Tag Archives: Secularism

News

Public school censors student for singing Christian song

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Here’s a disturbing story from Fox News.

Excerpt:

A California elementary school is changing course after being sued for barring a fifth grader from performing to a Christian song in the school’s February 4 talent show.

The students parents filed a lawsuit Friday saying Superior Street Elementary School violated their son’s first amendment rights by telling him he couldn’t dance to his favorite song “We Shine” because of its references to Jesus, MyFoxLA reported.

The lawsuit claims that after the boy’s January 14 audition the school’s principal, Jerilyn Shubert, told his mother the song was “offensive” and a violation of the “separation of church and state” and asked why he couldn’t “pick a song that does not say Jesus so many times?”

[…]The Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal alliance that brought the case on behalf of the student, says while its pleased with the district’s decision the lawsuit will continue to ensure that the school drafts a policy to prevent this from happening again.”Christian students shouldn’t be censored at public elementary schools because district officials think that religious speech may be offensive, which isn’t justified by the Constitution” said ADF Senior Counsel David Cortman. “The LAUSD did the right thing by recognizing the student’s constitutional rights and lifting its censorship of religious speech at the talent show.”

The school is, of course, a government-run (i.e. – public) school. The school web site is here. I found something interesting on the web site.

Excerpt:

Superior Street Elementary School, as a multicultural and diverse learning community, prepares each student for academic, social, and personal success by providing a safe, supportive, challenging, and meaningful environment.

The problem with public schools is that they get paid money up front through taxation so that they have no responsibility to provide results to their customers in order to earn that money. Instead of having to compete with other schools in order to get paid, they get paid regardless of how they perform. So by the time that Christian parents discover what they are getting for their taxpayer dollars, it’s too late to take them back, and the only solution is to sue, which costs time and money.

But there is another point I want to make about the ADF and the lawyers. Where do they come from? And who pays them?

I ask this because recently I have been having discussions with a single Christian woman who thinks that anything that children want to do with their lives is as good as any other thing. I sent her the profiles of some high-powered influencers on either side of the culture war, e.g. – high-tech business owners who use their fortunes to promote same-sex marriage and conservative Supreme Court justices. I would put the ADF into the class of high-powered influencers. But the response from her was that poets can be just as influential as wealthy entrepreneurs or Supreme Court Justices.

Let’s just take a look at the biography of an ADF lawyer and see what they are like:

Alan Sears serves as president, CEO, and general counsel of the Alliance Defense Fund, a legal alliance of Christian attorneys and like-minded organizations defending the right of people to freely live out their faith. He leads the strategy, training, funding, and litigation efforts of ADF that have resulted in various roles in 37 victories at the U.S. Supreme Court and wins in more than three out of four cases litigated to conclusion. Under his leadership, ADF has funded more than 2,000 grants and legal projects for allied lawyers and organizations, and ADF attorneys have successfully defended marriage as the union between one man and one woman in over 40 cases nationwide.

Since the launch of ADF in 1994, Sears has provided strategic leadership in the training of more than 1,400 lawyers through the ADF one-of-a-kind National Litigation Academy, which is designed to equip attorneys to more effectively defend religious freedom, the sanctity of life, and marriage and the family. These attorneys have reported more than $117 million in pro-bono/dedicated time. Sears’ visionary efforts have also resulted in the graduation of more than 900 outstanding law students— representing more than 140 law schools—from the unique ADF Blackstone Legal Fellowship program. This in-depth summer internship program helps equip these students to assume leadership positions to shape the future of American law. Today, ADF has more than 1,800 allied attorneys.

Sears earned his Juris Doctor from Louis D. Brandeis School of Law. While serving in numerous positions within the government, he worked for the Department of Justice under Attorneys General William French Smith and Edwin Meese III, including service as an Assistant U.S. Attorney and Chief of the Criminal Section. Sears was also appointed as the director of the Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography and served as associate solicitor with the Department of the Interior under Secretary Donald Hodel. A graduate of the University of Kentucky, Sears has continued his education with professional instruction at Stanford University, Harvard Law School, Harvard Business School, and Pepperdine University.

Practicing law for three decades, Sears is a member in good standing with the American, Arizona, California, District of Columbia (inactive), and Kentucky bar associations. He has helped fashion the language for numerous state and federal laws and has testified before committees of the U.S. House and Senate, state legislatures, and many local governments and commissions. Legislators in 20 states have adopted his legislative recommendations. Sears has assisted legislators and law enforcement officials from many countries and has spoken before committees of the British Parliament.

I would link to the profile of a poet for contrast, but the poet accomplished nothing in his life and had no effect on society as a whole.

The interesting thing is that both of these children cost about the same to raise. Is one a better deal than the other? If I knew I was going to get poets on the other end of the decision to marry, could I do better using the money for the child for something else that would benefit God more – like sponsoring Christian apologetics events? What is the point of marrying and having children anyway? What is the business case? What is the value proposition to a man who has scarce resources that have alternative uses? And what leverage do I have after a marriage to make sure my plan will be followed? (E.g. – consider this case)

I should also note that the ADF is a charity and is funded by the donations of wealthy Christians. They are not funded by the donations of poets, because poets have no marketable skills and therefore nothing to share with others. Actually, it is poets who invent concepts like postmodernism, moral relativism, emotivism, diversity and multiculturalism, which is what causes these problems in the first place.

News

University of Kentucky pays $125,000 to settle anti-Christian discrimination suit

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From the radically leftist Washington Post. (H/T Evolution News)

Excerpt:

An astronomy professor who sued the University of Kentucky after claiming he lost out on a top job because of his Christian beliefs reached a settlement Tuesday with the school.

The university agreed to pay $125,000 to Martin Gaskell in exchange for dropping a federal religious discrimination suit he filed in Lexington in 2009. A trial was set for next month.

Gaskell claimed he was passed over to be director of UK’s MacAdam Student Observatory because of his religion and statements that were perceived to be critical of evolution.

Court records showed Gaskell was a front-runner for the job, but some professors called him “something close to a creationist” and “potentially evangelical” in interoffice e-mails to other university scientists.

“We never thought from the start that everybody at UK was some sort of anti-religious bigot,” said Frank Manion, Gaskell’s attorney. “However, what I do think this case disclosed is a kind of endemic, almost knee-jerk reaction in academia towards people, especially scientists, of a strong religious faith.”

A statement from University of Kentucky counsel Barbara Jones Tuesday said the school’s “hiring processes were and are fundamentally sound and were followed in this case.” The university does not admit any wrongdoing.

[…]After applying for the job in 2007, Gaskell said he learned from a friend at UK that professors had discussed his purported religious views. E-mails turned over as evidence in the case showed that university scientists wondered if Gaskell’s faith would interfere with the job, which included public outreach and education.

One astrophysics professor at UK told department chair Michael Cavagnero in an e-mail that hiring Gaskell would be a “huge public relations mistake.”

[…]Manion said documents and e-mail communications turned over by UK in the case showed strong evidence of religious bias, including a professor who surmised that Gaskell was “potentially evangelical.”

“The fact that somebody could say that without realizing the implications, speaks volumes,” Manion said. “Because all you have to do is substitute any other label – potentially Jewish, potentially Muslim. Nobody would say that.”

I think we should definitely de-fund these universities, put the money into the hands of taxpayers, and let the taxpayers decide where to send their children to college – or WHETHER to send their children to college.

Commentary

Should Christians support government-run day care?

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Recently, a Gallup poll came out about human origins.

Here was an interesting finding in the survey:

A significantly higher percentage of Republicans indicated a creationist view of human origins, which Gallup experts say reflects in part the strong relationship between religion and politics in contemporary America. Republicans are also significantly more likely to attend church weekly than are others. Democrats and Independents showed similar views on human origins:

  • Republicans: 36 percent think humans evolved through a God-guided process; 8 percent say God had no part in the process; and 52 percent held the creationist view.
  • Democrats: 40 percent agree with evolution through a God-guided process; 20 percent say God had no part in the process; and 34 percent held the creationist view.
  • Independents: 39 percent agree with evolution through a God-guided process; 21 percent say God had no part in the process; and 34 percent held the creationist view.

Gallup officials wrote that it’s not surprising some 80 percent of Americans hold a view of human origins that involves God, since most Americans believe in God and about 85 percent identify with a religion.

What I find interesting is this – how the heck can someone be a young earth creationist, (which is a view that people can only hold because they are getting it out of the Bible), and yet vote for Democrats? Democrats stand for the enlargement of the secular leftist state, for the destruction of marriage and family, and for the complete elimination of religious liberty and traditional morality from the public square. No mature, authentic Christian votes Democrat.

What happens when Christians for left-wing parties?

Now, with that said, let’s look at the most liberal province in Canada, Quebec. Quebec is a French-speaking province that was traditionally dominated by Roman Catholicism.

Consider this editorial in the National Post, Canada’s best newspaper.

Excerpt:

It’s never too early to close the minds of the young. That’s the thinking of the provincial government in Quebec, which announced earlier this month a ban on religion in subsidized daycare centres.

Subsidized daycare is a central part of social policy in Quebec — parents pay $7/day, and provincial government pays the rest, which is about $40/day. The government of Quebec is now increasing its vigilance on what dangerous ideas the toddlers might be exposed to.

Just before Christmas, Family Minister Yolande James announced regulations that would seek to ban religion instruction from daycare centres that take government money. Given that four-year-olds are unlikely to be studying theology, the Quebec government is out to stamp out religious expressions — prayers, songs, bible stories, manger scenes and even explanations for religious dietary practices.

[…]Our editorial board argued on Tuesday that Quebec’s massive subsidies for approved daycare spaces has effectively crowded out non-subsidized daycare. The economic argument is clear — subsidize one form of child care over all others, and soon there will effectively be just one form of child care. Daycare has been de facto nationalized in Quebec, and the national religion of intolerant secularism will now be imposed.The cultural question is more troubling. So serious is Quebec’s government about imposing its view on all children that, concurrent with the new regulations, it will triple the number of inspectors to enforce them. Quebec will soon have 58 inquisitors dropping in on daycares to ensure compliance. One can only imagine the scene when the inquisition arrives, sifting through the sandbox in search of clandestine religious items. And who will write the code for the bureaucrats, ensuring that miscreant daycare workers don’t mention that la fête nationale was once upon a time Saint-Jean-Baptiste?

There is an economic cost to big government. There is also a cultural cost, if everywhere government goes alternative values and viewpoints must retreat. If government goes everywhere, including the care of babies, then not even babies are entitled to hear views that dissent from government dogma. Quebec has long since abandoned the neutral state in favour of the aggressively secular state. Where the Quebec state goes, religion must retreat, and there is no limit on where the Quebec state will go.

The heart of every culture is its attitude to the big questions of human life and existence. That’s why a sensible people leaves culture in the hands of the churches, the artists, the musicians and the writers. Only a deeply insecure society entrusts culture to bureaucratic inquisitors. And only bureaucratic inquisitors see threats emerging in the cradle.

Totalitarian states have always sought to control the kindergartens and the schools and the youth groups, all the better to ensure that the influence of parents on their own children is attenuated. There is the hard totalitarianism that comes by force of arms. Soft totalitarianism comes by way of subsidies, where first the family is embraced by the state, and only then is it suffocated.

The educational world in Quebec does not leave much room to breathe. On religious and cultural matters, the consensus position, as defined by the curriculum apparatchiks, must be taught without exception in all public schools, private schools and even at home. Until now, the preschoolers had escaped the stifling grasp of government. No longer.

As our editorial pointed out, the actual educational results of Quebec daycare are poor. Quebec’s nationalized daycares don’t teach little Quebeckers very much. Now they will ensure that the youngsters know even less.

And remember, the effort to ram sex education into the minds of younger children over the objections of their parents is quite common in Canada, and other European countries, too.

Every time a Christian votes to tax their rich neighbor or their rich employer, they are taking money away from the private, individual realm, and transferring it to the realm of government. Politicians use that money to buy votes from the masses by subsidizing their selfishness, irresponsibility and recklessness. Instead of having money spent by responsible workers and businesses for responsible workers and businesses, it gets wasted on people who are often lazy and who make poor decisions. To understand what this redistribution of wealth means, you need look no further than the skyrocketing out-of-wedlock birth rate and the resulting social problems, which imposes costs on all taxpayers.

There is a right way to look at politics and economics from the Christian perspective. And mature Christian should have thought these things through.

Now might be a good time to recommend Wayne Grudem’s new book, “Politics According to the Bible”. Grudem is a Bible-believing Christian with a Ph.D from Cambridge University. He is the author of the most widely used and respected systematic theology book. I also recommend Jay Richards’ book “Money, Greed and God”. Richards’ Ph.D is from Princeton University. Those looking for a smaller, simpler book can try “The Virtues of Capitalism”. A good economics book for beginners is “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Capitalism”. And a good longer book for beginners is “Basic Economics”, 4th edition, by Thomas Sowell.