Polygamists, Textbooks and Illinois Legislators

Three topics but all related to the problem of religion in this country. Let’s start with the Polygamist compound raided near Eldorado Texas.

The compound was a branch of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints which broke away from the Mormons and still practices polygamy. However the polygamy thing is the least of its weirdness. This is a real life “Big Love” complete with pioneer outfits for the women and forced marriage of girls at the age of puberty to much older men.

That the State of Texas stepped in and removed some 400 children from potential harm is to be applauded. The fact that they used buses from the First Baptist Church to do some of the removal leaves me scratching my head a little bit. Doesn’t that sort of smack of government approval of religion as practiced by Baptists but not of religion as practiced by the FLDS folks? Of course Baptists tend to not break the law and I can’t actually say the same thing for the FLDS crowd. They appear to be breaking lots of laws.

In any event, I agree with the action taken by the State of Texas, in fact they should have done it a hell of a lot earlier, but they made a mistake using the Baptist Church buses that might haunt them should the FLDS folks claim religious persecution.

The other two items are from two different Center for Inquiry (CFI) press releases. The CFI is a hard core Secular Humanist organization founded by atheist emeritus Paul Kurtz and is quite possible the most outspoken secular group. It clearly appears to have the best overall financial backing (I send my dues in regularly) and even has a position as a Non-Government Organization (NGO) at the United Nations.

One press release announced the issuance of a 25 page report identifying factual errors related to a series of topics including Global Warming, school prayer and the interpretation of the Establishment Clause in a civics textbook published by Houghton Mifflin and used in “many secondary schools around the country.”

I read the report and I have two observations. The first is that the errors are pretty extreme as well as pretty obvious. So extreme in fact it’s hard for me to believe they were missed by accident. The second observation is that ALL the errors champion what I would call a Conservative Christian position.

For instance, the textbook declares that the Supreme Court has outlawed ALL prayer in public schools. This of course is a straw man constructed by Conservative Christians. What the court has ruled illegal is school sponsored prayer. Individual prayer, at appropriate times (for instance you can’t decide to stand up and shout the Lord’s Prayer in the middle of a class), is not restricted because to do so would be a violation of the 1st Amendment guarantee of Free Speech.

I was a little disappointed that the report didn’t identify where the textbook was being used but I’m willing to bet that it was mostly in Jesusland. (NOTE: Wrong again! Apparently the book is in rather wide spread use and the initial red flag was raised by a student in New Jersey! Just goes to show how a little extra research can help one avoid making embaressing dumb statements.)

The second press release deploring “intemperate comments from Rep. Monique Davis” of the Illinois legislature during a legislative committee meeting. Apparently atheist activist Rob Sherman was testifying that a state plan to donate $1 million to help restore the Pilgrim Baptist Church, mostly destroyed in a 2006 fire, was unconstitutional when Davis teed off on him.

Some interesting quotes from the diatribe.

“I don’t know what you have against God?..some of us don’t have much against him. We look forward to him and his blessings.”

This of course pre-supposes that God exists and is the first boo-boo. As much as it upsets the religious minded, this isn’t at all a given.

“It’s (your philosophy) dangerous to the progression of this state. And it’s dangerous for our children to even know that your philosophy exists,”

Dangerous? Sure it’s dangerous, and I’m not sure it’s appropriate to expect children to be able to assimilate such ideas. But on the other hand, as they get older it’s a question that they should be prepared and expected to deal with. To my mind the status quo of doing everything possible to instill the idea of God into children as an unchallengeable axiom is a formula for disaster.

“Get out of that seat ?You have no right to be here! We believe in something. You believe in destroying! You believe in destroying what this state was built upon.”

Wow, he really got her pissed off didn’t he? Let’s put this a little in perspective. The Pilgrim Baptist is a site of arguably significant historical importance. It is generally credited as being the birthplace of gospel music and the so-called father of gospel music, Thomas Dorsey, was its musical director from the early 1930’s to the late 1970’s. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973 and was designated a Chicago Landmark in 1983.

So this is another one of those cases where it’s hard to separate the history from the religion. I’m sure Sherman was technically correct from a religious viewpoint but I’m not sure about from a historical one. I don’t see anything particularly wrong in the state helping to restore an historical landmark even if the day to day use of that landmark is religious in nature.

Of course that doesn’t excuse Davis. But, I see on Rob’s web site that she has apologized and admitted that her remarks were inappropriate. According to Davis she was upset over hearing about the 22nd and 23rd elementary school shooting deaths in Chicago that year and took it out on him.

Perhaps, and perhaps not, but I guess we can pretend that was the reason since she did apologize.