Church and State
stcynic | February 22, 2006Interesting case in Florida where a Wiccan group is suing the state because they exempt bibles from the state sales tax, but not other religious books. Naturally, religious right legal groups are defending the law because, truth be told, their goal is to preserve government benefits exclusively for their religion and not for others. Liberty Counsel, for example, has filed a brief in the case and makes a couple of unusual arguments in this article from Agape Press. He says:
However, Staver maintains that the Florida statute being contested is constitutional. "The case that the Wiccans have…
stcynic | February 21, 2006Another fascinating decision today came from the U.S. Supreme Court involving the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the right to drink hallucinogenic tea as part of a religious ritual. What makes this fascinating to me is that it involves the RFRA, one of the more unusual pieces of legislation ever passed, and that the decision was unanimous (8-0, with Justice Alito not taking part in the case because it was argued before he was confirmed). Chief Justice Roberts wrote the unanimous opinion, which found that the government had not shown that preventing this use of hallucinogenic substances…
stcynic | January 26, 2006I don't know how many of my readers have been in a public high school lately, but one of the things I've noticed in the schools I've been in is the presence of "safe space" signs around the school. They began in response to incidents that happen routinely in schools where a student who is gay, or even thought to be gay, is harrassed and bullied and often assaulted. The signs often have a rainbow motif to them and pink triangles and they say something like this:
This is a safe space to be who you are. This sign affirms that support and resources are available for you in this school.
Along…
stcynic | January 19, 2006This past Monday was an important date, the 220th anniversary of what I and many others believe was the birth of religious freedom in America - the passage of the Virginia Statute Establishing Religious Freedom. On January 16, 1786, this important law, written by Thomas Jefferson and pushed to victory by James Madison, was passed in the Virginia Assembly. The importance of its passage can hardly be overstated. It was the decisive battle between two opposing conceptions of religious freedom, a battle that set Jefferson and Madison against Patrick Henry in answering the question of whether…
stcynic | January 14, 2006Jon Rowe and I have spent a good deal of time over the last couple years documenting the numerous fake quotations from the founding fathers that circulate among the religious right continually, almost all of them traced back to David Barton and his pseudo-historical books and videos. No matter how many times they get pointed out, however, they continue to be repeated. And here's an example of them being repeated even after Barton has publicly disavowed them and admitted that they've never been found among the authentic writings of the founders - and it's for an organization that Barton…
stcynic | December 22, 2005Odessa, Texas, you're the next contestant on the Federal court, establishment clause game show:
Trustees of the Ector County Independent School District here decided, 4 to 2, on Tuesday night that high school students would use a course published by the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools for studying the Bible in history and literature.
The council is a religious advocacy group in Greensboro, N.C., and has the backing of the Eagle Forum and Focus on the Family, two conservative organizations...
David Newman, a professor of English at Odessa College, said he planned to sue…
stcynic | December 2, 2005After writing up yesterday's post about some folks trying to get Illinois State University to not allow their RAs to have live-in girlfriends, I thought I'd follow it up with another story involving RAs at a public university. The University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire decided in July to tell its RAs that they could no longer hold bible studies in their dorm rooms because it might make them less "approachable" to non-Christian students who have a problem. One of their RAs filed a lawsuit against this policy this week, and yesterday the university decided to suspend its policy in response. Good…
stcynic | November 30, 2005There are now two competing curricula available for teaching about the bible in a public school elective course, the NCBCPS curriculum and the Bible Literacy Project. The former, you will recall, was thoroughly trashed by SMU religious studies professor Mark Chancey, whereupon the NCBCPS and their followers called him all sorts of names and then admitted he was right by making many of the changes he suggested. The new curriculum, however, is still heavily sectarian and contains many factual inaccuracies. The Bible Literacy Project, on the other hand, is brand new and is the end result of a…
stcynic | November 30, 2005In Novi, Michigan, there's a big battle kicking up over a family's nativity scene in their front yard. The problem is that they live in a neighborhood with a neighborhood association that has rules against such displays:
The Samonas' neighborhood association has ordered the Novi family to remove its seven-piece plastic display or face possible fines of $25 to $100 per week.
The family isn't budging and neither are its three wise men. The Samonas have vowed not only to keep the display, but also are threatening to enhance it."If you take this out, it's not Christmas anymore," said Joe Samona,…
stcynic | November 28, 2005Jay Wexler of the Boston University School of Law has an upcoming article in the Washington University Law Quarterly which responds to the arguments of Francis Beckwith concerning the constitutionality of teaching ID. Beckwith is a Discovery Institute fellow and the associate director of the Dawson Center for Church-State Studies at Baylor. He is also a friendly adversary who has posted comments here from time to time. He has argued for many years that it is not unconstitutional for public schools to teach ID in science classrooms.
You may recall the brouhaha that erupted between Brian Leiter…
stcynic | November 18, 2005Or rather, an unusual chain of events leading up to a solid ruling. A Federal District Judge in New York has granted summary judgement in favor of a church who was denied the right to rent a public school facility in New York to hold church services on Sundays. Nothing unusual about that, of course. Churches and religious groups are allowed to rent public facilities under the same rules that govern renting to any other group. But this case has gone on for ten years now and I'm a bit baffled by the court's previous rulings. Here are the facts of the case.
In 1994, this church inquired about…
stcynic | November 14, 2005My longtime readers will know that I have often mentioned David Barton, a pseudo-historian who is astonishingly popular with the religious right, and usually with contempt. Barton is probably responsible for more popular myths about church and state and the views of our founding fathers than any other man alive. I came across this critique of his most influential work yesterday. The critique was issued by the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs. Very much worth reading to pick out the innumerable falsehoods and distortions found in his work.
stcynic | November 8, 2005The Anti-Defamation League has now weighed in on the NCBCPS' revised bible curriculum and come out strongly against it. In a press release, they say:
"This wholly inappropriate curriculum blatantly crosses the line by teaching fundamental Protestant doctrine," said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director. "The text relies solely upon the King James Version of the Bible and hews to a fundamentalist reading, especially of New Testament passages. This is the primary flaw in the curriculum -- that it advocates the acceptance of one faith tradition's interpretation of the Bible over another."
stcynic | November 2, 2005I meant to mention this yesterday, but got busy and forgot. Mark Chancey, the SMU religious studies professor who did the critique of the NCBCPS bible curriculum a few months ago, has updated his analysis of that curriculum in light of the changes that were made in response to his criticisms recently. You can see his new analysis here. And no, the NCBCPS never did apologize for savaging him in the press and then admitting that most of his criticisms were valid by making so many changes he recommended.
stcynic | October 14, 2005Larry Caldwell is back with yet another nuisance suit, this one claiming that because the Understanding Evolution website references statements from religious groups saying that evolution is not in conflict with their beliefs, this violates the establishment clause. Here's Caldwell's loony take on it:
"In this stunning example of hypocrisy, the same people who so loudly proclaim that they oppose discussion of religion in science classes are clamoring for public school teachers to expressly use theology in order to convince students to support evolution," said Larry Caldwell, president of…
stcynic | October 13, 2005Given the proceedings in Dover, the timing of this could not be better. Matt Brauer, Barbara Forrest and Steven Gey have written what is probably the most thorough review of the question of ID and whether teaching it in schools violates the establishment clause. The resulting article, published in the Washington University Law Quarterly, is now available on the web (caution: it's a PDF file and it's huge, nearly 150 pages long). Matt Brauer is a Panda's Thumb contributor, while Barbara Forrest should be familiar to all readers of this blog. Steven Gey, interestingly, was the lead attorney in…
stcynic | October 12, 2005I find this story incredible. In the wake of a scandal at the Air Force Academy over recruits being pressured to convert to Christianity, the Air Force is reviewing a policy that set up a distinction between proselytizing believers and unbelievers (or at least those unaffiliated with a particular denomination). A Jewish graduate of the Academy has filed suit claiming that senior officers at the Air Force Academy have an active program of aggressive proselytization of recruits that crosses the line into coercion to become Christian.
Under the current Air Force Chaplain Service code of ethics…
stcynic | October 5, 2005Today's Worldnutdaily has a story about a Navy vet who wants to have a Wiccan symbol on his tombstone when he dies but the military won't approve his request. Since 1997, the VA has been paying for inscriptions on the headstones of vets and they have approved religious symbols for a wide range of religious faiths. And the Pentagon has recognized Wicca as an official religion for nearly a decade now. But they are not approving the Wiccan symbol of a circle and pentagram for inscription on headstones, despite having had many requests to do so since 1996. The ACLU is helping a Navy vet fight…
stcynic | September 26, 2005Over at the Legal Affairs debate club, this week's debate is over the question, Is Teaching Intelligent Design Illegal? The debate pits Frank Beckwith, DI Fellow and the associate director of the Dawson Institute for Church-State Studies at Baylor, against Doug Laycock, a church-state specialist at the University of Texas Law School. Having had friendly exchanges with both gentlemen over the last couple of years, I look forward to seeing how it develops. Beckwith will of course take the position that ID may lawfully be taught in school, as position he has developed in numerous scholarly…
stcynic | September 26, 2005Okay, I finally got to watch the NCBCPS press conference on their bible curriculum and it's even funnier than I imagined. You can download or stream the video by clicking here, but the video is very long, about 125 meg. I actually downloaded it. If you have broadband and a half hour to kill, I strongly urge you to watch it, especially the Chuck Norris part of it, which begins about 14 minutes in. It's delightfully absurd.
Although he's supposed to be talking about the Bible curriculum, he begins with several minutes of rambling about some program he has for teaching martial arts in school.…