Sit Back and Watch Them Eat Each Other

This hardly seems fair, though it in no way surprises me. Christians in particular often express feelings of discrimination or persecution, which in some cases is valid, but it seems that often they're discriminating and persecuting one another.

Differences in religious belief and biblical interpretation have led a Corona Christian school to dismiss four teachers and seven other employees.

The move spurred some parents to pull their children out of the school and others to defend what they see as a move to protect their kids from spiritually harmful influences.

Most of the fired employees belong to the Catholic Church, which has key teachings that conflict with those of the conservative evangelical Crossroads Christian Schools and the adjacent Crossroads Christian Church, which with about 8,000 members is among the Inland area's largest churches.

Last year, the preschool-through-ninth-grade school -- the school is adding 10th grade this year -- came under the umbrella of the church after about a decade of autonomy. That spurred a closer evaluation of the religious beliefs of the now-dismissed employees, who had been with the school for as long as 22 years, said Beth Frobisher, superintendent of the 583-pupil school.

"How can the school be a ministry of the church if what is spoken and taught into the hearts of the children isn't consistent with what is taught in the church?" Frobisher asked.

It's clear that this guy is alluding to some issue where the kids are being taught things that go against the beliefs of the church. So, how many complaints to that end have their been?

Long [executive pastor of the church] said he had never heard of any complaints of Catholic or other non-evangelical beliefs being introduced into the classroom.

Well, if that's true, it begs the question - is this apparent religious discrimination legal? It would seem that isn't too clear either.

Experts disagree on whether the dismissals were legal. Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of UC Irvine's law school, said federal and state law prohibit religious-belief requirements in schools, even if, as at Crossroads, religion is infused throughout the entire curricula. The only exception is religious-education classes.

"They can specify they have to teach the subjects in a certain way," Chemerinsky said. "But they cannot discriminate in employment based upon religion. But Thomas Cathey, director of legal/legislative issues for the Colorado-based Association of Christian Schools International, to which Crossroads belongs, said the school falls under a religious-institution exemption in federal law and has a right to hire and fire employees whose religious beliefs aren't in sync with its own.

So I guess my next question is, why did they hire Catholics in the first place? Why is this coming up now?

When hired, employees signed a "statement of faith" that summarizes Crossroads' beliefs. Several fired employees said they saw nothing in the statement they disagreed with. But Crossroads believes that the employees "weren't living out" the statement, Booher said.

The church opened the school in 1979. About 10 years ago, the school became independent of the church. The school did not strictly enforce its rules on employees' religious beliefs and practices until the 2009-10 academic year, after it became a ministry of the church.

"We decided, 'Let's get back to what we always said we believed in,' " said the Rev. Mike Long, executive pastor of the church.

Admittedly, religious groups opting to go backwards seems to be a pretty typical theme.

Booher and Long arrived at Crossroads in 2007. Frobisher became superintendent a year later.

In summer 2009, 12 of about 140 employees were deemed to not be aligned with the statement of faith and Crossroads' teachings. Four were teachers. Others held positions such as teacher aide, after-school playground supervisor and accounting employee.

Employees were first told in August 2009 of the school's closer relationship with the church and a requirement that they attend a "Bible-believing church."

Some employees were unclear about what the new rules meant, and early this year, church and school leaders held meetings that discussed the requirements more explicitly, including a definition of a Bible-believing church as a born-again, Protestant evangelical church. Most employees were allowed to finish the school year.

Former kindergarten teacher Sue Fitzgerald, 55, said she suspected in August that church and school officials were planning to dismiss her and other Catholic employees but she hoped they would eventually change their minds because of her 14 years there. She realized at a January meeting that she would lose her job, she said.

Fitzgerald and other fired employees say they're having a tough time finding new positions. Fitzgerald said she had planned to work at Crossroads until she retired.

"I just loved the sense of family, or what I thought was family," she said.

But Ms. Fitzgerald, it looks like you might be able to get your job back yet -

One teacher who had been raised Lutheran was rehired for the new school year after she underwent a full-immersion baptism, Long said. She now attends Crossroads.

The message this school is sending seems clear - we no longer want diversity of thought. We want our brand of Christan. Considering their brand of Christan seems to be the kind that can rationalize firing a 14 years employed, 55 year old employee at a time when unemployment in incredibly high, I'd be interested to see exactly what Christ these people have decided to worship and emulate.

I'd love to ask the people who run this school how they feel being a minority religious belief. I guarantee, in that case, suddenly those Catholics would be perfectly Christian enough to count.

Teacher Fired For Getting Busy

This story is pretty insane, and it sounds like the employer acted out of greed and annoyance with the fact that this woman was requesting maternity leave, but his use of archaic religious ethics as a means to not only justify firing her but humiliate her as well should be just as, if not more, insulting to religious people as it is to the rest of us.

The couple sat close together with her right hand clasped in his left hand and her left arm cradling the 8-month-old daughter whose conception cost the woman her job.

The couple’s sin, according to her former employer, Southland Christian School in St. Cloud, Fla., is fornication — having sex before they got married.

Jarretta Hamilton and her husband of 16 months, Samuel Treftz, told TODAY’s Ann Curry Monday that the termination violated federal anti-discrimination laws. In addition, they allege in a pending lawsuit, the school’s principal, Jon Ennis, invaded Hamilton’s privacy by telling other teachers and the parents of her students the exact reason she was fired.

OK, so it's a religious school, she had sex before marriage, she got fired for it. Hey, they probably wanted to protect the kids from this Jezebel's influence, right? She sounds like she's probably young, someone who might make a questionable roll model for the kids an- oh. Wait. She's not a kid herself at all, but a freaking widowed mother of five.

Hamilton said her problems are all the result of her being honest. A widow with five children from her first marriage, she had gotten work as a teacher at Southland Christian School in January 2008. Meanwhile, she also met Treftz, and they planned a Feb. 20, 2009, wedding.

In April 2009, Hamilton and Treftz went together to Ennis and told him she would be taking maternity leave in the fall. She says Ennis first complained that it was difficult for the school to cover women on maternity leave.

“I was only requesting a standard six weeks maternity leave, and as the conversation progressed, he said, ‘I’m just trying to do the math here. When did you get married?’ ” Hamilton told Curry.

“I said Feb. 20,” she continued. “He said, ‘Well, did you conceive prior to marriage?’ I answered and I told him, ‘Yes.’ ”

What the hell? She goes on to explain that the only reason she even answered his question was because she was so shocked, which is a response I can personally attest to. The jackass who fired her is, of course, standing his ground on the subject - presumably because the pompous ass thinks he has a god on his side. She's suing and I honestly can't see how she might possibly lose. However, given the increase of theocratic BS I've been hearing about lately from different parts of the country, I'm honestly a bit concerned that she won't win. And that, my friends, is effing crazy.

Atheist Parenting - Science and Music

Parenting while being an atheist raises some interesting issues. I avoid religiously focused activities and organizations as a general rule, and that rule is just as important in regard to my son as it is to me. Still, the fact is that I live in a somewhat religious culture and so my son sometimes comes up with the most interesting ideas about belief, god, and what he believes.

The other day he told me, "Mom, my god can fly."

"Wow, Tristan, that's cool. Is this your personal god, or is it everyone's god?"

"Anyone who wants to believe in him can I guess."

"Do you think this god is real, or is he someone you made up, like a pretend friend?"

"He's kind of a pretend friend. I don't know. I don't think he's real, but I thought him up so I could believe in god like James at school."

"Do a lot of kids talk about god at school?"

"Some people do. People at my school. James asked me and I said I don't know and he made a face like I was crazy."

"Do you think James knows for sure that there is a god?"

"No, I think he pretends like I do. I think pretend friends help you not feel lonely sometimes."

So, I feel like he's doing fine in his development in regard to god and religion in general. He's kind of interested, but at the same time he realizes that just because someone else believes something, that doesn't mean it is actually real or that he has to believe it.

One of the things I do make sure my son is exposed to is lots and lots of science. My son responds to anything in song form, so I've taken up watching They Might Be Giant podcasts and videos from their Here Comes Science CD/DVD. I can't recommend these guys enough. They're even scientifically responsible enough to have made a song which corrected an older song they released regarding why the sun shines. Now that's pretty awesome!

Why Argue Against Something You Don't Believe Exists?

An interesting question was posed to me, one that I feel every atheist should consider and take the time to respond to -

If God is nothing more than a human fabrication then what is there to disprove? Why do atheists spend time arguing about something they don't believe exists?

My personal response is as follows, and though I know for a fact that my response isn't the same as the response others might put forth, I felt it was beneficial to myself to be reminded exactly why I concern myself with what other people believe.

I don't think of myself as wanting to disprove god, I think of myself as wanting to communicate with people of faith to the point where they have to accept that my position has validity. I don't want to change anyone's mind because I honestly don't care - pray to a popple and worship cinnamon toast crunch, it's all the same to me. The issue I see is that there are people in positions of power and influence who use religion to convince the masses of certain ideas which then are put forth as laws with lots of support from said masses. I don't have a lot of money so beyond making phone calls and voting, I can't take an active stand against the people of power, so I do what I can and reach out to people who follow the people of power and try to explain to them why it's wrong to legislate their religion.

I would love to not feel the compulsion to do this and to simply live my happy atheist life, but I can't do that unless other people wake up and realize that belief, even in mass numbers, does not equal a free license to start dictating how others live. I don't go out of my way looking for confrontations or arguments, but I don't back down if I come across them and I rarely ignore them - even if the argument is about something as stupid as whether or not Jesus was a historical figure or if God definitely exists or not. These discussions are less about the subject for me and more about being continually active as yet another voice of atheism. I think, this is stupid to argue about, but maybe if I make enough good points, it'll add to all the other good points this person has heard and they will at least THINK about why they're supporting what they're supporting. Maybe if enough people say they disagree, religious people might stop blindly following that random religious person in a position of influence and start thinking for themselves a little more, and things will get better.

Another reason I willingly engage in conversations and arguments with theists is because I feel like science needs a voice in the everyday world. I am by no means a scientist and I don't have a degree in a scientific field. Most of what I know about science is self taught, and that self taught knowledge is constantly changing with every bit of new evidence which I come into contact with. My point in making this distinction about myself is that I feel like I'm on a level playing field with any random person who is approaching scientific data. I'm not trained in how to read studies and I have trouble at times understanding complex scientific ideas, but the awesome thing about science is that you don't have to be an expert in a field of study to learn more about a particular subject. You do, however, have to learn to tell science from pseudoscience and I feel like that is an area where a lot of people go astray. It would seem that there is a stigma about science that a lot of my fellow laymen fall into where they feel that if someone has a PhD or a degree in a certain subject that they must know what they're talking about. However, from my experience, it doesn't take an academically trained scientist to distinguish good science from bad. It does take a little bit of effort and skepticism toward what you are reading, especially if you're exposed to an idea which you would like to be true, even though it has been proven false by countless other sources. The argument of whether evolution is real is just as ridiculous to me as the argument of whether god is real, but I still participate in these arguments because though I know the argument against evolution has little to no scientific validity, there are still those people in positions of power and influence telling their supportive masses that evolution is a lie and that preposterous pseudoscientific ideas such as Intelligent Design should not only be taught in schools, but should be taught as science.

This might seem like a huge deviation from the initial question, but it's not. One thing most theists agree on is that for them, god is important in every aspect of their lives. It was, and sometimes still is difficult for me to understand the scope of this kind of thinking as I was never personally religious and didn't grow up with religious parents, but once I understood how truly intrinsic the concept of god is to people, I realized how equally important it was for someone like me, someone who doesn't believe in god, to have their voice be heard.

Misinformation in the name of god is still misinformation, and I feel a personal responsibility to speak out against it wherever it's found. Maybe it's a naive waste of time or delusions of grandeur on my part, I don't know, but at least I'm doing SOMETHING to help spread the word that atheists exist, we're rational people who deserve the same rights as everyone else, and even though people may not agree with us that doesn't give anyone the right to treat us like we count less or don't count at all.

Declaring Religion Isn't Taboo But Responding Sure Is

My dad told me once that it's generally known that it's impolite to talk about politics or religion with people you don't know very well. When I asked why, he told me that people have strong opinions about those subjects, so it's better to not talk about them at all to avoid an argument.

The internet has changed a lot of social rules, and politics has become a pretty open topic of conversation. People root for politicians the way people root for sports teams and you'll see the full range of opinions, emotions, and passions attached to those declarations of support. I hardly ever hear anyone complaining, online or off, about someone being 'too political' or bringing up politics as if it's a taboo subject.

Religion, however...

Well, it's gotten a bit better but it's still considered an inappropriate topic to talk about.

Let me clarify - it's inappropriate for ME to talk about. Because I'm an atheist.

Religious people feel comfortable plastering their worship/praise/general ass-kissery of god all over the place - on facebook status messages, in chain emails, in forums, wherever. The religious are becoming more and more free with their expression, but it seems when an atheist friend or associate responds to such a declaration, they're still seen as being invasive and rude.

So it's OK to post "God is so awesome! I feel bad for anyone who closes their heart to feeling how loved I feel!" - that is no longer taboo.

However, if you were to respond and say, for instance "That's crazy, because I think living without god is awesome and I wish you could feel how it feels to be free of religion!" - YOU ARE A TOTAL ASSHOLE.

...Ok, maybe that's a tad dramatic, but my point remains.

Making ANY subject taboo to talk about creates problems for people and communication between different groups. A chunk of religious people have a ton of misconceptions, sometimes bazaar and sometimes pretty insulting, about non religious folks and to a degree non religious folks tend to guess the possible 'believer category' that the person their dealing with falls into, at times incorrectly assuming things about the person that aren't exactly true when discussing religious topics. This leads to a hell of a lot of bullshit fights that would be reduced by quite a bit if we could all just drop the whole 'not supposed to talk about it' attitude.

So this is my new vow - if I run across someone who is saying anything about religion and I feel like commenting, I am going to. Not to be rude, not to be obnoxious, but because if they're going to talk about it, I'm going to talk about it too. I figure if someone feels compelled to email me a story about Noah's Ark, they're showing that they are rejecting the taboo of not talking about religion and are open for a conversation.

Best case scenario - we both learn something more about what the other person believes. Worst case - they quit bothering me and I no longer have to delete annoying mass emails filled with Family Circus and Love Is... comics and clip art from Windows 95.

Christian Cries Separation of Church and State!

Guthrie Center, Ia. - A high school senior's desire to build a Wiccan altar in shop class has forced a community debate about free expression.

Dale Halferty, who has taught industrial arts at Guthrie Center High School for three years, was placed on paid leave Monday after he acknowledged to district officials that he told the student he could not build the altar in class.

"This is not a beef that I have with the district. It's not me against them," said Halferty, who has been an educator for much of the past 20 years. "But this kid was practicing his religion during class time, and I don't agree."

Halferty said he previously told another student he could not build a cross in shop class because he believes in the separation of church and state. "I don't want any religious symbols in the shop," he said.

So far this all sounds good. Yeah! If no one is allowed to do religiousy things at the school then he can't either! Eff that Wiccan! But wait...oh, that's right. This guy doesn't care about separation of anything, he's just a retarded pearl clutching Christian trying to use the establishment clause as justification for his personal bias.

His viewpoint: "We as Christians don't get to have our say during school time, so why should he?" School officials say Christians actually do get to express themselves in the same way.

More than one school policy, as well as state and federal law, prohibit discrimination against students who express religious beliefs through school assignments.

Superintendent Steve Smith and Principal Garold Thomas said they placed Halferty on leave while they conferred with the school's attorney to decide what to do.

Both Smith and Thomas said the incident has become emotional for the high school's 185 students: Almost 70 signed a petition late last week saying they didn't want witchcraft practiced at the school. "I think it's fear based on some of the old ideas people had about witchcraft," Smith said. "It's fear and a lack of knowledge about the unknown."

Neither Smith nor school officials identified the student at the center of the controversy, and the boy's father declined a request made through Thomas to be interviewed.

Smith acknowledged that some people have expressed fears about satanism or sacrifices.

He said they too could use some educating: Though Wicca is often subject to such myths, it is nonviolent and based on a shared reverence for the Earth and all living things. Halferty was sent home for the first time Friday and told to think about what he was doing.

He said he had no beef with the student or his project - until the student told him he was a practicing witch.

"I said, 'Ah, you're kidding, right?'"

When the student said he wasn't, Halferty told him he could work on his project - a table that would become the altar - provided he kept religious materials at home.

However, he said, the student kept returning to class with a book of witchcraft. Halferty said he thought about it, and decided allowing the student to make the altar "was wrong on every level."

"It scares me. I'm a Christian," he said. "This witchcraft stuff - it's terrible for our kids. It takes kids away from what they know, and leads them to a dark and violent life. We spend millions of tax dollars trying to save kids from that."

But Smith said school policies prohibit teachers from denying students access to varying points of view without just cause, and prohibit employees from denying students participation in activities on the grounds of race or religion. The U.S. Department of Education has written guidelines for public school districts to ensure students' First Amendment rights are protected.

Ben Stone, executive director of the Iowa Civil Liberties Union, said the clash appears to be a simple case of religious discrimination. All students, he said, have the right to religious freedom and to be treated equally in school.

Stone said: "The teacher may have good intentions. It's a learning process. But he needs to respect that students can exercise their religious viewpoints within the context of an assignment."

***

I think it's interesting how this guy is trying to make this a separation of church and state issue when in reality, he's obviously just an uneducated Christian who seems intimidated by Wicca. Intimidated by Wicca? Oh man, I could make so many jokes about that...

A public school teacher leading a prayer is a separation of church and state violation because that teacher is a representative of the state and by leading a prayer, they're showing bias to one religion over all others and forcing that bias onto others. A kid making a lame-o alter in class is no different from a kid writing about a religious experience in English class or someone singing a hymn to fulfill an assignment in music. If the teacher said, 'sing whatever you want' and the person sings a hymn, that's their right. It fulfills the requirement of the assignment. If the teacher uses his position of influence to stop a kid from expressing his religion in an appropriate context as was the case here, the teacher once again has violated the separation of church and state.

Good try, super Christian shop class guy, but the law just won't work along with your inflated sense of religious privilege.

Teen Birth Rates Highest In More Religious States

Not at all surprising, a new study has shown that teen birth rates are highest in states which are considered heavily religious.

U.S. states whose residents have more conservative religious beliefs on average tend to have higher rates of teenagers giving birth, a new study suggests.

The relationship could be due to the fact that communities with such religious beliefs (a literal interpretation of the Bible, for instance) may frown upon contraception, researchers say. If that same culture isn't successfully discouraging teen sex, the pregnancy and birth rates rise.

In a culture which uses sexuality to sell products to people starting at ages as low as ten (Thanks, Disney) it's not at all shocking that abstinence programs fail. The mixed signals kids get from the media regarding the power and allure of sex and their parents who tell them sex is something you should wait to do is not a healthy sexual environment for anyone involved. Pair this with the typical fundamentalist religious reaction to sex - that it's evil and sinful - turns sex itself into a taboo which most teenagers find fascinating. Just say no doesn't work and abstaining for god obviously isn't working either. The one thing that religion does seem to effectively keep kids from doing is having sex intelligently - by using contraception:

However, the results don't say anything about cause and effect, though study researcher Joseph Strayhorn of Drexel University College of Medicine and University of Pittsburgh offers a speculation of the most probable explanation: "We conjecture that religious communities in the U.S. are more successful in discouraging the use of contraception among their teenagers than they are in discouraging sexual intercourse itself."

Ahh, but I can hear the religious nuts now claiming that this study is skewed because kids on less religious states could be getting pregnant just as much if not MORE than religious states, they're just running around having abortion parties to dump their irresponsibly begotten babies so they can go out and have more heathenish orgies. Well, no. Thankfully, the study accounted for abortions and while abortions were higher in less religious states, accounting for those did nothing to change the outcome of the study.

For instance, the results showed more abortions among teenagers in the less religious states, which would skew the findings since fewer teens in these states would have births. But even after accounting for the abortions, the study team still found a state's level of religiosity could predict their teen birth rate. The higher the religiosity, the higher was the teen birth rate on average.

John Santelli of the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University calls the study "well-done," adding that the results are not surprising.

"The index of religiosity is tapping into more fundamentalist religious belief," Santelli said. "I'm sure there are parts of New England that have very low teen birth rates, which have pretty high religious participation, but they're probably less conservative, less fundamentalist type of congregations."

And that right there says it all, doesn't it? I would wager that moderate or liberal religious groups are far less likely to do such a good job of denouncing contraception while doing such a terrible job at denouncingsexual activity. It makes perfect sense that this would be a fundamentalist issue - they have to keep their numbers up somehow.

The Supernatural Is More Comforting Than Saying 'I Don't Know'

I ran across a story online that is supposed to be a kind of cute, charming tale but I couldn't help but see it as a perfect example of the human need to assign labels to things they don't understand or can't have full understanding of, even if those labels are supernatural or, in this case, fantastical.

Please consider this photo:
For a closer look at the encircled entity in the photo, here you go:
What do you think this is a picture of? A beetle? A butterfly? Well, the person who took the picture has evidently exhausted the internet looking up bugs and other explanations and in her non-professional opinion it can't be any of them. In fact, there is only one explanation:

'I think it must be a fairy,' she said yesterday as she made the picture public for the first time.

...Seriously? Ok, Mrs. Bacon, you must have gotten a good look at the creature to take a picture of it, what did you yourself see, regardless of what we can see in this slightly blurry pic?

Mrs Bacon, 55, said she was not even looking through the camera at the time she took the picture. Instead she simply clicked the button while holding it at arm's length out of the back door while chatting with relatives in her kitchen after dinner.

OK. So you were having dinner and chatting and decided to take a picture out the patio door without looking over at all, took this picture with a blurry looking figure which resembles a winged beetle in the frame and decided it can't be a beetle or any other insect, it must be a fairy. Surely you've sent this picture to someone who is an expert in local wildlife, someone who studies bugs or something? Surely you've talking to someone with the credentials to say for certain that this is NOT a bug, right?

Not so much. Evidently, she's shown the photo to a few people:

'No one I've shown the photos to has come up with any plausible explanation as to what the figure is.' Mrs Bacon insists her photograph, taken in 2007, involved no sleight of hand. She said she had been reluctant to show it off widely for fear of being branded 'nutty'. 'I used to like fairy stories as a child, but I can't claim to have ever seen one before or since,' she said

So the plausible explanation you decided on is that it's a fairy? There's a good reason for your hesitation lady...you do in fact seem a bit nutty.

Now, I honestly don't think this woman is nuts, I think she's probably a nice lady who took a picture of something she couldn't understand and so she did what people usually do which is affix an explanation to the photo which satisfies her personal requirements in regard to understanding. We seem to have an issue as humans with the concept of not knowing. Humans would rather create angry jealous deities, strange and often restrictive superstitions, fanciful characters and other supernatural explinations for occurances rather than admit that we don't know something - even when it's rational to assume that not knowing something is far from a permanent state of being.

Iowa School District Releases Religious Liberty Guidelines

Spencer School District in Iowa has apparently released a revised religious liberty draft policy which in part includes these guideline:

Teachers shall prepare and teach lessons throughout the year and throughout the curriculum that:

• Approach religion as academic, not devotional
• Strive for student awareness of religions, not acceptance of religions
• Study about religion, but do not practice religion in the classroom
• Expose students to diversity of religious views, not impose any particular view
• Educate about a variety of religions, not promote or denigrate religion
• Inform students about various beliefs, not conform students to any particular belief
• Demonstrate the impact of economic, social, political and cultural effects of religion throughout history
• Are age appropriate

Under the teacher training and curriculum section it states:

Further, the proper role for instruction about religion in the public school is in its educational value and not in religious observance or celebration. According to the Supreme Court, the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment forbids state action or practices that aid or prefer one religion over another or that aid all religions and thus endorse or show preference for religion over non-religion, while the Free Exercise Clause requires any state actions or practices which interfere with an individual's constitutionally protected religious freedom to be strictly scrutinized.

On the surface, I agree with all of this. I think that if religion can be handled in a completely secular academic manner, it's a powerful tool that can teach kids a lot about history and society. However, I think this person's comment expresses what most of our fears are whenever any school district instills specific policies regarding religion:

This is just a time bomb waiting to explode. With the state of discourse and civility in the nation today, this will only create division, suspicion, distrust, anger, etc. among and btwn students, students & teacher/preacher, students & their family, teacher/preacher & student families, etc.

Here's what will happen. This 'class' will be inacted. Over time, the christian religion discussion will occupy 90-95% of the 'class'. At that time, someone will sue the school and the school will drop the class rather than amend the content.

Want your kid to learn religion? Do it your self, send them to a religious school or bible study. When churches, of all religions, start paying taxes then maybe we can discuss using tax money to teach religions. This isn't about education at all, it's about pushing an agenda. Those supporting this would very likely be the first to elect cutting a class they deem 'liberal'.

And speaking of cutting, with budgets the way they are, why is there money for this? I think it should be on a list of ALL options on how to spend the money this would require so it can be considered along with other items (classes, supplies, resources, tools, etc) as to which is most worthy of this expense. But that won't happen.

Also, I take exception to this statement "protecting the liberty rights of students of all faiths and no faith.". Who's to say that not believing in a religion means a person has 'no faith'? I have faith in science, nature, etc.

I don't think our country is ready to incorporate religion into the public school curriculum in a secular manner and because of that, I don't think it should be introduced at all.

Why Are You A Vocal Atheist?

In a recent post regarding the Cherry Creek Public Schools lawsuit where the FFRF sued over a program which asked the children of the public school to "spend one or more hours per week in activities in a religious institution” Hemant Mehta asked "Should atheists fight these seemingly “minor” battles? Do they have a meaningful impact?"

My response to this question is a resounding yes because every infringement on our rights, however tiny or seemingly insignificant, is an infringement just the same and is just as unacceptable as the most overt attempt at blurring the separation of church and state. This particular story hit close to home with me because religious pressures and interventions in public schools is the very occurrence which inspired me to become more vocal about my atheism and my rights as an atheist in the first place.

I have never been shy about my atheism. When asked, I have always told people that I was either an atheist or, during some parts of my life, I would say I had Buddhist philosophies but didn't feel like Buddhism was my religion because I didn't participate in it in a religious way. Whether long winded or succinct, the answer was always pretty much the same - I'm an atheist.

The catalyst for my becoming more vocal in my atheism was my son getting old enough to go to school. I started researching schools and curriculum and was astonished at what I found. A lot of schools even in my beloved and presumably progressive Washington state were ducking huge chunks of biology (specifically the theory of evolution) in order to appease religious groups. Looking into the matter further I understood why they did it - religious groups had a keen way of rallying public support behind their bullheaded stupidity in a way which turned a religiously based complaint into a public outcry.

I don't want my son to grow up learning apologetic history or inaccurate and incomplete science. I want my son to have more opportunities than I had and I want him to be a part of the future generations of this country that help defeat the "stupid American" stereotype. When I looked into the roadblocks that existed between my son and a proper basic education to get him ready for college, I perceived religious censorship of knowledge as one of the major hurdles my son would have to overcome and I decided that was entirely unacceptable.

So I stopped being quiet and silently rolling my eyes and started speaking up when religious groups try to stifle me and my son's opportunities and rights in favor of their own personal beliefs. I don't know if I'll ever stop speaking up now - it may not be much in regard to society at large, but I feel that speaking up when you feel that something is wrong is the least we can do for ourselves and one another.