While there is currently a national debate over our future, in Texas there is a debate over our past. The Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) released the first draft of proposed new social studies curriculum standards this week, and there is expected to be a debate over what and how history is taught in Texas. This comes only months after the debate about science curriculum standards in which there was a debate over teaching evolution or intelligent design (creationism). The Texas Freedom Network reported that the first draft was encouraging, and that "teachers, academics and other community members on the curriculum writing teams refused to bow to far-right pressure to inject political agendas into history, geography and other social studies classrooms."
The SBOE appointed a panel of experts to advise the SBOE on the social studies curriculum, and points of debate include the role of the Bible and Christian influence on the founding of the United States; debates on which historical figures should be included in lesson plans, textbooks, and standardized tests. The debates about curriculum in Texas have been hyper partisan; a group of fundamentalist Christian social conservatives controls a majority voting block on the SBOE. This partisan divide has far reaching effects, as the curriculum standards, specifically the language used in text books, has a national impact because the text books purchased by Texas (the second largest purchaser of text books in the country) are often used as a model for other states text books.
"America's government was made only for people who are moral and religious."
That is the message behind ten billboard advertisements in Florida that are attacking the separation of church and state; the Community Issues Council (CIC) has funded the billboards advertisements in Pinellas and Hillsborough counties. According to an article in the St. Petersburg Times, Terry Kemple, the president and sole employee of the CIC, claims that there is a national necessity for Christian governance.
However, the billboard featured in the St. Petersburg article attributes a completely false quote to President George Washington: "It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible." While the newspaper characterized the quote as "fictional attribution" and Kemple does not believe that there is a "document in Washington's handwriting that has those words in that specific form," the billboard itself directly attributes the quote to Washington.
The billboards have not gone unchallenged; there is an op-ed in the Tampa Bay Tribune by J. Brent Walker which thoroughly debunks the "false claims and misleading assertions about our country's history and commitment to religious freedom." However, thousands if not millions of people will read those billboards and many will take the misleading attributions as fact.
I have been paying close attention to the role of the Religious Right in politics for over 10 years . I know a little of its history and so I find nothing unusual in having front groups like The Family Research Council and CRAVE (Christians Reviving America's Values) decide that opposing Health Care for all is somehow a family values issue upon which they can pass Biblical judgment. But the fountain of illogic which spews from these sources still takes my breath away:
America Cannot Afford Health Care [the group's president, Don Swarthout is speaking:] What have the uninsured people been doing for health care all of these years? The answer is simple. They have been going to Emergency Rooms to be treated because our laws and the Hippocratic Oath taken by doctors say that they must be treated. . . .
Let's remember that hospitals are in business to make money. They cannot continue to stay in business unless somebody, you and I, pay for those who cannot pay for themselves. So the hospitals figure the cost of treating the uninsured into the costs of treating responsible people who can pay. Therefore, you and I are ALREADY paying for people who cannot pay for themselves.
Now the Government wants to run our Health Care Program. Never mind the fact that the Government has stolen our Social Security money and has replaced it with worthless IOU's. The government is broke and cannot pay us back what they stole from us in the form of Social Security money. Of course the government does not say anything about that fact. Besides we already have a $12,000,000,000 dollar deficit. Swarthout concluded, "Health Care for everyone would be nice...if we could afford it. However, for America Health Care is just another good idea that we cannot afford."
Liberty University has prohibited privileges granted to other student organizations, and these privileges where denied based solely on what the organization believes. Did Liberty deny recognition to a white supremacy group, or did Liberty not allow an anti-Semitic organization to use the universities name in association with their group? The university has denied the College Democrats to ability to use the university's name or to receive any funding from the university, based on their support of candidates.
According to a Liberty press release, the College Democrats are allowed to meet on campus, however the student group could no longer identify with the university and the university will no longer sponsor or endorse the group. The university has stated that this would be a better situation for the student group because they did not have to gain approval for meetings and could endorse candidates that are pro-life. However, this also means that the student group cannot participate in promoting their group on campus, and will not be allowed to invite speakers or hold any other events besides the unofficial meetings.
According to a National Public Radio (NPR) report, the chancellor of the university, Jerry Falwell, Jr., said that ""It's not about Democrat/Republican. It's about protecting the sanctity of life." Falwell stated that the reason the student group is not longer recognized was because of its support for pro-choice candidates and candidates that support gay rights. The College Democrats on campus have not publically endorsed abortion rights or same-sex marriage, and in fact the group's constitution expresses their opposition to those policies. In the NPR report Brian Diaz, the President of the College Democrats, said that "Jesus talked about the poor more than he did about abortion or gay marriage."
According to another article in the Washington Post, Diaz stated that the group's constitution, which was approved by university officials, gives the group latitude to endorse candidates. Both the College Democrats and the College Republicans endorsed candidates. Also, according to the same article the two groups where preparing to organize anti-abortion events this fall.
"...Apparently, our teachers are supposed to tell students that whenever we haven't figured something out yet, we should stop our research and assume Goddidit. And if we don't yet know how exactly how the first living cells formed, that somehow negates everything we do know to be true about evolution after that. But worse, they want to mislead our kids into thinking every kind of life appeared all at once, ignoring all the evident stages of progression still absent by then, as well as all the evident predecessors we've found in earlier strata. And they want to teach as fact outright falsehoods easily disproved, as well as pseudoscience already publicly exposed in a court of law. What sort of sinister saboteurs are on these school boards?"
(Texas is ground zero on Fundie anti Science strategy. It's good TFN is on the job. Please support them if you can. - promoted by boadicea)
The debate about teaching creationism in the classroom is set to start again in Texas after a report was released this week by the Texas Freedom Network Education Fund detailing a survey conducted of what scientist in Texas think should be taught in Texas science classrooms. The survey concludes that 98% of scientists favor the unadulterated teaching of evolution in public school science classrooms.
The Discovery Institute, the conservative Christian anti-science "think tank," posted an article in which the claim is made that it is actually the TFN that wants to "water down the teaching of evolution" and "remove the strengths and weaknesses language." The article goes on to claim that the 95% of scientist in the report only want "half of evolution taught" and "are seeking to limit the free flow of information and censor science." Another claim is that there are "valid and significant scientific challenges to Darwinian evolution that students need to know about. Evidence is not contingent on a consensus."
Teaching evolution in science class is not teaching half of evolution, because intelligent design is not half of the theory of evolution. Intelligent design is not science, in fact it does not even met the basic criteria of a scientific theory. Also, there is not a significant amount of scientific challenges to evolution that students need to be taught; Lawrence Krauss reviewed 10 million scientific articles and scientific citation indexes over twelve years and found that there were 88 articles about intelligent design and only 11 were not in engineering journals and out of those 8 out of 11 were critical of intelligent design and the remaining 3 were not in peer reviewed journals.
Other notable findings in the survey included that 89.7% of scientist surveyed believed that "modern evolutionary biology is largely correct in its essentials, but still has open questions for active scientific research." While 0% of scientists (none of the 464 survey recipients) believe that "modern evolutionary biology is completely wrong" and that "life was created essentially as we see it today." When asked if there was significant difference between creationism and intelligent design 78.2% said that there was no difference and 15.5% said that there was a difference.
This evening the Texas State Board of Education is conducting a public forum on current curriculum requiring students to be taught the "strengths and weaknesses" of all scientific theories, and according to the Houston Chronicle "89 people had signed up to testify on the proposal, which also suggests encouraging middle school students to discuss alternative explanations for evolution."
Despite the voices of hundreds of scientist from Universities across the state, including conservative Christian colleges such as Baylor University, Dallas Baptist University, and Texas Christian University, there are still voices that insist that intelligent design and creationism is actually about science and not religion. In the same article Jonathan Saenz, a lobbyist for the conservative Christian organization Texas Free Market Foundation, said, "The reality is this issue is about evolution and teaching strengths and weaknesses of evolution. It's about science and teaching science right, regardless of what religious beliefs people have."
Many Catholics may understandably feel that the bishops are talking out of both sides of their mouths: Catholics are not supposed to be single-issue voters, but, by the way, abortion is the only issue that counts. The bishops do not intend to tell Catholics how to vote; but, by the way, a vote for Senator Obama puts your salvation at risk. Catholics are to form their consciences and make prudential judgments about complex matters of good and evil - just so long as they come to the same conclusions as the bishops.
There is obviously a gap between the prudential leeway that "Faithful Citizenship" affirmed for Catholics and the political urgency that some bishops feel about abortion - and already some of the latter are suggesting that the document should be recast again, presumably to make conformity to one's bishop's judgment a litmus test for being a faithful Catholic.
WASHINGTON -- Politically speaking, Susan Speakman is a different kind of evangelical.
Mrs. Speakman, 59, a pastor and educator at Bethany Presbyterian Church in Bridgeville, Pa., an activist evangelical church southwest of Pittsburgh, backs Senator Barack Obama in the presidential race. Along with her 23-year-old son, Stephen, she supports Mr. Obama because of his stands on the Iraq war and matters of social justice. The two of them plan to spread the word in their community and beyond.
"What caught my attention early on was his comment that we don't want red states and blue states, but we want to find reconciliation and rapprochement with folks," said Mrs. Speakman, who changed her party affiliation to Democratic from Republican this year to vote for Mr. Obama in the Pennsylvania primary. "I really object to the other approach -- divide and conquer, isolate and demonize the opposition. I try to engage the other side and try to find ways we can bring the values of the kingdom of God into the experience of humanity."
Mrs. Speakman is one of thousands of evangelical Christians and so-called faith voters whom the Obama campaign is recruiting in a major effort to connect with a part of the electorate that accounts for an estimated quarter of the voting population and helped elect George W. Bush president twice."
Obama's outreach to faith based voters presents both opportunities and dangers. His declaration today in support of a revised Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives makes this very clear.
For years now, religious fundies have gone around claiming their and only their extreme and bigoted form of religion represent true faith.
And these fundies have used religion to divide people, to spread fear and promote hate. I'd accuse these nutcases of using the Lord's name in vain, but unfortunately they have used religion effectively as a weapon and have driven many from the church.
Well, many progressives including TK's moiv and groups like From Talk to Action, progressives are taking back religion from these fundies.
It was a decision enthusiastically supported by its members and one which Rev. Bradley Schmeling, the man in the center of the storm, called "a crack in the dam."
Well, here's to hoping a few more cracks in the dam appear and finally tear that wall down because there is a real thirst in the world for something spiritual and hopeful.
And religious fundamentalists around the world having been keeping it from us.
Having shown over the last seven months, since taking control of the legislative branch that they are at least equal to the Republicans when it comes to avarice, the Democrats set out this past weekend to demonstrate that, when it comes to cowardice, to blatant, unmitigated, ass covering politics they are every bit a match for Republicans.
Who impeaches the Congress? What in our Constitution protects the citizens of this country from a completely rogue government? When all three branches have abrogated their constitutional obligations, who will stand up for, who will represent the people of the United States?
Where must we search, to whom do we go for protection from the power of the wealthy corporate classes who are stealing our wealth, our livelihoods, and our future, who are spitting on our laws and our history as they sacrifice our Children and Grandchildren on the profane altar of their greed, in their eternal wars for profit and power?
Where is the opposition? Where do we go for redress of grievances when every institution of government is in the hands of the enemies of the people?
I’m sure we would all like this question answered in the unequivocal resounding and definite yes or no form, but sadly we have to make educated guesses and read between the lines of the bible and sift through the millions of interpretations feed to Christians throughout the better part of the last 2000+ years every day.
Jerry Falwell, self appointed mouthpiece of God. August 11, 1933 - May 15, 2007
Jerry Falwell, sadly, didn't live long enough to experience the Grand Opening on May 28 of the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky.
I'm sure that he would have jumped at the chance to view animatronic exhibits depicting humans and dinosaurs living together on the Earth and the planetarium, which presents to the astronomically curious Christian a selection of "creationist cosmologies" all unfolding within the approved Biblical time span of six thousand years.
A display at the Creation Museum near Cincinnati, Ohio
Jerry probably studied this stuff when he went to school at Baptist Bible College in Springfield, Missouri, but he would have relished the chance to witness the sharing of the true, biblically correct, "history" of the universe with a new generation of inquiring young minds.
Editor's note: Had to modify the diary to fit the frontpage, but another great diary from Bob.
As Ross Perot would say, this stuff's "HI-larious"!
DENVER - Prominent evangelical Christians are urging churchgoers to strongly consider adoption or foster care, not just out of kindness or biblical calling but also to answer criticism that their movement, while condemning abortion and same-sex adoption, doesn't do enough for children without parents.
With backing from Focus on the Family and best-selling author Rick Warren, the effort to promote "orphan care" among the nation's estimated 65 million evangelicals could drastically reduce foster care rolls if successful.
Yet sensitive issues lie ahead: about evangelizing, religious attitudes on corporal punishment, gay and lesbian foster children, racially mixed families, and resolving long-standing tensions between religious groups and the government.
The banwitdth devoted to the dangers of Church to State is enormous. Being righteous lefties that analysis comes easy to us. As a lefty who is also believer, I also see the other side of that equation and the dangers run in both directions.
Warning: I am writing as a believer, if you get apoplectic at a discussion of God and faith, skip this diary. This is for the
link 63 percent [of Americans who ] say they are a member of a church or synagogue, and 43 percent of respondents to a 2006 Gallup Poll [who] said they attended services weekly or almost weekly
Disclaimer: I am a practicing Roman Catholic. I have blogged on my relationship with the church here
Bad Religion, manipulative "preachers" are not just hard on the pocketbooks of the desperate and lonely, they can be down right deadly....
:: Metro Pulse Online :: link
" TV evangelist Darlene Bishop (Monroe, Ohio) had a wrongful-death lawsuit filed against her in late 2006 by the family of her brother, who died after a battle with throat cancer, which the family says Bishop convinced him (on his deathbed) that he had defeated through her ministry of prayer. Before her brother was stricken, Bishop's main healing example was herself, in that she touted prayer as having enabled her to beat her own breast cancer, but she later conceded that she merely believed herself stricken and that no formal diagnosis had been made. (Bishop's brother was a prominent country and western songwriter, and the family members are contesting his considerable estate.)"
Taylor prof sues Texas seminary for gender bias
She was denied tenure at Baptist college.
From The Associated Press
FORT WORTH, Texas - A former Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary professor has filed a federal lawsuit against the school and its president, alleging she lost her tenure-track position because of her gender.
The lawsuit filed Thursday in Fort Worth's federal court claims Sheri Klouda was fired because she was a woman teaching men. The lawsuit seeking unspecified damages accused the seminary and its president, Paige Patterson, of breach of contract, fraud and defamation.
You say, this is a slam dunk for the woman plaintiff. Well...
(Because new GMT is to be celebrated and shared as widely as possible. - promoted by boadicea)
The recent debate on the left between believers and non-believers is not about religion, it's about morality.
The problem has been that the word "moral" is as misused in our language as references to religion are misused in our politics. In American politics, the word moral is as common and bland as mayonaise. People use the word in a way that shows that they don't know what it means. Sometimes I think people want the word to stay vague.
A group of Methodist ministers launched an online petition this morning to gather signatories of Methodists who are opposed to the installation of the George W Bush Presidential Libary on the SMU campus. A statement on their website reads thusly:
We the undersigned express our objection to the prospect of the George W. Bush library, museum, and think tank being established at Southern Methodist University. As United Methodists, we believe that the linking of his presidency with a university bearing the Methodist name is utterly inappropriate. We urge the Board of Trustees of Southern Methodist University and the South Central Jurisdiction of The United Methodist Church to reject this project.
One of the organisers, Andrew J. Weaver, graduate of the SMU Perkins School of Theology, explained why many Methodists are objecting: "Methodists have a long history of social conscience, so questions about the conduct of this president are very concerning."
The possibility that SMU will get the Bush library has sparked controversy on campus. Previously, faculty, staff, and administrators at the Perkins School distributed a widely-read letter detailing their objections to the library:
"We count ourselves among those who would regret to see SMU enshrine attitudes and actions widely deemed as ethically egregious: degradation of habeas corpus, outright denial of global warming, flagrant disregard for international treaties, alienation of long-term U.S. allies, environmental predation, shameful disrespect for gay persons and their rights, a pre-emptive war based on false and misleading premises, and a host of other erosions of respect for the global human community and for this good Earth on which our flourishing depends."
"[T]hese violations are antithetical to the teaching, scholarship, and ethical thinking that best represents Southern Methodist University."
Go sign the petition, especially if you're a member of the Methodist church, then click the beneath the fold for more on this kerfluffle.
The midterm election is barely over and the religious far right is already acting out over incoming Minnesota Democratic Congressman Keith Ellison's stated intention to be sworn in using the Koran rather than the Bible.
Ellison, the first member of the Islamic faith to be elected to the United States Congress has served in the Minnesota Legislature. His desire to use the Koran at his swearing-in ceremony has apparently caused great consternation and hand wringing among some of the luminaries of the religious and not so religious right. Fox News' Sean Hannity, famous for making mole hills appear as mountains could not pass up an opportunity to dig in to this nonsensical non issue last week.
His invited guest was a guy named Dennis Prager who I am told has a right wing talk-show in Los Angeles, I envision the type of show that Donald Fagin sang of in "Night Fly."
"So you say there's a race of men in the trees, I wait all night for calls like these." Donald Fagin
I will probably never understand what motivates these people to worship the symbols and trappings of a particular religious faith rather than the substance, the core, the Deity. I would think it should be obvious to the fateful that it is Nature's God that is the object of worship not the icons, the bones of the Saints, nor the pot shards of religious history.
But no, this crowd lives on symbolism, Jesus on the dashboard, eat a flag for breakfast, pray loudly in the streets and beat your breast in public so that you may be seen as pious, among the pious. of (In spite of Christ's admonition against such behavior)
Religion aside it is a bit disturbing that after so many years and so much debate that they are still unable to read and understand The Constitution of the United States of America.
It seems to me that somewhere in that document it is clearly stated that the Constitution itself is an establishment of the People of the United States, yes now I remember clearly, it's in the preamble:
"We the people of the United States, in order to for more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." Preamble to the Constitution of the United States
It might be noticed that there is no mention of God, Allah, Yahweh, Jesus, Buddha, nor any others among history's pantheon of available deities. Also notice that there is no mention of God as the establishing authority as the Jimmy Swaggart, Falwell, Robertson, Parsley, Tammy Faye shoofly pie, down home revival wing of American thought would have us believe.
