forgotten,” if the Mojave Cross were moved to private land instead of federal property, but that’s Justice Kennedy’s reasoning. Apparently he thinks that if that particular cross were taken down, all those soldiers would be “forgotten.” They will only be remembered, if the Mojave Cross is left standing on federal property. According to him.

No, I can’t explain it, I’m merely quoting it for you. Just goes to show that being appointed a Justice of the Supreme Court doesn’t mean you’re always rational.

Unfortunately the Times doesn’t provide the context of this lawsuit, but thankfully, ABC News does (cached version):

The cross stood peacefully for years until the Park Service was asked if a Buddhist Shrine could also be built near the cross.

When the Park Service declined the request, Frank Buono, a retired National Park Service employee, expressed his dismay that the government was showing favoritism of one religious symbol over another. He later filed suit in federal district court.

[On page 2, cached] While Buono, a Roman Catholic, did not find the cross itself objectionable, he was disturbed that it stood on government property when the government would not allow individuals to erect other permanent displays celebrating their religions.

Thus, what the Supreme Court has done, is to decide that, 1) the federal government can build monuments to single specific religions (the cross is a symbol of Christianity only — not of Islam, or Judaism, or Sikhism, or Wicca, or Hinduism, or any other religion); and 2) it can simultaneously refuse to build monuments to any other religion. Together those two sure look like “government pushing Christianity on people” to me.

Yes, I know, the cross was built by the VFW, not the federal government … but federal approval is required nonetheless, meaning the matter is completely up to them as to whether or not it’s built. And since they forbid a private party to build a Buddhist monument, that means the government has chosen sides and is favoring Christianity. Period.

Who said the separation of church and state was alive and well in the United States? It isn’t … not with the Supreme Court packed with theocratic religionists!

Hat tip: Skeptics & Heretics Forum on Delphi forums.

Photo credit: watch4u.

State representative Leo Berman, who hails from — where else? — Texas, has declared that President Barack Obama is a “punishment” that God has chosen to inflict on the country. The remarks were part of a massive Texas confab of blathering mindless religionists, as the Tyler (TX) Morning Telegraph reports (locally cached version):

Berman told the crowd, “I believe that Barack Obama is God’s punishment on us today, but in 2012, we are going to make Obama a one-term president.”

I guess this places Obama in the company of such other notable “scourges of God” as Attila the Hun (of whom this phrase, in its Latin form of Flagellum Dei, was originally used) and Timur “the Lame” (in his famous two-part play about him, Christopher Marlowe had Timur assign himself this appellation).

The rest of the Telegraph story is about these insipid Religious Rightists worshipping at the altar of Glenn Beck. Yes, in spite of scriptural admonitions against idolatry. (After all, Christians could hardly be bothered actually to obey the words of God himself?)

Update: A participant at my Skeptics & Heretics Forum made an excellent observation about this:

I mean, if Obama is punishment from God and they were the ones running the country BEFORE he got elected, what should that tell them about the way they were running the country?

Zing! The Religious Right … which owned the White House at the time Obama was elected … must have been the targets of God’s wrath!

Hat tip: Skeptics & Heretics Forum at Delphi Forums.

Photo credit: Huffington Post.

The Family Research Council — an arm of the militant Religious Right in the United States — has, essentially, declared war on the US. Specifically, they’ve declared a theocratic war on the secular government of this country. Their effort includes the launch of a special Web site called Replace Repeal Restore! (WebCite cached version). The preamble to their declaration of theocratic war is as follows:

We, the people, have the responsibility to determine the future of our nation. I pledge to do my part by standing and speaking boldly for conservative principles, for liberty, and for the Constitution. I will help REPLACE liberal politicians; I will help REPEAL the government takeover of health care; I will help RESTORE the founding principles in our nation. Enough is enough — it’s time for Congress and the White House to listen to the people.

They think that the passage of healthcare reform constitutes the federal government somehow “not listening” to the people. The truth is that they did listen to “the people.” They just didn’t happen to DO what you, the members of the FRC, wanted them to do.

Boo fucking hoo.

Memo to FRC: “Listening” is not the same as “obedience.” It’s possible to “listen to” someone, but to decide, even after truly “listening,” not to do what they say. Got it?

The truth of the matter is that the United States is not a Christian theocracy, was never intended to be a theocracy, and arguably, it’s not even “a Christian nation,” as the FRC and Sarah Palin believe. One of the “founding principles” of the nation is something known as “freedom.” That necessarily includes the freedom not to be a Christian … believe it or not.

My response to the FRC is the same as it was to Mrs Palin: If you guys want me — an American — to be a Christian, as you demand I become, then you’re just going to have to make me one.

Go ahead. I invite to you try. Let it all out and give it to me straight. Don’t hold anything back, and don’t relent.

You guys want the US to become a theocracy? That’s great. You can start by making me a Christian — my own wishes notwithstanding.

Hat tip: Religion Dispatches.

Photo credit: About.Com Atheism/Agnosticism.

The nation’s apparent religionist-in-chief has declared the United States “a Christian nation.” The Washington Post Under God blog reports on her claim (WebCite cached article):

In a speech last week, Sarah Palin promoted belief in God as a form of patriotism, dismissed notions that “America isn’t a Christian nation,” and denounced a federal judge’s ruling that it’s unconstitutional for government to declare a National Day of Prayer.

“God truly has shed his grace on thee — on this country. He’s blessed us, and we better not blow it. And that’s why I talk about politics,” Palin told the 16,000-member choir at a Women of Joy conference in Louisville, Ky., last Friday.

“Lest anyone try to convince you that God should be separated from the state, our founding fathers, they were believers,” she continued. “Hearing any leader declare that America isn’t a Christian nation . . . It’s mind-boggling to see some of our nation’s actions recently, but politics truly is a topic for another day.”

Mrs Palin, of course, is alluding here to Barack Obama, who — as the Post explains — didn’t actually say what she suggests he said:

Palin’s reference to “any leader” was a clear reference to President Obama, who in a 2006 speech said, “Whatever we once were, we are no longer a Christian nation — at least not just — we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of non-believers.”

Those comments — especially the truncated sound bite “We are no longer a Christian nation” — were deployed across the Web to depict presidential candidate Obama as a non-Christian or an anti-Christian.

Once again Mrs Palin displays an astounding penchant for not letting facts get in the way of a sanctimonious diatribe.

The Religious Right’s continual mantra that “the U.S. is a Christian nation” has, of course, one ramification, if taken to its logical conclusion: That every American must be a Christian. To this, I say — to Mrs Palin and to any other ardent Christian who believes as she does — as the godless agnostic heathen that I am: Go ahead. Make me a Christian. Please. By all means, give it your best shot, and don’t hold anything back.

How Mrs Palin — or anyone else — goes about this, will tell me everything I need to know about Christianity. And if they refuse to attempt it, this means they’re just going to have to accept that I’m a godless agnostic heathen … and stop demanding that I become a Christian.

It really is that simple.

So, is this truly “a Christian nation”? Are Christians who think so, actually willing to do whatever it takes to make it happen? Time will tell.

P.S. It’s not as though Sarah Palin actually understands what it means to be “Christian” … her command of the teachings of Jesus himself is tenuous, if not non-existent, as I blogged just a little while ago.

Photo credit: Thomas Roche.

Since his inauguration, President Obama has begun making strides … often very small and fitful ones … away from being the nation’s evangelical-preacher-in-chief — a role his predecessor, George W. Bush, loved more than anything. Religionists are not happy about this, as one may expect. They’re going positively berserk, however, over Obama’s cancellation of a White House religious service on National Prayer Day, as reported by the Top of the Ticket blog at the Los Angeles Times (WebCite cached article):

On the first Thursday of May, dedicated as the National Day of Prayer, President George W. Bush hosted an ecumenical service in the East Room, a big public endorsement of evangelical Christians. (This event is different from the National Prayer Breakfast, held outside the White House gates every year on the first Thursday of February.)

President Obama opted not to have a service in the White House this year.

“Prayer is something that the president does every day,” explained White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, adding that Obama will sign a proclamation to recognize the day. “I think the president understands, in his own life and in his family’s life, the role that prayer plays.”

As I said, folks have gone nuts over this. Outraged claims range from “Obama canceled National Prayer Day!” to “Obama is going to outlaw prayer!” to “Obama won’t let Christians pray that day, but he WILL be praying with his fellow MUSLIMS!” The sheer amount of dishonest sanctimony and outrage has forced the usual debunkers, such as Snopes (cached article), to have to post pages explaining that most of the claims are not true.

To be clear, Obama has not canceled National Prayer Day. He will still proclaim it! In fact, he’s defying a court decision stating it’s unconstitutional (cached article), and one may assume his administration will appeal that ruling. All Obama has done, is simply to cancel the religious service that the Younger Bush led annually.

That’s all.

Maybe next year, Obama will simply not observe or proclaim National Prayer Day at all … but I’m not hopeful. Obama still likes to make overtures to religiosity and religionists.

Photo credit: JMC Photos.

After months of simmering discontent, the Enfield, Connecticut school board has decided to defy an ACLU threat to sue them over their practice of holding high school graduations — in a church in another town. The Hartford Courant reports on the controversy and the anger the ACLU has sparked in this little New England mill town (WebCite cached article):

The board of education voted 6-3 Tuesday night to hold this year’s high school graduations at First Cathedral in Bloomfield and challenge a lawsuit threat by two civil liberties organizations.

The American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State last year threatened to sue the district if it continued to hold ceremonies at First Cathedral.

The board insists this blatant and obvious violation of the separation of church and state board is all for the sake of the children’s sake, of course:

“We’re not picking a fight. We simply want to graduate and do honor to our students,” said Chairman Gregory Stokes. “The decision is based on the fiscal situation of the district and not the ideological situation of the district.”

What Stokes failed to disclose is that Enfield — which has two high schools (Enfield High School and Enrico Fermi High School) used to have its graduations at on the field at one of them (Fermi), until last-minute vandalism in 2008 forced them to use First Cathedral as a stopgap measure. It’s understandable for this to happen once, under what are essentially emergency conditions. But the board insists they have “no viable secular alternative” … in spite of the fact that they had never had a problem, prior to 2008!

They are, quite simply, lying.

What makes this very odd is that Enfield is in Connecticut, not the Bible belt, and is not home to a large number of fundamentalists. It’s much more Catholic than anything else, and Catholics in the US aren’t known for wanting to force their religion on people. So I’m not sure why, all of a sudden, Enfield’s board of education is so fiercely trying to proselytize its graduating high school seniors.

For those of you who think the separation of church and state — as declared in Article VI and the First Amendment of the US Constitution — applies only to the US Congress and not to the states or any other level of government such as a municipal school system, guess again: The 14th Amendment created a principle known as incorporation, which passes some restrictions on Congressional power down to other levels. So they cannot legitimately do this. All the whining about the ACLU being “bullies” is irrelevant compared to that. Completely irrelevant.

At any rate, the town of Enfield CT appears to have been taken over by Bible-thumping proselytizers who want to make sure they have one last shot at indoctrinating kids as they leave high school. Nice.

Photo credit: Tia Ann Chapman / Hartford Courant (12/12/2009)

It’s often joked that the Religious Right and its various constituent groups are a “Christian Taliban,” effectively no different from their Afghani counterparts of the same name, except for 1) Their religion (Christianity instead of Islam); and 2) Their existence as a militia within a lawless country. Well, in Amarillo Texas, that latter difference no longer exists. There truly is a Christian Taliban-style militia at work there … and woe to anyone they deem “unworthy.”

Note: I’m posting this in spite of the fact that I am still not 100% sure this story is genuine. It reads too much like something from The Onion for me to be totally confident in it. Nevertheless, it’s getting some play on the Internet, and the more I hear about it, the more certain this story seems to be.

The Texas Observer reports on the the group known as “Repent Amarillo” and its activities (WebCite cached article), beginning with the protest they staged at a “swingers’ club”:

… [I]magine the swingers’ surprise when they arrived at their New Year’s Eve bash to find two dozen protesters, local media in tow, holding signs and singing songs. This was a most unwelcome coming-out party.

Some protesters, mostly young men in their teens and early 20s, wore black hoodies and military fatigues. The men, Amarillo would soon learn, were foot soldiers of Repent Amarillo, a new, militant evangelical group that advertises itself as “the Special Forces of spiritual warfare.” Their leader, David Grisham, a security guard at nuclear-bomb facility Pantex who moonlights as a pastor, explained the action. “We’re here to shine the light on this darkness,” Grisham told the Amarillo Globe-News. “I don’t think Amarillo knew about this place. This is adultery. This is wrong. There’s no telling how many venereal diseases get spread, how many abortions.” The goal, Grisham says, was not just to save the swingers’ souls, but to shut the club down.

Local Amarillo authorities have — effectively — granted this group their blessing, and will not intervene:

For the past year, this Bible Belt city of 200,000 has been consumed by a culture clash between Repent Amarillo and their targets, a list that includes everything from gay bars to liberal churches. For the Route 66 swingers, Grisham’s “special forces” have been a near-constant presence. Jobs have been lost, families estranged, assault charges filed and businesses shuttered. So far, no public official has stood up to defend these businesses, which operate legally. To the contrary, Repent Amarillo has managed to turn the city’s own laws and employees into an effective weapon. Amarillo, it turns out, doesn’t have the stomach to stick up for gays, swingers, strippers or even Unitarians. Absent a peacekeeper, the conflict might end up being settled the old-fashioned way, frontier-style. “This will not end until somebody gets hurt, either us or them,” one swinger warns.

The lax enforcement is seen in how differently local law enforcement, and Texas state troopers, handled one event:

It’s debatable whether all of Repent’s actions are legal. In January, six Repent members showed up at a weekend swingers party at the private home of Cristal Robinson, Route 66’s attorney. During the party, Robinson says the group trespassed on her property and tried to block cars from entering the driveway. She called the police. Sheriff’s deputies showed up, followed not long after by a state trooper.

The two law-enforcement groups apparently had different ideas about how to handle Repent, according to a Potter County incident report. The state trooper took photographs of the Repent vehicles and filled out suspicious activity cards, which go to the state’s intelligence center. The deputies, on the other hand, dismissed Robinson’s account and left Repent to carry on.

Repent Amarillo is not backing down and is not limiting its attacks to just swingers’ clubs:

What’s next for Repent? They’ve posted a “Warfare Map” on the group’s Web site. The map includes establishments like gay bars, strip clubs and porn shops, but also the Wildcat Bluff Nature Center. Repent believes the 600-acre prairie park’s Walmart-funded “Earth Circle,” used for lectures, is a Mecca for witches and pagans. Also on the list are The 806 coffeehouse (a hangout for artists and counterculture types), the Islamic Center of Amarillo (“Allah is a false god”), and “compromised churches” like Polk Street Methodist (gay-friendly).

It is fairly easy for a group like this to operate in Texas, where county sheriffs are effectively sovereign princelings who have the power to permit people they like to operate with impunity, and who can also destroy people they dislike. So long as the sheriff of Potter county (in which Amarillo lies) chooses not to stop Repent Amarillo, they will continue their militant activities, and will ruin more lives.

I’m curious to see how truly committed these people at Repent Amarillo are, to their cause. Would they be willing to engage in this behavior in some other region where they don’t have the protection of local law enforcement? My guess is that they have neither the courage nor integrity to do so.

Hat tip: Unreasonable Faith blog.

Lots of people remain fuzzy on the “separation of church and state” thing in the US. By “lots of people,” I mean — of course — religionists who wish to use the government to promote their religion and who consider SOCAS to be a violation of their religious freedom. (To them, “religious freedom” means the power and authority to force everyone to follow their religion; if they are ever prevented from doing that, they see it as a reduction of their “religious freedom.”) The Hartford Courant reports on a Connecticut case which reached the US Supreme Court (WebCite cached article):

U.S. Supreme Court Won’t Change Order to Remove Religious Materials

The U.S. Supreme Court has let stand an appellate ruling last summer that settled a dispute in Manchester involving government and religion.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had ordered a small, church-operated post office in Manchester to clear its postal counter of religious materials such as prayer cards and a collection box supporting an outreach mission among the poor. The ruling was limited to the small, storefront post office on Main Street operated, under contract with the United States Postal Service, by the Full Gospel Interdenominational Church. …

The Main Street post office in Manchester is a Contract Postal Unit, one of 5,000 mostly small operations around the country in which the postal service contracts with private parties to sell postal products, rent post office boxes and collect mail. There are contract offices in private homes, gas stations, groceries, seminaries and hardware stores. Several are operated by faith-base [sic] organizations, the appellate court said.

What fierce religionists — who want to use government to promote their religion — don’t realize is that religious liberty overall is fostered, rather than hindered, by government remaining neutral, where religion is concerned. They don’t really care about anyone’s religious liberty but their own.

Religiofascism … particularly Christian religiofascism, or Christofascism … is alive and well in the Lone Star state. The Texas Board of Education recently reviewed curriculum guidelines, with an eye toward turning public school social-studies classrooms into proselytization venues. The New York Times Magazine provides a lengthy explanation of the process and what lay behind it: (WebCite cached article):

Following the appeals from the public, the members of what is the most influential state board of education in the country, and one of the most politically conservative, submitted their own proposed changes to the new social-studies curriculum guidelines, whose adoption was the subject of all the attention — guidelines that will affect students around the country, from kindergarten to 12th grade, for the next 10 years. Gail Lowe — who publishes a twice-a-week newspaper when she is not grappling with divisive education issues — is the official chairwoman, but the meeting was dominated by another member. Don McLeroy, a small, vigorous man with a shiny pate and bristling mustache, proposed amendment after amendment on social issues to the document that teams of professional educators had drawn up over 12 months, in what would have to be described as a single-handed display of archconservative political strong-arming. …

The cultural roots of the Texas showdown may be said to date to the late 1980s, when, in the wake of his failed presidential effort, the Rev. Pat Robertson founded the Christian Coalition partly on the logic that conservative Christians should focus their energies at the grass-roots level. One strategy was to put candidates forward for state and local school-board elections — Robertson’s protégé, Ralph Reed, once said, “I would rather have a thousand school-board members than one president and no school-board members” — and Texas was a beachhead. Since the election of two Christian conservatives in 2006, there are now seven on the Texas state board who are quite open about the fact that they vote in concert to advance a Christian agenda. “They do vote as a bloc,” Pat Hardy, a board member who considers herself a conservative Republican but who stands apart from the Christian faction, told me. “They work consciously to pull one more vote in with them on an issue so they’ll have a majority.” …

These folks quite frankly admit their agenda, which is to fashion a specifically Christian government, some time in the future, by turning today’s children into tomorrow’s militant political soldiers for Jesus:

The Christian “truth” about America’s founding has long been taught in Christian schools, but not beyond. Recently, however — perhaps out of ire at what they see as an aggressive, secular, liberal agenda in Washington and perhaps also because they sense an opening in the battle, a sudden weakness in the lines of the secularists — some activists decided that the time was right to try to reshape the history that children in public schools study. Succeeding at this would help them toward their ultimate goal of reshaping American society. As Cynthia Dunbar, another Christian activist on the Texas board, put it, “The philosophy of the classroom in one generation will be the philosophy of the government in the next.”

A lot of their reasoning is predicated on faulty logic, of course:

For McLeroy, separation of church and state is a myth perpetrated by secular liberals. “There are two basic facts about man,” he said. “He was created in the image of God, and he is fallen. You can’t appreciate the founding of our country without realizing that the founders understood that. For our kids to not know our history, that could kill a society. That’s why to me this is a huge thing.”

It’s also “a huge thing” to me, too. The truth about the Founders is that they did, in fact, want religion and state to be severed from one another. The author of the First Amendment, James Madison, said so, rather clearly and unambiguously. Don’t just take my word for that … read it for yourself, from his own pen (WebCite cached version).

The Christofascists’ reasoning is also based on more than a little paranoia and conspiratorial thinking:

The idea behind standing up to experts is that the scientific establishment has been withholding information from the public that would show flaws in the theory of evolution and that it is guilty of what McLeroy called an “intentional neglect of other scientific possibilities.” Similarly, the Christian bloc’s notion this year to bring Christianity into the coverage of American history is not, from their perspective, revisionism but rather an uncovering of truths that have been suppressed. “I don’t know that what we’re doing is redefining the role of religion in America,” says Gail Lowe, who became chairwoman of the board after McLeroy was ousted and who is one of the seven conservative Christians. “Many of us recognize that Judeo-Christian principles were the basis of our country and that many of our founding documents had a basis in Scripture. As we try to promote a better understanding of the Constitution, federalism, the separation of the branches of government, the basic rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights, I think it will become evident to students that the founders had a religious motivation.”

There is much more to this New York Times Magazine article, which includes tracking out the history of the notion of “separation of church and state.” Sadly, the article leaves out the contribution of Roger Williams, Baptist minister and founder of the Rhode Island colony, which was established with religious freedom as its core. The Founding Fathers a century after him, certainly knew about him and had been influenced by his ideas. The Times adopts and relays the inaccurate claim that the phrase “separation of church and state” originated in Thomas Jefferson’s famous letter to the Danbury Baptists. The truth is that Williams had come up with the phrase over a century before Jefferson. One can debate whether or not Jefferson knew about it particular, but there’s no doubt he knew about Williams’s ideas and career.

In spite of this and other flaws, though, I invite you all to read the Times Magazine article in full. It does accurately relate the duplicity, dishonesty, and the subtle manipulation of the Christofascists in Texas who are trying to raise a new generation of soldiers for Jesus who will — they hope — establish a new Christian theocracy in the United States.

P.S. I contributed an article to Freethoughtpedia some time ago, which goes over the pros and cons of the issue of whether or not the U.S. was founded as “a Christian nation.” Please have a look.

Hat tip: Skeptics & Heretics forum on Delphi Forums.

Update: Religion Dispatches explores in greater detail the relationship between this particular movement and the larger national “intelligent design” movement.

At the northern end of Los Angeles county (in California), well away from the urban center of that sprawling metropolis, lies the city of Lancaster. As one would expect, it’s not as cosmopolitan as the enormous city to its south. It is, however, a growing region, despite its somewhat remote location. So it’s odd that its elected officials would start carrying the standard of Christianity and try to force it on everyone — and vilify Islam at the same time. The (Los Angeles) Daily News reports on this controversy (WebCite cached article):

Lancaster officials became embroiled in religious controversy this week after the mayor spoke of trying to make the Antelope Valley city a “Christian community” and a councilwoman wrote on Facebook that beheadings are what Muslims “are all about.”

Mayor R. Rex Parris made his comments Tuesday in his State of the City speech as he urged Lancaster voters to approve a municipal ballot measure that would allow prayers – even those invoking a specific deity, such as Jesus – at city meetings.

“We’re growing a Christian community, and don’t let anybody shy away from that,” Parris said to an audience of about 160 people, mostly pastors and their spouses, the Antelope Valley Press reported.

Parris is — as one would expect from the “no-compromise” position laid out in these remarks — not backing down from this statement:

Parris said Friday he was surprised by the objections of non-Christians and secular-government advocates, and said his remarks had been taken out of context.

Note, the “out of context” whine is the religionists’ reflexive objection whenever they’re caught making an incendiary statement. In this case, context is irrelevant; his remarks were absolute, as embodied in “don’t let anybody shy away from that.” Isn’t it interesting how he expressed a “no-holds-barred” view to a group of pastors and their wives, but later is sniveling and trying to back away from them? Hmm.

Anyway, those remarks came in the wake of another comment that was just as incendiary:

Days before Parris’ remarks, Lancaster City Councilwoman Sherry Marquez used her Facebook page to comment on the trial of a Muslim man accused of beheading his wife in Orchard Park, N.Y.

“This is what the Muslim religion is all about – the beheadings, honor killings are just the beginning of what is to come in the USA,” Marquez wrote Jan. 23. “We are told this is a small majority of Muslim’s (sic) in America, but it is truly what they are all about. You disrespect/dishonor them or their religion and you should die (they don’t even blink at killing their own wives/daughters, because they are justified by their religion).”

How nice. I guess Ms Marquez forgot about the latest example of Christians killing people in the name of their religion; i.e. Scott Roeder, who was just convicted of assassinating Dr George Tiller in Wichita KS? Yes, Ms Marquez … and all other Christian religionists out there who would have us believe that Christians never engage in violence in the name of their religion … Christians can be terrorists, too. OK?

Clearly the folks in charge of Lancaster, CA are veering in the direction of theocracy. While their religionism might make them feel entitled to do this, the truth is that the US … and all of its states, counties, and municipalities like Lancaster … are secular governments. And this is the case for good reason. If you wish to understand why , read all about it from the pen of the man who wrote the First Amendment and thus helped ensure it was so (cached article).