The law:
HB376 is currently in committee, with over a dozen co-sponsors, including 10 Democrats (more about them later). It mandates that all public school districts write:
A policy that allows for a limited public forum and voluntary student expression of religious views at school events, graduation ceremonies, and in class assignments, and non-curricular school groups and activities.
The law is closely modeled on Texas’ “Religious Viewpoint Anti-Discrimination Act”, a law pushed by and signed two years ago by secessionist governor Rick Perry of Texas. The law is too radical even for the governor of Oklahoma, who laughingly vetoed it.
What it means:
To be in accordance with this law, all public school districts would be required to find a way to inject religion into their public ceremonies. This means sports matches, proms, academic competitions, and graduations. Note that it would be insufficient simply to study this process, but religion would perforce become a foundational part of public school life. One may safely ignore the word “limited”, as all things in the world are limited. It’s a meaningless word without context.
The implications:
1 – The worst result is the exclusion of students from the full community of a public school. Suffolk County is a religious cornucopia. Even Gloucester has notable populations in several religions. Simply put, there are many, many religions in most communities, while basic logistics require that this “prayer time” during an academic event be limited. An Our Father leaves out non-Christians. Perhaps something from the Torah makes up for it…if there’s time. Hopefully the small Hindu population will be lucky enough to attend the one day somebody reads from the Vedas. But inevitably, students are left out. Faiths will be left out, and others will be cheapened by the basest kind of local identity politics. This bill obligates each local district to, ceremony by ceremony, choose which religion(s) “deserve” fact time. None of this even gets into the 22% of Massachusetts residents who don’t observe any religious tradition. They’ll simply be excluded from all public ceremonies for which their taxes pay.
2 – The consequence of implication one — a fracturing of the school community. If the principal mandates Christian prayers at nearly all school ceremonies to reflect the school’s demographics, to what extent will a Jewish student feel s/he has any place in the community? A token reading of a sura twice a year will be perceived for what it is — a token. The student left out understands their membership is in a “wrong” religion, and may quickly come to perceive the principal’s choice as the faculty’s choice. Why would a student so excluded come to the school staff with concerns about any community issue — bullying, crime, harassment (which will increase), or academic fairness? S/he clearly isn’t a “real” member of the school. That is hammered home in nearly every ceremony. It will be remembered nearly every day.
3 – A legal challenge. This UC-Davis article (PDF) is an academic starter on the legal issues implicit in this type of law. Wedging prayer into public school football games was swatted back 10 years ago by a 6-3 majority in Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe and was confirmed less than a year ago in Borden v. School District of the Township of East Brunswick . This bill would have the State House force a local district to blow through thousands of lawyers’ fees just to have the Supreme Court re-confirm this recent ruling. Public school students have the right to be full members of the community, regardless of religion. The taxpaying public is legally forced to fund them, regardless of religion. Forcing a person to fund and participate in the promotion of religion is a violation the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.
4 – Another headache for administrators. Administrators have been schooled that the only thing that matters at public schools were test scores. Now, they will be forced to arbitrate in weekly questions of religious favoritism. Do you want your school committee or superintendent picking the prayers for next week’s basketball game in a way that only excludes some students — when they could be focusing on education?
What it doesn’t mean:
I’m not pushing for the erasure of prayer from public schools. Many of my students wear religious imagery. Many pray in private at least once a day. Fine — they’re using the freedoms guaranteed them in our country. Now, there’s even a regular “moment of silence” to facilitate that. However, students pray in the assurance of a neutral public school, not one that champions or condemns their prayer. That posture will perforce change if this bill becomes law.
One favorite talking point, given to me from Representative James Dwyer, is that the Constitution “guarantees Freedom of Religion, not Freedom from Religion”. He is right — the idea of a speaker pushing atheism at a captive graduation is as contrary to the Constitution as a speaker pushing Islam or Christianity to the same diverse audience. “There is no god” is equally inappropriate as “My god is the only god” in this context. Religious neutrality is legally and ethically different from advocating atheism.
In fairness, Representatives DiNatale, Dwyer, and Dennis Rosa are the only ones to respond to repeated questions about their sponsorship of this bill(I did receive a brief reply from Rep. James Dwyer promising an explanation of his sponsorship soon) (Rep. Dwyer has responded to my questions since I wrote this.) I must highlight that Representative DiNatale has proven interested in seriously examining the consequences should this bill become law.
However, the following seven Democrats, including my own state representative, have not answered my questions about their sponsorship of bill HB376, despite repeated contacts:
Thomas J. Calter 12th Plymouth
Paul J. Donato 35th Middlesex
William Lantigua 16th Essex
James R. Miceli 19th Middlesex
Kevin J. Murphy 18th Middlesex
Kathi-Anne Reinstein 16th Suffolk
Angelo M. Scaccia 14th Suffolk
I would ask any readers to contact these representatives for help in learning why they are sponsoring this bill. Perhaps if more people look for explanations, they will be provided. Otherwise, we’ll just have to guess.
(For completeness’ sake, I’ll mention there are a few Republicans pushing this, but what else can one expect from them?)
You say it’s not erasing prayer in public schools, but neither is it mandating it. SCOTUS has spoken pretty decisively (Engel v. Vitale, I think) on this anyway. The blockquote above sounds to me that it is written pretty broadly precisely so local districts can write their own policy for their own circumstances and not be caught flatfooted if this issue arises. If there is a written policy in place before an actual issue arises hopefully that will prevent one group from crying foul due to not being treated fairly on the whim of an administrator. That way if permission is denied the policy can be pointed out to the complaining party to show them that they are not being arbitrarily discriminated against. I would hope that school committees would consult with representatives of various faith traditions within the community in crafting a policy suitable for that community. The establishment clause via incorporation is still valid so blatant favoritism couldn’t be permitted.
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p>(BTW, you didn’t put any choices in your poll.)
… press public pressure for prayer. Truth is that there are too many jingoistic religious people out there to think that this won’t create problems. I guess you could make the tribal argument that we in MA are not as likely to abuse it as say, Texas,… but if it can be abused and it’s not necessary, why have it?
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p>I’m still wishing they would get rid of the prayer at Lowell City Council meetings.
…when I learned that the Lowell City Council specifically used the Lord’s Prayer. That sounded a little too sectarian for a public body, but that also raises the question. Is prayer in that context for the benefit of the public or the participants? In other words, should any prayer if there is one be ecumenical to reflect the city, or is the Lord’s Prayer OK if all the Councilors themselves all happen to be Christian? Honestly I can see both sides to that one. For what it’s worth as a Christian if the prayer of the day happened to lean Hindu I don’t think that would bother me.
… it up just blurs the issue. When it was specifically the Lord’s Prayer, the objection (rightly) is that the Government shouldn’t be taking the position that the Lord’s prayer is ‘better’ or ‘more desirous’ than other prayers for opening the meetings. By opening it up to other religions the objection is only changed somewhat. Now the problem is that Government is taking the position that prayer is ‘better’ than ‘non-prayer’. This is just a variation on the same theme and therefore not really a solution.
After all, the Senate and House both have chaplains and SCOTUS opens with “May God save the United States and this honorable Court.” I’ve always found this kind of stuff pretty harmless.
… inappropriate to me as well.
I feel the peer pressure every time I stand in city council chambers as is my right as a resident of my city. As an atheist, I feel that this sort of lackadaisical approach (‘aww, it’s just a widdle Christian nondenominational prayer’) offensive.
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p>Go pray in the church, go pray with a couple of colleagues before entering the chamber, but do NOT pray as part of the official ceremonies of democracy. It isn’t fair to the nonChristians, or to the nonbelievers. End of story. Are we a democracy under the US Constitution, or not??
…in this context “nondenominational Christian” is an oxymoron. There are times when that term is appropriate, but if there is going to be prayer at all here it would seem fit to go beyond nondenominational Christian to straight nonsectarian. As a non-believer just give people two minutes to utter some what are to you meaningless words. They frankly really shouldn’t be any more offensive to you than say a Buddhist prayer would be to me.
offensive? Geez.
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p>How about we not introduce religion, religious poems, prayers, and incantations into any of the public’s business? Why don’t we just respect believers and non-believers alike by letting the government carry out its business without invoking some deity or another and letting the believers do their thing in church or at home or in private?
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p>The foisting of Christianity upon the non-believing or other-believing or simply uninterested only fuels the culture wars in this nation. The growing numbers of New Atheists and Secular Humanists in this nation are a direct reaction to increasing Christianist hegemony and the tendency of the religious right to cry foul and censorship at every turn. People are sick of it.
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this is simply protecting the right of students to pray in public school, a right i would argue was brutally suppressed during my days at CRLS, and when the principal, a religious black woman, was chided for asking for ‘our thoughts and prayers’ over the announcement for our soldiers, tsunami victims, etc.
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p>You are offending me by forcing me to confine my religion to the private sphere and preventing me from exercising my constitutional right to free speech and free religion in public. If I am invited to be my class orator at graduation, I will invoke God because He has guided me throughout my whole life IMO. If you disagree that’s ok, just like I would think to myself (thats not true) if you said there was no God at a public event.
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p>Now having administrators and schools officially organize prayer groups of any denominations, in my view, is unconstitutional and that is also not what this law is calling for.
All students have the right to pray in public school and they do. This law calls for schools and administrators to facilitate the organization of ad hoc groups or means to insert prayer into school ceremonies. The law is simple, and that’s the goal.
Our children are compelled to be there. That puts a special and heavy duty on school administration and faculty — their charges have zero ability to leave if they don’t like what they experience.
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p>Suppose I decide that its fine for my child to smoke in class, and demand that he or she do so as part of their constitutionally-protected right of free expression? Of course that’s ludicrous. Their smoke interferes with every child around them. Similarly, your vocalized and expressed religious outbursts interfere with everyone around them. If I want to let my child smoke, I do so at home. If you want to let your child pray out loud, you may do so at home.
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p>The very last thing we need in schools right now is yet another club with which participants (of all ages) in an already-brutal culture can and will beat each other.
Being in the presence of someone puffing a cigarette is physically harmful to me; being in the presence of someone praying, no so much.
Your logic is incredibly flawed and leads us down a slipper slope where any kind of opinion that offends the majority is silenced and the minority is thus squelched.
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p>If a child in your kids history class in Brookline says he voted for scott brown and coakley is an idiot that would offend your child and most of the children in that particular class, doesn’t mean his speech somehow is dangerous and deserves protection. Similarly smoking is an activity that is physically harmful to others around them, religious and political expression is not dangerous. Unless you think it is. Your basically someone who only wants to shelter your children from ideas you personally dislike and make everyone else shut up then. In that case your views are incredibly repugnant, though unlike you I will defend to the death your right to express them, because unlike you I respect the Constitution and believe that all people, especially those I disagree with, have a right to free expression, a right you have consistently advocated on this thread should be denied to people whose opinions aren’t as enlightened as yours.
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p>And in that sense you are a walking right wing stereotype of liberal condescension and elitism.
it’s the imposition of a particular view of religious faith into a public event that generates opposition from some. It’s not that you have faith, nor is it preventing you from exercising that faith in a public place, but doing so in a place and time where others of different beliefs can be put off by it that is the problem. No one says you can’t say a silent prayer wherever you want, at a meeting, or on the street, just that you shouldn’t do it as part of the public process of a public event.
…yeah, I guess I kind of am. Some people do get worked up over very little sometimes, IMO. I’m actually perfectly fine with no prayer in public meetings, but I’m also fine with it. Your last paragraph makes the all too common mistake of refering to Christian hegemony as if Christianity is monolithic. I can’t stand the religious right crying foul at every perceived slight either. I don’t have a problem with people being athiest either. I very strongly adhere to Jefferson’s quote: “I care not whether my neighbor worships no god or twenty gods; it neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” What rubs me the wrong way is that many of the athiests on this blog come across as anti-religion which I think is a step too far. I’m in no way going to try guarantee that a non-believer will never be exposed to religion just as I would not expect a guarantee that I will never be exposed to a religion other than my own.
Your understanding of atheists is as shallow as your understanding of non-Christians. Characterizing them as “anti-religion” is to entirely miss the point of the argument.
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p>We’re discussing adding religion into school public ceremonies. Of course people objecting to it are going to appear “anti-religion” in your eyes. They don’t want to be forced to experience religion anymore than you want a daily lecture on God not existing.
…I said athiests on this discussion. I also know athiests who are perfectly happy to sit still while someone else utters what are to them the meaningless words of prayer. In other words, not at all anti-religion, just not believers themselves.
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p>Rubs you the wrong way? Do you not see the irony of your statement (if not the downright hypocrisy)?
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p>Non-believers “rub you the wrong way” because they “come across as anti-religion.” Have you considered how “rubbed” the minority of non-believers in this nation must feel when they are confronted by demands that your religious beliefs be introduced into settings and functions that have no religious purpose at all because they feel discriminated against and censored? Worse, you tell people like Lynne that she has no right to be offended by having to tolerate a prayer at her city council meeting on a regular basis, but you’re justified in feeling “rubbed the wrong way” by a few vocal non-believers who push back against what they perceive is a breach of their Constitutional rights?
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p>The Constitution guarantees me that this government will establish no religion, so there’s no reason for my government to be praying in pubic meetings or invoking God in the pledge. Those individuals, in their private capacity, can go to their churches, their cars, or their homes and pray out loud to their heart’s content. They don’t get to mix their religion with my official government business.
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p>I also have to say that I don’t believe for one second that you would not be bothered by having to listen to the invocation of Thor as the almighty and powerful God regularly at American public and governmental functions. Your position as a member of the majority is clearly affording you a largesse you would never enjoy as a member of a minority believer or non-believer.
It’s one thing to say, “I don’t believe in God”; great, good for you, that is absolutely your right. We could even have a stimulating discussion about why we believe what we believe. You and others have wanted to be protected from any religious exposure and that I don’t agree with. This was never about MY religious views. This is about a variety of people with a variety of views. I went to Catholic high school which required religion classes and occasional liturgy attendance of all students, including the non-Catholic Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Hindus among my classmates. Yes, I know it was their family’s choice to send them to what never pretended to be anything other than a Catholic school, but my point is they got a great education and lived to tell the tale!
… I just want the state out of the business of exposure or non-exposure. Mandating that they confront these issues when it isn’t necessary will guarantee that it will be misapplied unnecessarily. That means lawyers, money, and distraction. Unnecessary. The law is adequate as is.
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p>I doubt you have any meaningful understanding of what life was like for the non-Catholics, but it’s irrelevant.
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p>They were at a private Catholic school.
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p>Why should students at a public school be subjected to the same treatment?
This is about the introduction of religious practice into a setting that is governmental in nature. This is not about whether or not you think the kids in your Catholic high school got a good education despite being exposed to religious views other than the ones they hold.
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p>You are deliberately (or not?) missing the larger point. No one has said this is about your religious views, but you introduced YOUR religious tolerance into this debate, not us.
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p>The very fact that you characterize this debate as one about people wanting “to be protected from any religious exposure” is just simply just wrong and arrogant. This is about the further erosion of the establishment cause by a few people who want to be able to pray in schools. This is about people seeing this Trojan horse for what it is and saying that it is a bad idea–on Constitutional grounds. You may wish to reduce this debate to one about like/hating religion, and you’re free to do that of course, but don’t be surprised if others don’t simply view that tactic as both self-serving and intellectually dishonest.
I give sabutai credit for specifically opposing this bill and arguing it is unconstitutional, that is a serious debate, one on which we disagree, but a serious one. And he sticks to the facts.
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p>But BrooklineTom, Lynne, and others are expressing polemical assaults upon any kind of public religious expression. They are just as bad as the religious right in that sense since they want to stifle any opinion that doesn’t fit their closed-minded views of the world. Some of the best conversations I’ve had about Christian history and theology have been with my long time best friend who happens to be an atheist. He agrees with me though that Christmas nativities on the public common are fine as long as he can stick posters next to it that say ‘This is bullshit’. Either way its fine because its people using their rights to free speech, free assembly, and freedom of religion. BrooklineTom and others have downright disturbing beliefs about destroying religion in the public sphere, beliefs that would infringe upon the freedoms of millions of people and conform to the worst things the right says about the left, mainly that we hate God and want to kill him in the public sphere. I am an atheist towards all the gods except my own, so whenever I hear someone invoke the name of a false God I simply ignore it. I don’t silence him or her, yell at them that they are wrong, or attempt to limit their public expression. The atheists advocating that on this thread are conforming to the worst stereotypes they accuse religion of fostering mainly ignorance, intolerance of dissent, bigotry towards those who think differently, and disrespect for liberal democratic values that create an open society. These people want a closed puritanical society where only one religious belief: the lack of one, is ever expressed. Since atheists believe all Gods are false Gods I don’t see why they can’t do the same.
… Please point out which of them are “polemical assaults upon any kind of public religious expression”?
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p>P.S. If you were referring to me, please point out my “polemical assault upon any kind of public religious expression”.
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p>P.S.S. Mere disagreement doesn’t count.
Calls to eliminate religious expression from official ceremonies don’t count (there are plenty of opportunities for public expression without bringing the state into it).
referenced someone hearing what he wants to hear and disregarding the rest.
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p>The debate I’ve followed on this thread has dealt, rather specifically, with the mandated introduction of religious speech into non-religious governmental events. I don’t think jconway is being terribly honest in his characterization of the comments, either in the main or in specific.
You write: “radical atheists like yourself who seek to erase religion” and then whine about “polemical assaults”?
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p>Thanks for the belly-laugh.
Mine is not a polemic, an atheist who seeks to confine religious expression to churches is certainly radical since he/she disagrees with the Constitution and the tenants of liberal democracy it was based upon.
Where is anybody saying that? we’re arguing for excluding it from schools and civic events. That’s not confining it to churches.
… that far. I’m with current law, which allows religious expression in schools and civic events as long as it is private religious expression and not facilitated by the stat or school.
Yeah, right.
Actually opening public meetings with a recitation of the Five Precepts might not be such a bad idea:
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p>- I undertake to refrain from the taking of life
– I undertake to refrain from taking that which is not freely given
– I undertake to refrain from sexual misconduct
– I undertake to refrain from false and divisive speech
– I undertake to refrain from indulging in intoxicating substances that lead to carelessness
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p>These might not be unwelcome sentiments for our elected officials to bear in mind as they sit down to do the public’s business!
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p>Semi-joking aside, I think a minute of silence is not inappropriate way to begin any public discussion. (In fact, it might actually be quite constructive to allow a moment of quiet reflection before speaking.)
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p>However, I certainly do share the usual qualms about explictly religious language being interjected into a governmental setting — city council meetings, public school events, etc. These are simply inappropriate venues for prosyletization.
Washington did this, Lincoln too. Just not a place for me to put a significant amount of my limited time and energy. I don’t think new legislation is needed and that is about all I can think of to say.
I don’t think new legislation is needed.
I guess this shows how out of the loop I am, but are they STILL using the Lord’s Prayer to open the Council meetings? I thought that issue had been resolved somehow….
…one of the problems with this bill (as I point out) is that it violates SCOTUS rulings. A ruling can’t keep a body from writing a law, but only from enforcing it upon appeal. If this bill becomes law, then it will be appealed, and it will be swatted down by the courts. Anyone effected during the slow and expensive judicial process will merely be “collateral damage”.
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p>My concern remains this:
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p>
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p>I personally do not buy into “hoping” that a minority’s rights will be protected. I think minorities need better protection than “hope”. Blatant favoritism is still an ongoing reality — hence the need to adjudicate East Brunswick last year. This opens the door to more of the same.
If and when blatant favortism is shown I’ll be right there with you to fight against it. That tends to be the way civil rights laws are enforced.
…and it will always be in the eye of the beholder. I see this law as an attempt to clarify some thins ante hoc, but there will probably be litigation in this regard with or without the law.
then your promise to be right there with us is not much of a promise, is it? Your eye may never detect blatancy. It already appears to be the case that you do not see how introducing your deity to events that have no religious purpose, but which affect people who do not share your faith, is offensive. That introduction is inevitably divisive. It tells those who are not among the faithful that they are not part of the group.
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p>In my opinion, separation of Church and State should be as absolute as possible. To that end, I favor ending the subsidy of religion that is tax-exemption, most especially for organizations that blatantly try to affect legislation and legislators.
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p>This is an excellent articulation of the issue–succinct and comprehensive.
…about my not seeing the offence, but the reason I don’t see it is because I know that I would not be offended if I were exposed to the prayer traditions of a faith other than my own. As a Christian, listening to someone reciting a Buddhist prayer isn’t going to kill me.
… might not be so understanding, however.
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p>And I think the “offense” factor might go up quite a bit if a student uses a particular interpretation of a religious text as the basis for a public screed in support of suicide bombings or justifying the murder of gays, etc., etc….
…that schools also have hate speech and anti-bullying policies in place as well, especially in light of the recent South Hadley suicide and similar instances. I’m not in favor of evangelizing/prosthelytizing (sp?) in the schools.
… certainly can ameliorate some potential problems. I did think of a potential scenario that would illustrate the problem beyond ‘hate speech’: Suppose a Mormon group of students wanted to perform posthumous baptisms of Jewish holocaust victims on the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz? Very offensive. Not strictly ‘hate speech’. The school would be obligated to have a policy that provides a forum for such an event. If it was after school, they’d even be obligated to pay to keep the building open and possibly pay for the police detail depending on how large the gathering was.
I’m sure a school policy could and would be written to prevent one religious group from roping another into their practices involuntarily. I would say this is an example of why there should be a policy, to say right up front that certain practices are unacceptable in a school context.
… point of view, it’s hard to see how an administration would be justified in preventing it. The school isn’t free under the new law to uphold a prohibition on ‘certain practices’. Such a prohibition must comply with the new law and the new law wouldn’t exempt the above practice.
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p>I know you consider your ‘I don’t have a problem either way’ attitude quite reasonable. But if you’re going to test the usefulness and aptness of a law, you need to consider how it will be applied by unreasonable people. I too find the practice of posthumous baptism unreasonable, but also constitutionally protected.
Doing that infringes on the free religious exercise of the Jewish deceased and family.
Jews are not being restricted in any form here. Free speech allows a Mormon group to talk about Jews as long as the speech in a school setting, at least, doesn’t qualify as hate speech. Certainly “baptising” dead Jews in absentia does not qualify as hate speech, so the speech is protected.
… are the prayers and ceremonies of Mormons a restriction on Jewish 1st amendment exercise.
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p>Seriously,… if your going to evaluate a proposed law, you can’t restrict your hypotheticals to the reasonable. You must consider how the law will be unreasonably (but legally) leveraged. I’m not concerned with how you might avail yourself of the law. I’m concerned with how the wackos will.
And if those prayer traditions were the only ones being engaged in at a governmental assembly – in other words, if your preferred religious expressions were ignored, while others were honored – would you be offended? That is the situation that non-religious people find themselves in. Their religious preferences are ignored and implicitly denigrated in favor of yours. If a bit of Wiccan cant were uttered as the only religious expression at your Town Meeting, you’d be fine with that?
…either generic or rotating. I’ve already addressed favoritism as being objectionable, so while my own personal reaction to Wiccan chants might be “whatever” I think to favor it would raise constitutional issues. Ditto, of course, for a more commonly practiced religion. I know that on the occasions that I’ve been asked to offer a prayer in mixed company, I’ve used the most generic name for God I can come up with and leave out altogether references to Jesus. This really shouldn’t be that difficult and I still think that if anything this issue should be made easier by having a pre-existing policy.
School is not and should not be a religious forum. The very fact that you find yourself proposing a rota is a tipoff that this is a stupendously bad and altogether silly idea.
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p>Will there be room in your rota for Rastafarians, who view the use of marijuana as a religious rite comparable to the Eucharist? How about the many Native American traditions that promote the use of Mescaline, Peyote, and dozens of similar natural hallucinogens? By what criteria will these “religious beliefs” be judged? Fertility cults have been around throughout human history, will a “religious belief” in the sacred benefits of each child having sex with the child sitting next to them be among those including in your contemplated Rota? Just how will your contemplated process differentiate that from a Friday prayer to invite the group to conjure and “welcome” the Shekhinah (the Shabbat bride) at sundown that evening? Are you going to allow or prohibit the reading of Song of Solomon at, say, Passover? Will you insist on a metaphorical interpretation, or will you allow a more literal version to be presented live on stage (with multimedia visual aids) by a group of attractive teenage boys and girls?
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p>Please, Christopher, get real! Not all “religion” is the calm, structured, analytic and head-centered repetition of principles such as this from the Catholic Encyclopedia:
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p>I am under the impression that our students have far more important things to do with their school day, not to mention their teachers, administrators, and parents — as well as the countless hours, days, and weeks that will be frittered away in debates, legal challenges, investigations, and who knows what all else.
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p>Any parent who wants their child to be exposed to and practice a particular religious tradition is fully able to do so in staggeringly rich abundance outside of school.
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p>I beg us to not further erode one of the few sanctuaries where they may practice pure and disciplined secular intellectual growth.
But this is exactly what you are advocating. You’re saying you’re OK with Christian prayers at public functions. As currently practiced, those prayers, even if only generically Christian, are the only prayers offered. Our contention is that it’s discriminatory, not only to believers of other faiths, but to those who do not belong to any religion.
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p>Would you be happy if your rotational fantasy included a slot for atheists to offer up a summation of why they believe religion is superstitious nonsense? It’s only fair. It wouldn’t happen that often, after all, what with all the other religions getting their turn, as Tom says.
if Satanist prayers were substituted? After all, it’s a legit religion, or at least, there are people who practice it.
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p>Or Wiccan incantations designed to be spells? I’d love to see that pass muster.
…I absolutely oppose routine prayer in public schools on a daily basis; a moment of silence does just fine. If a generic invocation of a deity is done at a special event like a graduation that doesn’t bother me as much. As for tax exemption, religious organizations should be subject to neither more nor less than non-religious non-profits, IMO. My advice to those that are concerned is fight this at the local level. The benefit of calling on communities to write policies rather than legislating a standardized policy is that each community can do what’s best for itself. Some may want to say our policy is not to ever mention religion whereas others might say we welcome the formation of religious groups (so long as they don’t discriminate). I see this effort as attempting to save the grief that inherently comes when administrators start to “wing it” without the guidance of a clear policy. It also appears to pass constitutional muster as it does not establish religion and if anything enhances, rather than prohibits, the free exercise thereof.
“If a generic invocation of a deity is done at a special event like a graduation that doesn’t bother me as much.”
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p>What about people who are bothered by it, either enthusiastic theists, agnostics, or atheists? Do they count as members of the community as well?
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p>This is legally, constitutionally, and educationally a settled question. Instead, this policy is opening up a whole near area of grief that will force administrators to wing it. Ask administrators in Texas, who have had this inflicted on them: “Tom Hutton, senior staff attorney with the National School Boards Association, contends that laws, such as RVADA, put school districts between a rock and a hard place because litigious advocacy groups are lined up on both sides ready to sue at a moment’s notice…many school districts support letting students exercise their freedoms of religion and speech, but are concerned time and money will be spent to fight off lawsuits stemming from students speaking their minds on faith.”
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p>It’s been tried elsewhere. It’s simply a bad idea.
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p>As for your contention that it passes constitutional muster, that is clearly contradicted by the decisions I cite.
…by NOT having it. I can go either way myself. I personally feel that some things aren’t worth making a federal case out of, but you obviously feel differently so I think we’ve come to our agree to disagree moment.
“Agree to disagree” is an untenable position. The state (public school) simply can’t advocate a particular religious viewpoint — in this case generic theism.
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p>And regardless of whether you would make a Federal case of of this, it seems pretty clear that feelings are so ramped up on either side of this issue that someone likely will. To me it just doesn’t seem worth opening this particular Pandora’s Box.
…contributes to the richness of a uniquely American culture. I for one would much rather celebrate everything than celebrate nothing. I think it could enhance the educational experience and foster understanding if kids were exposed to the various faith traditions in a given community. The preamble to any policy should explicitly state that the school district cherishes this diversity and respects the beliefs of all of the students and families, including those who do not believe.
celebrate whatever you like, at home, at church, in the street – but not in public school or civic functions. Expose your kids to whatever religions you want, on your own time. I object to your forcing my children to spend time allotted for their education to any of those superstitions, and I do not want you to waste any of my time on them, either.
If it doesn’t matter, then there is no reason to pursue this.
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p>We are discussing it because a group of extremists are attempting to impose their religious beliefs on my children.
…is that some of these people aren’t extremists. That’s why I so much want to understand Tom Calter’s thinking on this. Or Kathi-Anne Reinstein’s.
…that the proposed measure is NOT as extreme as you’re making it out to be. Though if you do hear from the reps I’d be curious as well.
I’m sorry, Christopher, but your entire line of argument here skips over the most important aspect of this:
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p>School attendance is compulsory.
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p>This not true for any other body where prayer is offered.
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p>Prayer SHOULD BE erased in schools. It doesn’t matter how much perfume is sprayed on it, or how it’s dressed up.
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p>I don’t want my children, or anyone else’s children, forced to embrace a “faith tradition”. I don’t care how “tolerant” or “inclusive” it is, it’s still something that has no place in a compulsory setting. Parents who want their children to begin each day with a meditation or prayer can do so in their home.
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p>Religion and religious beliefs are already an enormous contributor to the extraordinarily hostile environment in the world, our nation, our state, and our towns. This travesty would impose it on our school children.
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p>Isn’t there already enough religiously motivated conflict in the world?
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p>I agree with you about the outcome. I think it should be erased in schools because of my opinion on prayer. That said, I don’t think it should be erased from schools by the instrument of Law, and neither does current law.
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p>The salient factor here is the authority of the school (state). From the legal (and separation) standpoint, the school shouldn’t be in the business of encouraging or discouraging prayer. The point is to keep the school out of it. If a prayer becomes disruptive and the school steps in, it is right to do so not because of the prayer but because of the disruption. If the religious atmosphere of ‘private’ student actors becomes ‘oppressive’, it is right for the school to step in not because of the religion, but because of the oppressive atmosphere. In other words, the school needs to not be concerned with prayer in so far as such prayer is orthogonal to their core mission. As soon as such prayer impacts the mission, then the school needs to step in.
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p>The problem with this law is that it necessitates the school becoming concerned with prayer (or other events) when it need not be and the result, I guarantee you, will be measured in dollars spent on lawyers instead of students.
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p>And now you are in affect imposing that belief, that is hostile to my beliefs, and is encouraging hostility, on the public schools by censoring my right to prayer. We had a Muslim teacher who, lacking an office, prayed during the breaks in between classes when no students were around. One day instead of going straight to lunch I asked him if I could watch and he said ok. i actually learned a lot about Islam and became more tolerant by watching my teacher pray. Similarly, a friend of mine asked me why I always crossed myself before tests and I explained to him what the sign of the cross meant and he came away understanding a little bit more of my faith.
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p>It is radical atheists like yourself who seek to erase religion that are the real problem by censoring anyone with faith. I do not want my country to become like Turkey. I meant, through that Muslim teacher a female turkish MP who was barred from that assembly for voluntarily wearing a hijab. Tell me if thats the society you want to go to where secularism is forced and imposed by the state. Now you are forcing your values on me.
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p>You clearly don’t value religion and have raised your family accordingly. Exposing your children to another faith tradition surely will not affect their atheism if you have raised them well right? if atheism is so self-evident than surely your children are not threatened by the delusional prayers of a Christian?
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p>Lets flip it this way. Suppose a Muslim teacher in Alabama was prevented from praying during school hours because a parent like yourself said “i dont want my son exposed to that faith tradition” or if learning about islam was expunged from the social curricula for that same reason. Similarly a parent could use your argument to prevent the teaching of evolution since that might force a child to learn something that offends that parent’s faith tradition. A gay teacher or student might be forced to stay in the closet because his identity might offend someone’s ‘faith tradition’. By forcing religious teachers and students to pretend to be secular during school hours you are denying them their rights to individual identity, autonomy, and free expression which is decidedly illiberal.
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p>you are not a liberal if you do not support religious toleration for all believers and non-believers. That is one of the main tenants of liberalism in all its forms. Frankly it is a founding principle of this country which was the first explicitly religious tolerant country in Western history.
You’re too much, you’re not even making logical sense. You assert a false dichotomy, a choice between “believer” and “atheist.” No such dichotomy exists. If you were to assert the existence of Bertrand Russell’s orbiting china teapot, I would never assert it does not exist (I would not be an “Apotist”, radical or otherwise). Instead, I would assert that I have no reason to say one way or the other.
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p>So please spare me, and the rest of us, your “radical atheist” horse-twaddle.
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p>Your Muslim teacher is a fine example. No, there should not be time set aside for that teacher to pray to Allah, nor should there be time set aside for observant Jews to perform their rituals, nor should Episcopalian or Roman Catholic believers have time set aside to “pray the hours”. Certainly none of these times should be forced upon the students.
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p>If you are desperate for a way to express your religious beliefs in school, I encourage you to do so by aggressively advocating against the many and manifest forms of gender and gender preference discrimination that still, sadly, permeate our schools. Stand up next to the young man accused of acting “gay” and tell his harassers to put a stop to it. Accompany the girl athlete to the office and join her in confronting the administration with the question of why the girl’s basketball team funding is half that of the boys — or, for that matter, why there even is a “girls” and “boys” anything.
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p>When religious extremists stop murdering doctors, blowing up women and children, harassing single women who choose to use birth control, and all the rest of the silly and dangerous nonsense that goes under the rubric of “religious expression” today, then we can talk again.
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p>When you compel a child to do something, and in that compulsory context you also institute any religious observance, you have established a religion.
…allows for staff and/or students to observe their religious duties in a way that is not “disruptive to the education process”. Thus, Muslim students and staff often are given a schedule that allows for the performance of the Saleh at noon. If that can happen without disrupting their education (at lunch, or preparatory time), I’m fer’ it.
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p>That said, the newly fashionable inveighing against “radical atheists” — code for atheists who are as expressive about their ideas and rights — shows a blatant hypocrisy. It’s the frustration of a group looking into a mirror held up to them.
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p>Jconway is deliberately muddying the issue. In a civil society, people can follow whichever faith, or none. That exists in American public education. What they may not do is have that lifestyle override the right to a religiously neutral environment in a place they are forced to attend, and fund.
BrooklineTom specifically said he does not feel religious people have a right to express themselves in a public setting ergo he opposes freedom of religion. He instead supports state sanctioned freedom from religion, a form of tyranny if I ever heard one.
I can’t speak for others, but I think it’s naive and dangerous to excise comparative religion from the educational currciculum. Like it or not, religion (and I controversially include “atheism” under this umbrella of belief systems) is a fact of the world we live in and it is our best interest to learn as much about it as possible. I would go so far as to say that religious literacy should be a requirement, not that that is very likely to happen given the state of our public schools and existing educational mandates.
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p>(BU professor Stephen Prothero has more to say about religious literacy here.)
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p>However, a clear line needs to be drawn between education and proselytization; unfortunately that line can be quite fuzzy, and it seems in the best interest of public school administrators to err on the side of caution when in doubt.
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p>As an aside, I strongly recommend the film “Fremont, USA: A City’e Enconter with Religious Diversity”, produced by Harvard University’s Pluralism Project. This film shows a diverse community coming to better understand one another through dialog and engagement.
Read the proposed text, Tim.
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p>A “Comparative Religion” course is a far different animal, particularly if it is a voluntary elective. I’m not sure what you mean by “religious literacy” — if, for example, you mean a passing familiarity with the major and minor faith traditions of the world, I agree with you (would you include the thousands of tribal faith traditions practiced by millions of third-world people?).
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p>Atheism is most certainly not a “belief system”, in the sense that the various faith traditions are. See the writings of Christopher Dawkins or Pascal Boyer for elaboration. The very word “belief” is itself loaded with ambiguity and confusion. Science is not a “belief system”. Scientists do not “believe in” theories or hypotheses.
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p>I would welcome a philosophy course that addressed this specific topic. It is becoming abundantly clear that a great many adults, never mind children, are strikingly confused about the topic.
Experimental evidence, and reproducible results.
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p>Just saying.
pray to the law of gravity.
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p>This is a false equivalence, Bob. I don’t “believe” that the successor of the number denoted by “2” is denoted by “3”, it simply is. Unless, of course, you want to argue that any sort of objective external reality doesn’t actually exist (except in our “belief”). If that is the argument you want to make, I’d like to defer it until we’ve each had at least three or four glasses of good wine. 🙂
I’m not sure what exactly prayer has to do with belief, but to paraphrase Bob, we all operate under particular assumptions about the way the world works; belief is simply confidence in those assumptions.
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p>As for the matter of mathematical “truth” I suggest getting your hands on a copy of Logicomix. A fun read.
And thus that science is just another religion.
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p>A scientist doesn’t “believe in the power of reason” (I’ll defer the philosophical debate between the Vienna Circle, Wittgenstein and Godel for now). A scientist observes phenomena, constructs hypotheses that attempt to explain that phenomena, and then attempts to prove those hypotheses (carefully avoiding being suckered into attempting to disprove hypotheses except in tightly structured contexts).
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p>”Belief” doesn’t play a role. An airliner doesn’t stay in the air because we, its crew, or its designers and fabricators “believe” it will. A car speeding into an ice-covered hairpin turn doesn’t crash because anybody believes or doesn’t believe.
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p>Interestingly enough, those who do assert theistic beliefs generally also express strong opinions about testable hypotheses. They assert, for example, that the deity they worship does make observable responses to intercessory prayer. They assert that certain historical and biological events did, in fact, happen on this earth at a specific time. They generally start to wave their hands about “belief”, “God’s will” and “respect for religion” somewhere around the point where those testable hypotheses invariably fail objective confirmation. Carl Sagan explored these questions at great length from a scientific perspective; Episcopal Bishop John S. Spong did the same from a theological one.
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p>A believer can assert that human parthenogensis did actually occur precisely once approximately 2,000 years ago — and that all biological, chemical, and even physical theory that says otherwise is incorrect, and that each of the similar contemporary or older claims about other “miraculous” births (it was a rather commonplace mythical symbol) were “just myths”. Some of us choose to instead accept this as a symbolic event filled with meaning and even “truth” — and with no corresponding concrete historical reality. The first US president does not, for most people, lose stature if it is observed that he very likely did not actually confess to actually chopping down a cherry tree.
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p>Biologist Lewis Wolpert explores the nature of belief, specifically as it relates to science, in his very accessible “Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast: The Evolutionary Origins of Belief. He comes to a very different conclusion from your assertion that “belief is simply confidence in those assumptions.”
While it’s been on my radar for a bit, I haven’t yet read Wolpert. However, from the Publishers Weekly blurb on Amazon, I don’t see anything with which I’d disagree or which suggests “a very different conclsion” from my statement that belief is confidence in one’s operational assumptions about the world:
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p>
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p>I also don’t think anyone here (Bob or myself primarily, I guess) is asserting that “science is just another religion”. However in my view the very idea of “science” clearly requires belief, i.e., confidence in the operational assumption that we can make systematic predictions about the workings of the world. If one doesn’t first believe that the world is observable, testable, and predictable, science is pretty much meaningless.
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p>As for theists (?) expressing strong opinions about testable hypotheses, I’m sympathetic to Karen Armstrong’s view that this is a misplaced reaction to the success of science in explaining how the world works. I believe (!) she elaborates in her book, The Case for God, however she also presents a quick summary here.
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p>
reading a book, particularly when the author is someone like Lewis Wolpert, is an important prerequisite to drawing conclusions about what that book says — no matter what a capsule review on Amazon says.
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p>I have also read “The Case for God”, have you? She is addressing a different assertion (specifically, the existence of “God” in the theistic sense).
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p>The claim about testable hypotheses is different and separable. It seems that both of us agree with Karen Armstrong’s summary that the existence of this theistic God is a topic that lies outside the scientific domain. I know few scientists who dispute this.
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p>Having stipulated that, believers nevertheless make many and frequent assertions about claimed manifestations of God that most certainly do lie within the scientific domain. Hurricanes do have measurable and measured trajectories. Pat Robertson asserted that his god alters the trajectories of hurricanes in response to Mr. Robertson’s intercessory prayer.
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p>The hypothesis that a measurable correlation between a hurricane’s path and prayer most certainly is testable (the null hypothesis is that there is no correlation). Every such test has confirmed the null hypothesis.
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p>Lest you object that all this is meaningless philosophical meandering, I call your attention to the role that Senator Inhofe plays in setting national environmental policy (explicitly based on his religious “belief”), or on the abysmal history of teaching biology in high schools. The “theory” of evolution is the cornerstone of modern biology in the same way that the Einstein’s “theory” of relativity is the cornerstone of modern physics, yet publishers of high school biology texts avoid evolution in order to maximize sales volume in regions that find it offensive to widespread religious views. “Respect for religious beliefs” should not, in my view, extend to hamstringing generations of American biology students.
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p>These are important matters, and it is long past time that we examine religious claims about matters of science far more critically than we have in the past three decades or so (since the rise of the “Republican Right”).
If I misunderstood Wolpert, please enlighten me! (Alas, I don’t have time to read every interesting-looking book that I come across.)
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p>I still don’t think we really disagree all that much.
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p>
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p>This is absolutely correct: As long as “believers” misundertand religion as logos rather than mythos, then it’s fair to be challenged under the terms of science. Armstrong takes as much umbrage with the Religious Right as she does the “New Atheists” — both of whom she accuses of making the same “metaphysical mistake”.
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p>And no, I certainly don’t view this meaningless philosophical rambling — our beliefs are crucial to how we act in the world — however, I still don’t see how any of this refutes the basic propostion that belief is confidence in certain operational assumptions.
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p>I certainly don’t claim that all beliefs are equally valid, nor that they are beyond question; I’m simply suggesting a more comprehensive — and in my view accurate — definition of the term “belief”. Naturally you’re free to disagree, but you haven’t yet presented an alternative, let alone any evidence to support it.
It is, of course, the nature of language that definitions need to hit the “sweet spot” between being both comprehensive and specific enough to be useful.
Benjamin Disraeli
Sorry; I think there’s some miscommunication going on here and that we don’t actually disagree.
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p>My point about religious literacy (which you seem to parse correctly) is that I think there is a legitimate place for discussion about religion within the setting of public education. However, I think the proposed legislation opens the door for proselytization and the appearance of state advocacy of religion, which is not appropriate.
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p>This was in response to jconway’s comment that those of us who oppose the proposed legislation seek to “erase religion” and “censor anyone with faith”. I oppose the legislation, but I’m open to discussion of religion and expression of faith — in the appropriate time and place.
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p>I don’t want to get too far off onto a tangent about what “atheism” is or isn’t, but the etymology of the word (“a” = without, “theos” = god/s) posits the nonexistence of a deity or deities, just as the word “theism” posits that such beings do exist. My personal take is that neither position is provable in any scientific way since there is no universal, objective definition of “god”. Thus theism/atheism ultimately becomes a statement of belief about a particular idea of god. I’m not saying atheism is not a legitimate belief, but it is a belief nonetheless.
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p>Agnosticism would seem to be more intellectually honest position, if we feel there is insufficient evidence to prove/disprove the existence of god/gods — depending, of course, on how we define our terms.
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p>My sense is that the term “atheism” has taken on a new and expanded meaning in recent years thanks in part to Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens, et al.
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p>For my own part, I prefer to use the term “non-theist” — that ultimately it doesn’t matter whether or not “god” exists. 🙂
In particular, we align “atheism”, “agnosticism”, and “theism” the same way. Richard Dawkins (I don’t actually know who “Christopher Dawkins” is…) is careful to make this distinction, as am I. In “The God Delusion”, he lays out the spectrum rather compellingly:
The blockquote clearly should have ended after item “6”, the final two paragraphs are my own. Sorry about the misplaced closing tag.
crying foul in the arena of religious free speech while giving out zeroes to those you’d presumably silence.
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p>”Radical atheists”? “The real problem”? Is that what this is about? “Censoring anyone with faith”? Such an intellectually dishonest statement actually doesn’t deserve much in actual rebuttal, but it does deserve exposure so that everyone here can situate your comments in context.
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p>I don’t suppose I need to tell you that labeling people with qualitatively negative adjectives, generalizing about their beliefs, and then blaming them for your problems puts you in some pretty good company with some pretty notorious people in history. But I’d urge you to keep talking like that as your cri de coeur will serve as a wake-up call for those who are complacement about Constitutional issues of separation. And you have the nerve to lecture others on respect, tolerance, and what it means to be progressive? I’ll take my next zero on this thread from you now.
Religious extremism outside of the upper-middle class and elite in Istanbul, the old guard of the military, and gated sections of Ankara is as stifling in Turkey as it is in Syria.
…cumpulsory prayer every morning in the classroom and I stand by current SCOTUS rulings forbidding it. I thought we were talking about extra-curricular and special events wherein there is more choice.
Here’s the quote (emphasis mine):
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p>In my children’s north shore public schools, “school events” means pep rallies, assemblies, “school spirit” events, and similar things — all during the school day and all compulsory. Their middle school graduation ceremonies take place during the school day, and their attendance is compulsory. They are required to sit in class to listen to and discuss writing assignments completed by their peers.
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p>Suppose one of my children’s classmates expounds the “Young Earth” creationist doctrine in a geology class. What do you suppose would happen if my child were to express the ridicule and contempt that such superstitious hogwash deserves in a science classroom?
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p>To the extent that you are supporting this nonsense, you are, in fact, advocating compulsory religious observances.
…are exactly why a policy needs to be written to address these things.
First you say “[you] thought we were talking about extra-curricular and special events wherein there is more choice.” Then, when we point out that we actually are talking about compulsory events, you begin talking about a “written policy”. We no doubt need a policy to be written to govern that written policy to be written to address these things, and so on.
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p>I am astonished at your willingness to go so far down this constantly narrowing rathole.
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p>You can spin yourself (and those willing to stay with this already too-long exchange) into tighter and tighter knots
OR admit that it is a silly and wrong-headed idea in the first place.
You’ve been chided about this many times: PLEASE READ THE BACKGROUND INFO BEFORE POSTING!
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p>Your comment show’s you have no idea what we’re talking about and it’s your 20th or 30th in this thread.
Personally, I can’t stand the “under God” part of the pledge and never say those words during the pledge activity each day. This is just another bullshit attempt to inject religion into our public schools. We have a moment of silence each day, which, btw, the kids largely ignore. That’s enough.
It seems pretty clear that when ‘under God’ was added, it was specifically an attempt to add religion to what was up until then, a mere civic pledge. It’s really hard to see it any other way.
…to distinguish us from the “godless communists”. My four was primarily for the harshness of the language in the second sentence.
And my four is because of your consistent expressed intolerance of the manner in which people wish to communicate. I’m sorry that my “language” does not conform to your sensibilities. I toyed with the idea of giving you a three because your views on the “harshness of the language” are more petty than contributory, but I know how much getting a three hurts your feelings.
…with trying to keep things civil? It’s not like I zeroed it in an effort to delete it.
brings to mind several things. First, political blogs, by their very nature, have a rather free-wheeling quality to them. All kinds of people participate, and they express themselves in a variety of idioms. By turn, one person might be eloquent one day and profane the next. Some are simply more direct in their tone while others more indirect. That is the nature of the beast.
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p>Second, your rigidity in tolerating the modes of expression that others choose to employ does nothing to contribute to any civility on this site. I can tell you, as a sentient and independent adult, that your 4s will never, ever compel me to change my tone or my vocabulary. If I get annoyed enough with your puritanical ratings, I’ll simply turn off the feature–as I have done in the past for a variety of reasons. The very fact that you offer, in your defense, the fact that you didn’t “zero it” illustrates my point rather nicely.
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p>Third, I would really encourage you to consider easing up on your need to impose your standards of civility on the rest of us. We are all adults; this is not a classroom. You are free, of course, to continue giving people 4s because you don’t like their vocabulary, but that really does cheapen and trivialize both the rating system (such as it is) and the participation of the thoughtful people who participate here.
…about being by turns eloquent and profane, which is why the ratings system judges individual comments rather than the characters of commenters. (I’ve even been known to give JohnD the occasional 6, after all!) I don’t always do it, but can’t explain why, and I’m not expecting you to change. I only even addressed it because Mr. Lynne did, but my fours are often a kneejerk reaction to tone whether it includes on George Carlin’s famous seven words or not. I’ll concede a bit of a puritan streak; chalk it up to the way I was raised I guess.
I don’t appreciate some of the language from either side of the debate and I don’t see anything wrong with using the rating system to express disappointment with verbiage.
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p>Have you considered that the ratings aren’t an attempt to change your behavior? Or at the very least, not everyone uses the system to influence behavior?
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p>If, as you said, he will never compel you to change, is it fair in return to ask him to change if that is how he chooses to use the rating system? If it isn’t abusing the system or hurting the nature of discourse on the blog?
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p>I wrote that last part only to reread your comment and discover you DO believe it hurts the nature of discourse. That is your opinion, but it doesn’t make it any more or less true. I’m someone who puts a lot of weight on civility, so if I believe someone’s comment “needs work” on it’s tone, there isn’t anything saying that is unfair. I don’t recall their being a single standard for “needs work” even in regards to content, isn’t it all a matter of personal opinion?
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p>Obviously, I do NOT speak for Christopher. Just thought I should add that disclaimer!
The Pledge was written in 1892, “under God” was added in 1954, under direct impetous of the Knights of Columbus and a sermon by George MacPherson Docherty (I had to look that last part up, but at least remembered it was Eisenhower’s doing).
…is that Francis Bellamy, the author of the original version, was both Baptist preacher and a Socialist, so I guess those two things plus being a patriot can go together after all!
Worse, it’s inspired by the FRENCH:
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I find the prayers at the beginning of public meetings (and end as well in some) whether of Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or whatever – tedious at best and offensive at worst. If I go to a church, synagogue, mosque, or temple – I fully respect the religious goings on – but in a public forum that is related to our government, it has no place. It is being imposed on me and makes me uncomfortable. The pledge of allegiance is questionable in its own right – but certainly “the under god” phrase should not be part of it. All of this implies that although it is okay to believe in whatever religion you choose, to not be a believer in some religion is anathema.
and yes the use of a religious phrase there is called irony.
…but as an educated adult you’ve arrived at the offensive/tedious view. As a teenager under great peer influence and pressure to align yourself with the policies of the school, would you and every other child stand up so strongly? In such an environment, would you have the fair chance to arrive at such a viewpoint?
First of all, I disagree that the Lord’s Prayer excludes non-Christians. While it is not a prayer of Jews or Muslims, being monotheistic children of Abraham, you would find little to disagree with, since it doesn’t mention Jesus, Christians or Mohammed.
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p>Secondly, the school isn’t forcing students to do anything religious. It states that students will not be prohibited from expressing religiosity, which they are guarenteed to do under the first amendment. You’re treating this bill as if religion is a crime and the school would be an accomplice by allowing it.
The Lord’s Prayer is one of the key Christian prayers. That it doesn’t mention Jesus doesn’t make it inclusive.
but theologically, no. However, if we continue to shun education in religion, such a difference will continue to become invisible. The ability to empathize with Muslims will continue to become more difficult. Snowballing effect.
Seriously? It’s only one of the CORE elements of the Catholic faith, and deliberately discarded by the reformist protestant religions.
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p>Come one. Theologically it is completely exclusive, by design.
and the context in which the Lord’s Prayer came into being. Lutherans and Episcipalians still use it, as far as I know.
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p>The reason that some protestants discarded it has nothign to do with theology but rather their hatred of anything that makes them sound Roman Catholic, but that was primarily Baptists.
… project to explain how it’s not really denominational, then it’s probably denominational in practice and as such, mandating it’s practice is to be avoided.
…and I’m pretty sure that includes Baptists. Protestants use scripture of which the prayer is a part. Protestants conclude with “for Thine is the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory forever” whereas Catholic conclude with “…deliver us from Evil.” It’s the Hail Mary that Protestants have largely rejected.
But I’ll have to ask around to double check. Catholics do not conclude with Deliver us from evil, though. They do conclude with thine is the kingdom etc.
…the priest sometimes adds the concluding lines himself, but the group recitation definitely ends with evil. They come from different early manuscripts in my understanding.
Observe the hair-splitting about what is a Catholic v Protestant interpretation of the same prayer. It’s good for a thread in BMG.
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p>Now imagine a school committee debating this for a half-hour. Is that what your community needs? Is that even what they should be doing? Because that’s the consequence of HB376.
The school committee is debating whether the Lord’s Prayer “counts” as Protestant, depending on how it was ended? Would you also like to see your Board of Selectman debating over the origin of the universe, or the planning board comparing interpretations of Keynesian economics? That’s not what they’re elected, chosen, or paid to do. But it would happen on the public’s dime.
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p>Actually, this is precisely the waste of public resources most conservatives claim to dislike.
My grandfather was a Baptist minister and used the Lord’s Prayer both as a prayer and as a useful allegory for sermons.
American Baptist or Southern Baptist?
National Baptist Convention
I am pretty sure all Christians say the Lords Prayer. In fact the original court case that overturned its compulsory use to start a school day was launched by a Unitarian and a Jew with amicus briefs by catholic lawyers offended that the protestant version with the King James doxology was used.
We should stop allowing women to drive and certainly should make them wear veils.
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p>There is a huge difference between educating people about religion and imposing religion.
…just to be fair. Plenty of Muslim women drive and do not wear veils. The Arab establishment has done a good job of using the Koran to enforce cultural conservatism.
… depends on individual’s definition of what is cultural or religious. Take a poll in Iran about the Hijab (sp?) and you’ll find that although many Muslim’s do without, there are geographical areas for which it is interpreted as a Religious edict and not merely cultural.
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p>The fact that this kind of thing can be debated at all is exactly why it shouldn’t be part of any Government ceremony.
What does including religion really mean? It’s notable that Christopher and JoeTS have little understanding (and in JoeTS’s case tolerance) of other belief systems. Why shouldn’t everyone have to recite the Lord’s Prayer? Or eat fish on Friday? It’s hardly a hardship, right?
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p>Bleh.
I think my understanding of other belief systems is pretty broad. It happens within the last few months I have both read books and watched TV documentaries on Islam, and have read some of the Koran myself. I completely understand that these things are given a religious veil (OK, that pun was intended!), but everything I have learned suggests that the true origins of some of the practices we in the West may find alien are cultural and in fact predate Islam in the part of the world we usually associate with that religion.
I’m talking about your inability to understand why non-Christians would find reciting Christian prayers at school assemblies problematic.
I have met plenty of ‘modern’ women who choose to wear their veils to show that they are Muslim and modern and feminist and American all in one. Most of them decided to do it after 9/11 as an act of defiance. And i met a female turkish MP who was kicked out of parliament and the country for wearing the veil, she is now getting her PHD in gov at Harvard so she is certainly not a domicile domestic.
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p>To deny people the right to pray, wear religious objects and symbols, etc. in school is to deny them their very freedom of expression and religion as ensured under the Constitution. This bill to me is simply ensuring that overzealous PC school administrators don’t invite lawsuits from religious liberty groups. Btw using the “it its offensive it should go principle” than no atheist could ever utter in school that there is no God since he/she would be offending the majority of the students and faculty. It goes both ways people. This is America a land of religious toleration, pluralism, and freedom including for non-believers. This is not a land that absurdly pretends that religion does not or cannot exist outside of the home or house of worship.
The Lord’s Prayer is contained in both Matthew’s and Luke’s Gospels. Jesus is specifically responding to a request from His disciples who ask Him to teach them to pray just as many other religious leaders teach their respective followers. If you define Christianity (as I do) as following the teachings and example of Jesus Christ, then by reciting this particular prayer you are by definition embracing Christianity. Jesus also says that God already knows what you need before you ask and as such this is the only prayer you really ever need. I like focusing on the commonalities the various religions have too, but I definitely think a non-Christian (and most Christians for that matter) could reasonably see this as a specifically Christian prayer.
A bit abstract no, JoeTS? Context does matter in such things. I doubt conservative events begin their convocations with reading from Marx with which all attendees agree.
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p>To say “hallowed be thy name” does suggest a rather specific deity is being worshiped not a god-in-itself or a god-in-general or a Platonic form of godness.
One of my all time favorite Simpson’s lines:
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Whether He is called Yahweh, Allah, or simply God, he is the God of all three religions. However, man has deemed it suitable in the pursuit of power to make the rift between these three greater than it really is. Be it the Crusader who sought a kingdom for himself using the name of God, or a Muslim paralyzing a community in fear, lest they go to Hell for minor infractions; aside from sharing God, we also share with our Muslim friends a propensity to pervert God for power.
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p>I think by realizing and embracing that which is similar than different, peace can be attained. I think a Muslim would argue little that God’s name is hallowed, as would a Jew. The name given to God is irrelevant, as irrelevant as the difference between calling the Sun Apollo or Helios. The name given changes not the spirit nor the matter of the Sun.
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p>wa tabaara kasmuka wa ta’aalaa jadduka
wa laa ilaaha ghairuk .
Tell you what, why don’t you pick a Muslim prayer and propose starting each meeting of the College Republicans with it?
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p>Aslan is Tash!
“Anything you promise in my name and do not do, you have promised in the name of Tash. Any promise kept and fulfilled in Tash’s name, you have done in mine.”
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p>I find Lewis disingenuous about the nature of the Narnia series, but one can’t take away his talent for writing fiction.
As you say, wonderfully written. Even as a kid I thought he was a little heavy handed on the Christian messaging. I mean it’s obvious Aslan is a Jesus analog, but he actually tells you.
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p>I re-read them a few years back. It’s fun how much of the mythology is shared with Harry Potter (especially giants and centaurs).
where the imposition is? Maybe my eyes are going on me, but I could have swore I saw “voluntary”.
And the bill requires religious expression. How “voluntary” is it to not have to actually say the words of the Lord’s Prayer at school assembly?
however, I am no longer associated with College Republicans.
Key difference: we can all agree what’s a rose and what isn’t. God, being ineffable and inconceivable and all, not so much.
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p>If that’s all it takes to make the world’s fractious religious populations less volatile, then what’s the problem? Why don’t we have peace, love, and understanding the world over? Your suggestion above is facile and naive, indicating a rather shallow understanding of the value of war and religion, and especially religious war, to humans. Will Durant, the historian, has figured out that there have only been 29 years in human history that the world has been without war somewhere on the planet. The vast majority of these wars have had religious difference and intolerance as a motivating force. There is no indication anywhere that the future holds anything different.
The problem is that everybody would have to embrace it at once. There are strains in Christianity which insist that Jesus is the only way to salvation and anyone who does not believe will go to Hell. I for one consciously and emphatically reject that and any other hint of exclusivity precisely because I realize that way too much blood has been shed over the concept that I’m right and you’re wrong in matters of faith. There are a lot of similarities. Christians, Jews, and Muslims worship the same God and loving God and neighbor, which Jesus identifies as the greatest commandments, are also central tenets of every major religion. Of course much of the conflict, especially in more modern times, is really political or economic in nature dressed up as religious, so we need to be aware of that as well and act accordingly.
I could suggest that if humans could naturally fly everywhere they wanted to go, we’d have less pollution, but the point is not really worth making because humans can’t fly. Perhaps by subtracting the human element from his assertion, he’d have a point, but since that’s impossible, the point is without merit. Because humans cannot shed their human nature, there will never be meaningful peace and understanding in the world.
We do have example of people choosing peace, but we are biologically incapable of sprouting wings.
sustaining a peaceful existence, as history shows. I chose my analogy precisely because I am arguing that humans are also “biologically” incapable of sustaining peace.
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p>I will point out, as well, that the most peaceful nations on the planet are also the most atheistic.
Hard and social sciences are VERY different. I have quite a bit of hope for Northern Ireland, for example, and while I would not suggest the faith is a requirement for peace, I think your equating peace with athiesm breaks down pretty quickly. Communist nations have been known to be both athiestic and war-prone (even if not always actively at war).
I have never equated peace with atheism; I did state that the most peaceful nations, however, happen to be the most atheistic. There’s a difference.
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p>Your conflation of dogmatism with atheism is a common tactic when people attempt to blame atheism for the excesses of some dictatorships and totalitarian regimes. Careful consideration of history reveals that the nations you reference were hardly in the business of going to war over atheism, but were inclined to use their atheistic or secular status as a means to buttress their brutal political ideology.
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p>So, to your point, biology and peace are not all that different, candidly, when you consider that this planet has been free of war for only 29 years of its recorded history. Religion has been at the core of most of the world’s bloodshed, and that is indisputable.
…but you greatly misinterpreted mine. I was in no way blaming atheism for dictatorial excesses; in fact I’m generally among the first in line to push back against such implications. I didn’t mean to suggest their war habits were athiest driven, just to give examples of where your atheism=peace analogy breaks down. Religion has been a key to conflict (though again, often as window dressing for political and economic issues) which is precisely why it is so important in my mind to focus on the similarities among the religions. As for the biological metaphor all I can say is I can easily choose to walk away from a fight, though that does take a good bit of courage sometimes. On the other hand I can’t just decide to fly; that’s physically impossible.
don’t count.
the erasure of religion in public schools as promulgated by some on this thread would prevent a dutiful Muslim from practicing his/her religion since three of the five daily prayers occur during school hours. Having an administration that is majority Christian/secular impose those strict kind of rules would essentially confirm to Muslims that ours is a nation that is not open to people of their faith. By forcing people to deny their religion in schools we not only deter and prevent all sorts of freedoms we also ensure that no teachable moments about religion, be it in a history class or among students interacting can ever occur. I learned a lot more about islam from a Muslim teacher than I ever did by reading a textbook.
“He” is the antithesis of the faith tradition of the Hindus and Buddhists, and utterly irrelevant to the thousands of tribal faith traditions (often “ancestor” based) lived by millions of third-world inhabitants. Try reading some Pascal Boyer (who’s field is the anthropology of religion).
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p>The very fact that you are apparently so unaware of the bias you bring to the discussion illustrates why this is such a stupendously bad idea.
You may very well be able to write a bland monotheistic prayer that will appease Christians, Jews, and Muslims. Now, how do you add Hindus?
Let’s leave atheists out of this for a moment; your attempt to come up with a combined Christian/Jewish/Muslim/Hindu prayer is going to be enough fun.
was directed at JoeTS
… for reference on current law with regard to religion and public schools, provided by the Center for Religion and Public Affairs at Wake Forest University. It was assembled from a wide variety of interested parties and is provided as a guide to what the law is as opposed to what it should be:
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p>(Hat tip Ed Brayton, who mentions that this should probably be sent to every school committee and principal’s office in the country.)
It seems as if you have caused a fire storm by misrepresenting the intent of this legislation. I’ve read the bill, I was a teacher in a public school, and I don’t see why the bill is going to be frontal assault on a teacher’s ability to teach. All this bill does is make sure that students wont be chastised or disciplined for making a religious reference.
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p>If a student writes an essay on a heroic figure, and choses to write one on Jesus Christ, what happens to that student if a teacher says the subject content is inappropriate?
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p>What happens if football players on a team join for prayer aside from the rest of their teammates when a teammate is injured? Does the superintendent or principal face any action if those children are suspended from practicing their religion in a school setting?
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p>It doesn’t appear as if the co-sponsors of this legislation are looking to put the 10 commandments in the high school foyer like our friends south of the Mason-Dixon line, just protect the rights of the students who may relate a story about their religion to some current event, or thank Allah in the Valedictorian Address at graduation.
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p>If we can’t allow people to speak freely about religion then 1) we don’t deserve our own freedom of expression and 2) how can we expect people to be tolerant of religions we shield every aspect of public life from?
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p>Well, that is a case for the school principal, the teacher, the parent, and the student to resolve. In the event that a teacher would do such a thing, I’m confident that a professional principal will ensure that reason prevails.
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p>This scenario seems so contrived I hardly know where to begin. Please show me the myriad cases out there where student athletes–or any students–were forced to “suspend from practicing” their religion in a school setting. I see kids saying a quick prayer before they eat their lunch every day. No one seems to be interfering with them. We have a moment of silence every day. To the extent that some kids wish to take advantage of that moment, they can. To the extent they wish to ignore it, they can.
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p>Given the scenarios you describe, this law looks even more silly and unnecessary.
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p>People are free to express their religious or areligious beliefs to their heart’s content.
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p>This law will do nothing to increase tolerance of religions; indeed, it is likely to have the opposite effect.
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p>This is fine under existing law. If an administration asserts that the content is inappropriate, that’s just indicative of an administration that has not reviewed the law.
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p>If its separate from the team and doesn’t involve the authority of the school, this too is fine under existing law.
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p>What’s happening here goes beyond mere ‘protection’. Protection would be for the previous cases mentioned up above to occur free of administration interference. Giving the administration a proactive role in organizing such an activity is also interference and thus wrong. The bill puts the administration in the position of having to find ways to accommodate speech pro-actively (presumably upon request) and give it a forum. It’s not the place for an administration to give a forum to religious speech. Tolerating religious speech is already the law,… proactively encouraging speech (through a mandated forum) is a step beyond.
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p>See above.
Say a high school chapter of an evangelical group wanted to organize an after-school prayer group or bible group? Or to use an actual and more PC example the Muslims that got together at my high school to lobby to make EID a holiday. As an organizer of secular school groups (mock trial and student government) the groups have to request meeting space, etc. these forums are just that. The principal has nothing to do with them other than being asked to ensure they can be organized if students request them. If a group of christian students want to sing a hymn at a graduation the principal okays that. this law to me protects principals and teachers from lawsuits-the ones religious groups might file if he/she does not allow this kind of organization or the ones the ACLU might file if he/she does. In either case, the law protects everyone’s rights and infringes upon no ones.
As long as groups are subject to the exact same requirements to form after school groups as any secular organization, it currently has that right. That’s case law. The ACLU understands this — I know because I spoke with a staff lawyer, not just imaginary bogeymen in my head I call “the ACLU”.
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p>Please, re-read the paragraph carefully. When it says:
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p>”A policy that allows for a limited public forum and voluntary student expression of religious views at school events, graduation ceremonies, and in class assignments, and non-curricular school groups and activities.”
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p>we’re not talking about after-school clubs, but an altering of school ceremonies to suit people wedging compulsory expression of religion into public schools.
Prove to me where this is compulsory. The law is simply giving greater protections to religious groups that seek to create voluntary associations of like minded people. Again freedom of religion, speech, and assembly seems to protect them just fine-hence I think the law is redundant. That said it nowhere is asking for compulsory religious services. The burden of proof lies on your side of the argument to prove how allowing voluntary student expression is somehow forcing compulsory student expression.
I’ll take the most obvious. Attendance at graduation ceremonies is compulsory. Requiring the insertion of a religious aspect into graduation is forcing students to listen to religious proselytizing.
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p>And by the way, the burden lays on the side of the person trying to change the law — one that you just said is redundant.
Perhaps we have both engaged in polemics and we have been dragged into the mud by the overly zealous anti-religious bigotry of Mr. BrooklineTom. To move past that point I would propose the following summation of where we are in agreement and disagreement and for your convenience I cross posted it to your blog. I think responding to you directly is most pertinent since it is your post and it will hopefully redirect the thread back to the issue at hand which is the merit of this bill. I would first agree with you that this bill should be voted against but I suspect for different reasons.
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p>You stated here and on your blog that this bill forces schools to take sides and essentially violate the Constitution by establishing religion. I respectfully disagree. The Constitution clearly states that there shall be no established church, it also permits freedom of expression, speech, assembly, and religion. Thus if I were to express a religious viewpoint that viewpoint is Constitutionally protected whether I am saying it in a publicly funded venue or not. Case in point the Congress has chaplains, case in point the Cambridge City Council inauguration has a multi faith invocation, case in point people swear on their holy book in the court of law.
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p>Now if I were to say that the City of Cambridge is a Christian City or proclaim a Jesus Day like Dubya did as Gov of Texas, that crosses the line into establishment. If I hold the title of Mayor of Cambridge and ask say at the end of a speech for God Bless Cambridge is that establishing a religion? I think not, since I am exercising my own personal opinion as a citizen as opposed to my capacity as Mayor of Cambridge. Similarly for a teacher to say god bless you after a child sneezes or to wish a merry christmas, that is not in their capacity as a teacher but their own expression of religion. It is when they attempt to coerce others into that, say forcing a spiritual (as opposed to historical) bible study onto a class or they ask students to bow their heads in silent prayer at the beginning of a class, that crosses a line.
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p>This particular bill could be read two ways, part of the reason it is a bad bill, and I would vote against it on the two grounds: 1) that the speech it is trying to protect is already covered and 2) on the grounds that it is ambiguous and could be instructing schools to do the wrong thing. I think the law intends for students seeking to pray, form prayer groups, or otherwise engage in religious activity during a school day or its events to have their constitutional rights protected from overzealous administrators who presume school is a God free zone, which the Constitution, affirmed by Supreme Court rulings, say it is not. Even you agree that while the school cannot officially endorse a God or system of beliefs it also cannot prevent students and teachers from expressing those beliefs freely. You have nothing against prayer in school, and like me you oppose school sponsored prayer. This bills intention is to protect student initiated prayer, but I agree its language could be interpreted in the wrong or in incompetent hands to allow for school sponsored prayer and that is troubling.
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p>It is also unfortunate that our dialogue on this issue was distracted by the overly zealous anti-religious rants of BrooklineTom and others here at BMG which prompted my perhaps admittedly overly zealous response. Religious beliefs, especially the lack of them, can lead to conflict of the zealous stripe.
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p>But I think we can simply agree that this is a bad bill but for different reasons. I would completely disagree with your headline that they are against religious equality-I would argue they, and the law are trying to defend it. But perhaps we can agree on this headline: Mass Dems Against Well Reasoned Laws.
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p>Lemme get this straight. Both people with religious beliefs and without them can lead to “conflict of the zealous stripe.”, but this is especially true for people without religious beliefs?!?!
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p>That’s offensive. Amazing that it’s in such an otherwise diplomatic comment.
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p>Others? Not “BrooklineTom, Lynne, and others…” Is that a sideways concession?
I would argue that the zealotry you and BrooklineTom displayed far outweighs the zealotry believers like myself, Christopher, and others displayed on this particular thread. We are all liberals so we all agree in church/state separation, but where we differ is the extent to which religion can enter the public sphere. You and BrooklineTom argue it cannot under any circumstance, a position I find odious and offensive both to liberal values and the constitution. Sabutai and I agree that it does have a place in the public sphere we just disagree as to how much of a place and where to draw the line. He and I would both draw the line somewhere in the public, you would draw it where my house and my church meet the curb-significantly limiting my personal freedom.
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p>Frankly the logic you have both employed, that public displays of religion offend you, could be employed to censor gay rights advocacy groups in the public schools since they could offend parents, it could censor gay rights parades since those could offend religious people, etc. At what point does someone sexuality, as intricate and essential to a persons being as their religious beliefs, enter the public sphere and stay in the private sphere. The conservative would have any gay person restrict their homosexuality to the private sphere, whereas the liberal would allow them to be open in the public sphere. Similarly it is actually quite conservative to try and dictate to me where my religious beliefs can and cannot be uttered. If your city councilor in Lowell cannot pledge to the flag under his God, then my two gay city councilors in Cambridge cannot be open about their sexuality. Its the exact same principle albeit religion is something you disdain and sexuality is something you tolerate so it might not be immediately clear to you. I tolerate both since I value freedom of expression in the public sphere.
First of all, the statement I called you out on wasn’t an assertion about BrooklineTom and I as compared to Christopher and you. You made a blanket assertion about religious people vs. non-religious people.
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p>Next you put words in my mouth.
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p>”You and BrooklineTom argue it cannot under any circumstance.”
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p>”, you would draw it where my house and my church meet the curb-significantly limiting my personal freedom. “
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p>You clearly are inferring positions I don’t hold. I challenge you to re-read everything I’ve said on this thread. (Don’t worry… I don’t expect you to actually do it – why should this time be any different. Just because you have a beef with BT, don’t use that as an excuse to put words in my mouth.
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p>What I said was that any such introduction in the public sphere must come from private actors and not governmental ones. I take the additional step of saying that the act of facilitating specific private religious speech is in itself an act, and that is why the government should avoid it. I have no problem with the valedictorian who wants to speak on his or her faith at graduation. I do have a problem with such a person invoking a participatory prayer because then what you have is the government facilitating a religious ceremony. That’s a no no. I find this position quite reasonable and not at all ‘zealous’.
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p>”Frankly the logic you have both employed, that public displays of religion offend you, could be employed to censor gay rights advocacy groups in the public schools since they could offend parents”
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p>This is ludicrous. I have employed no such logic. I have no problem with not censoring offensive speech. The fact that I find it offensive and saying so is not a call to invoke state censorship. Again, you’re putting words in my mouth. Frankly, I don’t even think I’ve mentioned my personal offense but once in this entire thread.
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p>”If your city councilor in Lowell cannot pledge to the flag under his God, then my two gay city councilors in Cambridge cannot be open about their sexuality. “
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p>Where do you come up with this? The constitution mentions religion, not gayness. I think that is salient. My position draws the distinction because there is a separation of church and state, not sexual preference and state.
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p>”Its the exact same principle albeit religion is something you disdain and sexuality is something you tolerate so it might not be immediately clear to you. I tolerate both since I value freedom of expression in the public sphere. “
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p>No. It isn’t the exact same thing because the constitution itself demonstrates an intolerance for religion in certain circumstances… namely that the state shouldn’t be involved. Seriously… have all the private speech you want. Bringing the state into it is a different matter.
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p>You are a disappointment. Bring Christopher back. At least he reads what was actually written.
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p>You demonstrate very well that you haven’t really read what I’ve said and are just lashing out believing that you’re speaking to things that I never actually said and positions I never actually asserted.
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p>I’m exploring the issue, bringing up what I think are relevant points and having a debate. What are you doing? Who’s zealous again?
Jesus Day … Jesus Day … isn’t there already one of those? I believe it’s called Christmas. Do you want official recognition of that abolished, because it crosses the line?
Christmas is and has always been a secular holiday with this country. You should look up the editorials by prominent ministers in the 1870s ridiculing the move to make it a federal holiday, or read the pamphlets Puritans wrote denouncing its celebration as ‘popery and idol worship’, or similarly educate yourself before you make ludicrous pronouncements.
Christmas – it’s got nothing to do with Christianity. Sure thing. Whatever you say.
You and I agree on the fact that there’s a line to be drawn that balances government neutrality on religion and a person’s religious freedom. We disagree on where that line is to be drawn. Yes, we agree on extreme cases, but not on all cases, including the examples you mentioned. I personally think that ignoring the idea of church-state separation is a relic of a more homogeneous past in this country, and does not reflect 21st century America. However, at least we agree on a reading of this law, which not everyone is willing to do.
I personally think that ignoring the idea of church-state separation is a relic of a more homogeneous past in this country, and does not reflect 21st century America.
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p>Are you claiming I ignore church/state separation or are you arguing that church/state separation in your view is obsolete?
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p>Similarly we disagree on the reading of the law in so much as the way I read it it protects rather than establishes religious speech, but I think we both agree (and correct me if I am wrong) that it is so poorly worded as to support your interpretation as well, or essentially cause confusion among school administrators where some might (properly) allow more liberal school policies on religious expression while others (improperly) might take it as a cue to endorse specific religious expression. Sorry if that last paragraph was redundant but that tends to happen when discussing a redundant law.
Would you support a student making reference to his/her religious beliefs in a commencement address? What about allowing the school choir to sing a hymn? What about an individual speaker beginning their speech with a prayer or invoking a deity in some capacity? What about a moment of silence at the start of the ceremony?
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p>Certainly a Lords prayer or other invocation would be improper, especially if lead by the administrators. And, again I believe one of the unfortunate aspects of this law is that it could allow the kinds of speech I questioned you about, speech i think is protected, or otherwise be read to allow the improper things I just mentioned.
Would you support a student making reference to his/her religious beliefs in a commencement address?
– Though I would not like such a reference to be the centerpiece of the address (which would be inappropriate), I think it would be keeping with the right of a student to authentically express him/herself.
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p>What about allowing the school choir to sing a hymn?
– No. The school choir reforming a hymn has the impact and implication of government endorsement of the religious source of the hymn, not to mention using school resources and time to practice.
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p>What about an individual speaker beginning their speech with a prayer or invoking a deity in some capacity?
– No. This is exclusionary of those who do not share that particular deity, or any in particular.
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p>What about a moment of silence at the start of the ceremony?
– Why not…people can use it as they’d like, prayer or not.
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p>See, the Lord’s prayer being led by students would be occurring with administration permission and implicitly endorsement; there is no difference beyond optics between that and the administrator doing the job him/herself.
… on the choir. Music sort of has to be an exception because the vast majority of the repertoire of the last 500 years is religious in nature. This necessitates that even a secular treatment of the subject will touch on religious repertoire. Imagine a secular class in literature but where something like 80% of all the books ever written were religious. Simply put, the church was the major patron for composition for the vast majority of time that western music was around. Similarly you can’t study the ethnomusicology of African Americans without getting into spirituals.
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p>All that being said, the study of the religious need not be a religious act. If instruction in such matters starts to look more and more like a religious act, a line can be crossed. Music teachers in general are aware of that line. It does put them in a peculiar position that most other educators do not encounter.
You’re talking about a music class, Mr Lynne. And a decent music class would have a large amount of religious music. However, if we’re picking a single tune for graduation (apparently, the secular Pomp and Circumstance wouldn’t count), no need to force God into it.
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p>PS: I don’t have the background, but I am suspicious of the 80% number you apply, particularly if one is broadening the scope beyond Western and Central Europe to all music.
Didn’t realize that the hypothetical choir performance was mentioned was specifically for a graduation ceremony. I wouldn’t be ok with it at that ceremony either. Its actually a good illustration of the fine line that music teachers need to consider.
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p>As to an expanded view of music history, the reason western music was such a big deal as related to other cultures was the system of notation. The result was twofold. First, because it was notated there is more of it study. Second, because it was notated it enjoyed a greater amount of circulation and enabled a greater level of complexity sparking the evolution of what we call today functional tonality. Simply put, the vast majority of all the music ever written uses this system and it’s roots are in western music.
Didn’t realize that the hypothetical choir performance was mentioned was specifically for a graduation ceremony. I wouldn’t be ok with it at that ceremony either. Its actually a good illustration of the fine line that music teachers need to consider.
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p>As to an expanded view of music history, the reason western music was such a big deal as related to other cultures was the system of notation. The result was twofold. First, because it was notated there is more of it study. Second, because it was notated it enjoyed a greater amount of circulation and enabled a greater level of complexity sparking the evolution of what we call today functional tonality. Simply put, the vast majority of all the music ever written uses this system and it’s roots are in western music.
What, exactly, is “Not true”?
What, exactly, is “Not true”?
Couldn’t have said it better myself!
….that administration;s will have to put together a forum for it??
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p>this legislation says that it should “allow for a limited public forum”
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p>i really don’t see how you think people are going to come into schools and have their kids preach religion to the other students or making it more difficult to “control” their topic of conversation
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p>tell that to the parents of kids who come home crying because a jehovah witness in their class tells them that there is no Santa Claus or that their religion is nothing.
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p>if you are so quick to shoot down any efforts at showing examples of how this protects students religious freedom,
why don’t you give me a few examples of how this will make religion infused in schools
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p>please, give me examples. it’s easier to howl at the moon, but show me why.
I’m flattered this diary inspired your first comments. Welcome. Mr. Lynne speaks my mind to your last comment; I agree completely.
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p>First off, if a policy is put forth to “limit” public religious expression to an hour before any ceremony, that obeys the spirit of the law.
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p>Secondly, this law is meant to facilitate religious expression by students. The law commands districts to adopt a way this can happen. My fiancee teaches third grade, and trust me, you don’t need to be Jehovah’s Witness (warning: minority religion!) to declare to other third-graders that Santa doesn’t exist. Matter of fact, it is an evangelical Christian church that annually organizes such a campaign among the children of its members to preserve the sanctity of Christmas.
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p>I gave examples, and you did not refute them. The law is intended not just to erase obstacles, but actively promote religious expression in school activities. You may call explaining the law “howling at the moon”, but denying the logic and evidence doesn’t make it disappear. You don’t have an argument with me, but decades of precedent in American courts.
glad to keep up discourse here at BMG
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p>i hope to show you that I am a true Democrat on other issues, wish I was on here during the Senate race!!
I have found this thread to be quite interesting. I seem to recall a 75 comment rule, so I figured I’d comment to push you over the top. I think if there are 75 comments a post gets front paged.
In existing law, a school can, if it wishes, “allow for a limited public forum”, within certain parameters (non-discrimination, etc.). The new law would mandate that schools must do this where before it was an option. The law as written is fine constitutionally because of the stated provisions. However, the new problem that the law creates is that it also forces schools to be in the ‘providing fora’ business where before they didn’t have to, and forces them to confront issues that are orthogonal to their mission (education).
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p>The tragic result is that we’d find more and more situations where schools wind up in the middle of confrontation regarding religious speech when previously it wasn’t necessary. All it will take is for one group to be ruled against (a likelihood that is necessarily increased in the new paradigm) to claim victimhood. Now we’re talking about more lawyers and more administrators and educators spending time, effort, and money on this sideshow that detracts from their core mission.
Substantial reasoning as to why we need to pass this bill. Is the burden of proof not upon those offering the law? I often find the argument in support comes as a result of refuting a claim against the bill, not from the benefit of what is written.
I said in the above comments that I see no reason why what is covered by this law is not already covered by existing law, thus why I do not see how this law justify’s sabutai and others polemical assault upon it and their extreme reactions. I think this was just another way for them to vent their prejudices and bigotry towards religious beliefs of any kind vieled under the pretense of discussing a current event.
To me the proposed mandate that school officials provide a forum for expression of relgious beliefs in public school activities unnecessarily (if not intentionally) opens a huge can of worms, as Mr. Lynne, sabutai and others rightly and repeatedly suggest above.
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p>If parents want religious expression to be an explicit part of their childrens’ education, they always have the option of religious schools or home schooling. Putting a public school in the position of appearing to “promote” a particular religion or religions — by virtue of student demographics, if nothing else — strikes me as a clear violation of the principle of the separation of church and state and the protection of individual religious freedom guaranteed under the First Amedment.
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p>And just for clarification, I do not consider myself to be “militantly” atheistic or anti-religious.
The language strikes me as terribly vague, I mean what’s a “limited public forum?”
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p>However, I’d like to point out that the bill’s main sponsor, my State Rep, Vinny DeMacedo, attends a pretty fundamentalist church.
would benefit from an education in the joys of Pastafarianism?
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p>The vagueness can work both ways, I suppose. I bet a lot of kids would welcome every opportunity to offer public devotionals to the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
God knows this is so much more immediately pressing than, for example, running trains safely (never mind on time), figuring out how Massachusetts residents can feed themselves and their children, or figuring out how to provide health care to the inhabitants of this world-wide center of medical research.
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p>Yes, my reference to a deity is both intentional and facetious.
These types of “focusing on the wrong issues” attacks leave a very sour taste in my mouth. This country will never be at a place where seemingly “unimportant” legislation can be discussed. There will always be bigger issues to tackle. This is no different than Republicans claiming that repealing DADT is wrong at this time. It’s only the “wrong time” because we don’t like the legislation. Theoretically, members only get 2 years. If they want to put something on the floor, that they feel is in Massachusetts’ best interests, they should have every right.
Of course they have every right to put this on the floor.
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p>Just as I, similarly, have every right to call it a meaningless, misguided distraction from far more important issues at hand.
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p>Our nation is entangled in three wars (Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan) and a fourth looms (Yemen). Our military is already stretched to (many who know say past) the breaking point. When our military and civilian leadership agree that DADT is a significant and unnecessary drain on our military leadership, I find the Republican claim that repealing DADT is wrong “at this time” to be just as specious, dishonest, and wrong-headed as any of the other specious, dishonest and wrong headed-headed claims that the GOP currently makes.
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p>Meanwhile, I see zero indication that an absence of prayer opportunities in Massachusetts schools is in any way contributing to the many serious challenges that face our legislature and our residents.
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p>I think your attempted comparison is misguided.
Because you see the merits of overturning DADT and believe they vastly outweigh the subsequent strain it would put on our troops during these difficult times.
I have the silly idea that DADT is related to military preparedness in a time of war.
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p>Whether I agree or disagree with DADT, it seems clear enough to me that the two are connected to each other.
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p>Please help me understand the analogous connection between introducing prayer in our schools and the various local issues I’ve mentioned.
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p>Let me be very concrete. The NTSB has published a scathing report about MBTA safety practices. Governor Patrick’s hand-picked expert came back with an even bleaker report.
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p>Please help me understand how prayer in the schools is even remotely connected to MBTA safety or the lack thereof. Are you hoping that thousands of public school children will pray that the trains stay on the track?
And there is a belief that overturning DADT harms that preparedness. It distracts from the greater issue of fighting out enemies. And subsequently, we can’t afford that distraction during these stressful time.
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p>In other words, there are more important issues to deal with right now.
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p>You assume that connection to a greater issue is the only means for it’s relevancy. Well, if the connection is one of disharmony, then certainly that must be taken into consideration to.
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p>Thus leading back to my point in the previous post that it’s only misguided because we were offering different views of how DADT is related to military preparedness.
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p>While I understand your asking me about how prayer is related to the MBTA, we are not having a debate of the simple connectivity of DADT and military preparedness. We were offering different views as to how that preparedness is affected by DADT.
Shortly after Kate suggested front-page promotion on this post, it was so promoted under the line “God’s will be done”.
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p>So, is this Kate’s new title, or…?
…though I sense something of a tongue in cheek quality to it.
Partly because my internet is being uncooperative and partly because I’m getting a little tired of getting beat up for not following the orthodoxy (ironic term in this context, but I digress), I’m done swinging back at every comment. Maybe it is my partly my fault for not making myself clear, so lets try this. My view is that we will do just fine for the most part without the new law, though I still think having policies in place could prove helpful. For me this is kind of like the casino issue in that it’s not so much that I strongly support the proposal, but I am more reacting to the reactions. Contrary to what people seem to be concluding, I have had plenty of acquaitance and interaction with people of all faiths and no faith. I honestly don’t know at this point if I were a legislator whether I would vote for it or not. This is obviously a passion-provoking issue and I may have contributed my share of snippiness, but I am always in favor of anything that promotes religious understanding and opposed to anything compulsory. I look forward to hearing more of the thinking from the legislative sponsors, who hopefully will be open to tweaking the proposal to address concerns expressed here.
“I am always in favor of anything that promotes religious understanding and opposed to anything compulsory.”
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p>The only orthodoxy around here is that we all pay attention to facts. And the fact is that this law would promote religious division as different groups within the community maneuver to take advantage of this law. Broadcasting religious beliefs at a high school graduation is compulsory exposure (for students) and funding (for taxpayers) of whatever religion(s) the administration decides to back. By your own metrics, this bill fails.
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p>As for the sponsors, I’ve spent some time contacting them. From their general responses, here’s what I’m hearing:
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p>1-This bill hasn’t been vetted or examined in a thorough-going way. Multiple sponsors have told me they weren’t aware of the legal environment of this issue that makes this law superfluous and troublesome.
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p>2-There’s a wide understanding that this bill isn’t going anywhere. Its sponsor, Rep. DeMacedo, has done little with it since filing it, and the session is heading toward its end. It’s been largely forgotten in the State House.
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p>3-This bill was filed in the wake of a solitary incident, related third-hand to a limited number of members of the General Court; this bill is a direct reaction to that story. The incident, if taken at face value, stems from a mistaken interpretation of the law at a single school. That is a local administrative problem, not a state-wide legal issue.
“…a mistaken interpretation of the law at a single school.”
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p>Often (YMMV) when a separation issue comes up in education, this is the factor that exacerbates it. Seems like administrations should have a guide regarding the law and religion & free speech.
However, understanding the law on the religion isn’t the sort of thing that shows up in standardized test scores, so why make an issue of it?
… but to be available as a resource when the issue comes up.
It is, of course, the nature of language that definitions need to hit the “sweet spot” between being both comprehensive and specific enough to be useful.
Misplaced comment….