Kevin Welner, an expert in education law and policy at the University of Colorado and executive director of the National Education Law Center. He writes that the U.S. Supreme Court is likely to render a decision reversing the historic American tradition of prohibiting the funding of K-12 religious school.
The Founding Fathers were clear about their antipathy to funding religious institutions. It was Thomas Jefferson who coined the phrase “a wall of separation between church and state.” That wall, which has plenty of holes in it, is about to be demolished. Perhaps we should relearn why the Founders were opposed to mixing church and state. They were well aware of the religious wars and religious persecution that had torn Europe apart for centuries. In the new nation, they believed, religious groups would thrive or fail on their own, without government intervention or direction. We are soon to see a Supreme Court dominated by so-called “Originalists” overturn the clear intentions of the Founders.
Welner notes that religious schools are not bound by civil rights laws, especially under the current Court, which places religious freedom above civil rights. This, states will be required to fund schools that indoctrinate and discriminate.
Exactly what the Founding Fathers feared.
From the National Education Policy Center:
BOULDER, CO (May 12, 2022) – In the coming weeks, the U.S. Supreme Court will hand down a series of decisions that may transform American society. One of those decisions is in a case called Carson v. Makin, the latest in a series of cases brought to expand the use of private school vouchers. This decision in Carson may be particularly radical and transformative, explains University of Colorado Boulder professor and NEPC director Kevin Welner.
In a policy memo titled, The Outsourcing of Discrimination: Another SCOTUS Earthquake?, Welner, an education law and policy scholar, contends that the majority of Supreme Court justices, in deciding Carson v. Makin, will likely adopt a rule that requires public funding in Maine to be used to subsidize religious teaching and proselytizing. But the Court may also take the nation far beyond that determination.
Specifically, the Court may require that whenever a state decides to provide a service through a non-state employee (e.g., through a contracting mechanism), the state will face the highest level of judicial scrutiny if it “discriminates” against churches and church-affiliated service providers that infuse their beliefs into the provided services. Moreover, the Court may impose that same heightened scrutiny to limit any state anti-discrimination enforcement if providers’ religious beliefs direct them to engage in that discrimination against people because of, for example, their gender identity or sexual orientation.
Welner explains that such a judicial ruling would amount to a license to outsource discrimination. While a conventional public school cannot violate a state’s anti-discrimination laws, a school run privately by a religious organization might be allowed to do so. He points in particular to charter school laws as creating this possibility, and he describes how Supreme Court cases in recent years have laid the groundwork for courts to require authorizers to grant charters to religious organizations.
“The Supreme Court is just a few small steps away from transforming every charter school law in the U.S. into a private-school voucher policy,” says Welner. In addition, he argues, charters run by religious organizations would likely gain a constitutionally protected right to discriminate against, for example, members of the LGBTQ+ community.
If this happens, states that abhor such discrimination may find themselves forced to pull back on private contracting to provide public services, ending policies that allow private operators of everything from social services like foster care, health care, prisons, and charter schools.
Find The Outsourcing of Discrimination: Another SCOTUS Earthquake?, by Kevin Welner, at:
https://nepc.colorado.edu/publication/carson-makin
Diane Ravitch's blog 
These schools cannot be funded with tax dollars and avoid civil rights laws. JFK made the first speeches on what LBJ would push through— the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Taking tax dollars comes with restraints. If politicians want to argue about local dollars or state dollars instead of federal ones, the 14th amendment still applies. We still have the 14th amendment, don’t we?
Voucher schools in Florida and elsewhere receive public dollars and openly discriminate. The red states have developed a workaround. In Florida, individuals and corporations give money to a private group called Step Up for Students. The donors get a tax credit for their gifts. Step Up gives the money to students to pay for their tuition at schools that discriminate and are not subject to federal civil rights law.
Not a single thing in your accurate comment is a safe assumption after January 2025. Even the history of JFK or LBJ. I could envision the line “Bay of Pigs and Vietnam were Democrat (sic) plots that displayed their evil and incompetence.”
Thank you, Diane, for your tireless defense of true religious liberty and its American corollary doctrine, the separation of the church and state. Any government agency allowing diversion of tax monies to religious schools violates it. Pastors for Children will continue to fight it, even if the Supreme Court sanctions it.
As we say, we believe in only one supreme court. It is not located in Washington.
“As we say, we believe in only one supreme court. It is not located in Washington.”
And that right there is exactly what drives the regressive xtian fundie reactionaries that want to use everyone’s tax dollars for promulgating their religious nonsense. Now I’m not saying that you, CJ, fit into my description of many other xtians.
I am saying that when roughly 80% of American citizens are indoctrinated into religious malarkey from birth onward what can one expect will be the results? Skeptical scientific rationo-logical thought? No, maam. The three Abrahamic religions have wrought far more death and destruction in the name of a god than those indoctrinated Americans realize (see the example above of the centuries of war) and it continues into these times.
Duane, where does this stat come from: “roughly 80% of American citizens are indoctrinated into religious malarkey from birth onward”?
It’s my guesstimate from reading many sources about faith believers.
Atheists Mao and Stalin also murdered millions too. Anyone can choose to be evil, which is freewill. ☹️
Yes, they caused the deaths, either directly or indirectly through their governance. Both were fanatical Marxists. It wasn’t atheism that caused them to do what they did, whereas in the religious wars of previous centuries were indeed the product of religious faith beliefs.
For a good read on that see: https://www.skeptical-science.com/atheism/hitler-stalin-mao-atheist-mass-murderers/
Religion or no religion, evil is still a freewill choice. ☹️
There is no such thing as evil, other than as a description of certain human, even non-human behaviors/actions. Evil is not a choice, it is descriptive term.
The actions of an 18-year-old who drove across New York State to murder innocent black people in a supermarket was evil. His actions were evil, his motives were evil, his indoctrination by hate media was evil.
Yes, those are descriptions of him, his actions and motives. No doubt. What I am getting at is that there is no “evil” being, thing, whatever that guides peoples actions, people do things, believe things that we end up calling evil for the sheer harm and horror that they cause. But “evil” is not the cause, it does not exist outside of human language and exists as a descriptive category, which cannot do anything.
It’s a chapter in the play book.
Create and use not-so-separate powers to “cancel” every law and Supreme Court decision from 1954 to 2020.
The irony is not lost as they want to use the Constitution in their playbook, as well.
It’s in their (their) history books – you know, the Euro-centric, white male, land owners only, and armed history books. What they were taught:
A mean old King went too far and people were outraged – so they followed good old Christopher Columbus to the Americas where others followed (with a detour to Africa) and then they arrived and attacked and drove out native Americans and claimed land for themselves. Even the originalists can’t deny the detour and land grab – although they portray it their way in Gone With the Wind pleasantries and Thanksgiving celebrations where everyone broke bread together).
I digress.
It starts with the King. The Founders were guided by that principle so separating powers. The originalists bought it until they realized they could grab all the power.
What the founders didn’t envision was the separation of powers wouldn’t be so separate if those three power branches are all hand picked by the King – a King who makes victims out of billionaires and angry folks (angry at the long line at the grocery store and pto moms) – controlled by their version of a free press.
So what goes around comes around 235 years later
Most people are too intimidated by their early indoctrination to speak out against religion or religious bigotry. In my head of school days I discovered that the National Association of Independent Schools accredited Christian schools despite the Association having unambiguous non-discrimination language in the standards for accreditation.
I pointed this out and was greeted with pleasant Presbyterian smiles and reams of double-talk. I wrote to the National Board and the President, all of whom clucked with sympathy, but were unwilling to act by insisting that standards were met or accreditation withdrawn. I challenged them to contemplate their response if the word “Black” was substituted for “gay.” Would the accreditation be continued for a school with a “no Blacks allowed” mission statement? Their sympathetic clucks became more strained, but the analogy fell on deaf consciences.
One of the schools that explicitly denied employment or enrollment to gay folks was led by a unctuous priest who wore his clerical collar to all meetings and was treated with the kind of absurd deference which is, I suspect, the reason men and women enter the clergy in the first place. In my “research,” I discovered that these schools often required faculty and families to assert that marriage is only between a man and woman and that homosexuality is a sin.
It is this kind of chickenshit conformity that has people standing like obedient puppies for the national anthem, the unconstitutional pledge of allegiance, the singing of the horrid God Bless America or other religious and patriotic nonsense.
As an unapologetic atheist, I find people are quite uncomfortable when I refuse to utter those words or sing such lyrics.
The Catholic school that right wing activist Nick Sandmann attended has students recite an altered pledge of allegiance that includes Catholic doctrine.
The influence of right wing religion is the cause of the contrasts, e.g. income inequality, between the democracies of Western Europe and the theocratic-linked American oligarchy.
Research showed a correlation between significant, religious influence on laws and policies and diminished citizen ties to religion. What that tells us is that religious leader domination to preserve patriarchy is more important than keeping or gaining followers of God.
Linda, just trying to follow your thought here: “The influence of right wing religion is the cause of the contrasts, e.g. income inequality, between the democracies of Western Europe and the theocratic-linked American oligarchy.” Do you mean that the marriage of rw Catholics and evangelist Protestants keep Republicans in power? Maybe… but that begs the question of Democratic participation in deregulation, union-busting, offshoring, et al policy over the last 46 yrs resulting in our income inequality.
Also I question the “theocratic-linked American oligarchy.” While certainly some American oligarchs couch their political proclivities in religious doctrine, please tell me you don’t believe it. Oligarchs are motivated by a single goal, to protect and expand their share of national assets [& thereby their leverage over govtl policy allowing them to continue doing so unfettered]. Whether they manage to sell that as religion (or even convince themselves of it) is irrelevant.
Bethree- your second paragraph-
the links between Charles Koch / his network and Catholic political influencers e.g. state Catholic Conferences and AFP,
EdChoice/Lily Foundation/ Associate Director of the Catholic Conference of Ky.
Bethree-
Additional examples for your 2nd paragraph- David Green (Hobby Lobby) – largest individual donor to evangelical causes – his political cause was the exemption of company insurance plans from paying for employee birth control if the owners’ religious beliefs opposed it and, Foster Freiss, initial funder of Turning Point USA
Bethree-
8 years ago, the Walton family (Christian) began funding an ultra Orthodox Jewish Network so that the organization would lobby for school reform, specifically public funding for religious schools. The lobbying was cited as successful in Ohio and unsuccessful in New York. {Jewish Daily Forward, 7-11-2024, “Walton Family ..United to Back School Vouchers”)
Bethree-
In reference to your first paragraph- Democrats have a blemished record. Republicans have an unrelenting dogma. Yes, without the right wing religious colonizing the GOP, the nation would be governed by a progressive agenda similar to that of European democracies.
The progressive advance reflected in FDR’s polices and legislation was subsequently stymied by the right wing religious. The void created
by an end to the Social Gospel movement (liberal) and an end to Democratic support from Italian Am. was filled with the political power of the theocons. Pat Buchanan describes his part in the change in a Ryan Girdusky interview posted at the Buchanan site. Tim Burch, a wealthy, political Catholic wrote recently, “The Remarkable Similarities between Catholicism and Charles Koch’s New Book”. IMO, Charles Koch has been the single greatest influence in the furtherance of the U.S. as a nation more like the 3rd world and less like Finland, etc.
We could examine the views of Leonard Leo, Paul Weyrich, Antonin Scalia and the economic views of jurist Lewis Powell (Presbyterian).
The discussion about Robert H Bork in the article, “New Theologies: The Dawning of a Theoconservative Era in the U.S… Theocons Invade America’s Think Tanks,” (at the chiesa.espresso.republica.it site) provides some insights. Bork went on to be a Fellow at AEI, a powerful, pro-corporate think tank with unlimited access to media. (Frederick Hess is associated with AEI).
The article describes an influential intellectual in Republican and Democratic administrations who was a convert to Catholicism and to the political right, Richard John Neuhaus, who wrote, “The Catholic Moment : The Paradox of the Church in the Postmodern World.”
Lengthy discussions about the issue have been written by others and can be found on the internet.
Frederick Hess is not “associated” with AEI. That’s where he works.
Hello Linda Thank you for sharing this history with us, though I have little doubt that it’s shorn of anything that doesn’t fit with your ideological anti-religious bent. Nevertheless, elements there suggest what many here have been saying for a long time (including me):
As a general analysis, in their colossal arrogance, it seems (shall we call them) (a) capitalist-only-minded gurus and (b) totalitarian-minded religious zealots are either in collusion or fighting among one another to gain control over the entire nation of “the people.” Both parties (groups of like-minded people, or sometimes embodied in one person) are about dispensing with secular democracy, the Constitution and all-things-public, including public institutions where all the people-talking goes on.
And if they are not fighting among one another, then they are involved in the (fascist) activities of using one another (via, scamming, schmoozing, making false friends, bribing with all sorts of power and money, not yet intimidating and terrorizing?) for their own nefarious purposes whereupon, if either ever DO get the power they want, they will promptly chain the other in a refrigerator and drop it into Lake Meade, that is, if it still has water in it.
In either case, “the people” don’t matter. CBK
Linda What research?
“Research showed a correlation between significant, religious influence on laws and policies and diminished citizen ties to religion. What that tells us is that religious leader domination to preserve patriarchy is more important than keeping or gaining followers of God.”
. . . it tells us? Huh? CBK
Does Bethree’s observation about the equality of Dems’ responsibility
lead us to dump all of the impact of unbridled, predatory capitalism, since Eisenhower, on the doorstep of the nefarious billionaires?
It does fit the pattern of our belief that billionaires are the all-inclusive explanation for school privatization. In order to make the reasoning fit the facts, we’re going to have to discount a lot of info. about the SCOTUS jurists who enable the billionaires. When I buy in, do I also have to embrace the illogic that gay rights and abortion are issues unrelated to religion?
I say, why not join the crowd and blame the billionaires… in which case…there’s no way to alter the course of events.
Francis Bellamy (a Christian socialist) “believed in the absolute separation of church and state” and purposefully did not include the phrase “under God” in his pledge.
The phrase “under God” was added in the 1950s.
After lobbying by the Knights of Columbus.
Bellamy was also an extreme racist. And wrote the Pledge as a ploy to sell flags for the flag-making company for which he worked.
as you said, ‘early indoctrination’ — that strategy works
Years ago, when I was in my early twenties, my neighbor came knocking on my door. She was distraught. Her kids had just come home from “Vacation Bible School” and were extremely upset and didn’t want to go back because at school “they were eating Jesus and drinking His blood.” She wanted to see if I would talk to them and explain this so they would go back to school, and she figured that I, being a nice guy and educated, would be able to carry this off.
I read that the literal interpretation of the Eucharist gave native Americans a lot of trouble.
“These people eat their god?”
Many native American groups were totally familiar with god-eating in the forms of peyote, the San Pedro cactus, ayahuasca, datura, magic shrooms, cocoa, tobacco, and other entheogenic substances (“entheogen”–literally, a god taken in, becoming the god within). For superb studies of Neolithic use of psychoactive compounds and their connection to the origins of religion, see these superb books:
Lewis-Williams, David. The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art. Thames and Hudson, 2004 and Lewis-Williams, David, and David Pearce, Inside the Neolithic Mind: Consciousness, Cosmos and the Realm of the Gods. Thames and Hudson, 2018. Lewis-Williams and Pearce are anthropologists at the University of Witwatersand in South Africa. These are much more academic and respectable books, carefully argued and documented, than is Terence McKenna’s Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge. Bantam, 1993. See also:
https://bobshepherdonline.wordpress.com/2019/03/17/he-sees-you-when-youre-sleeping-and-other-weird-creepy-and-wonderful-fun-facts-about-santa-claus-bob-shepherd/
But ofc, you knew that, Roy.
And it seems that someone must have turned Rick Perry onto these books (or at least turned Rick Perry on, lol).
My longer comment on this fascinating topic is in moderation, but the official dogma of the Catholic Church is, of course, that this is a literal transformation into the body and blood, though the details of that are also, officially, a mystery.
Bob and Roy. I’ve heard several versions of the meaning of the bread and wine over the years.
But my favorite and most plausible to me is that it’s like in the movie Fiddler on the Roof where everyone at the same time every evening does the ceremony with the candle smoke. (I weep every time I see that scene in the movie.)
It’s a way of transcending time and space to come together with everyone else in the world around one singular and shared religious meaning. Very powerful when you think about it . . . in secularity, I guess you could equate it with New Years Eve at the moment of the transition to another year and where everyone cheers and kisses someone.
Eating bread and drinking wine (or juice or whatever) just makes it more concrete and points to the mysterious interwovenness between ourselves and the God who made us. CBK
My point is that the notion of consuming the substance of a god or gods, instantiated in food, drink, a plant, or whatever, is very ancient and predates Christianity, as do lots of other elements of which Christian belief is made up (the sacrifice of the god, the crucifixion, the death of the god at the winter solstice and his resurrection, immortality, survival in the afterlife, a primordial paradise, a primordial fall, ritual cleansing or redemption, and on and on. These are all survivals of very ancient superstitions, and the current forms that they take are simply that, current forms of notions that have been central to literally thousands of different mythological systems taught to children by people who believed that of these thousands, theirs was the true one.
Bob People are people. We want so badly to know things we do not know. I guess I have a different view of history than you or many others. But the deeper point in my view is that we all wonder what the heck is going on with this existence thing, and we all have the question of faith or nihilism at the core of our sense of things, a kind of working existential answer, so to speak; and so whatever we think in a topical sense, we actually live by our relationship to that question and our living answer to it.
But in another more suitable forum, I might ask you what does it mean to you about that larger answer; and that people think their ideas about God are the only legitimate ones? But if I would guess, I might say that universal relativism or even atheism is not a logical or reasonable outcome to the fact that we don’t know everything there is to know and that we can be shallow or dead wrong about such fundamental concerns. Perhaps another time and another place. CBK
We want so badly to know things we do not know. . . . we all wonder what the heck is going on with this existence thing
YES!
Here, some of my speculations about these questions:
But right now I am beside myself about the Christian fundamentalist nationalist direction our country is headed in, and it’s very difficult for me not to see that fundie nationalism as flowing from gullibility and superstition.
And this, CBK, is an example of me stumbling my way toward a secular understanding of meaning and purpose:
Bob and Roy– That stuff never bothered me as a kid. I listened to the stories. Jesus held up bread and wine – he knew he would have to give up his life, and was saying “this is my body,” as though even after he was gone, you could call him back up and make him part of you and share his spirit among you just by breaking bread together “in remembrance of me.” Nobody was eating flesh or drinking blood. Nor did my kids for a second even bring up such concerns: that is a bizarre binary, literal interpretation of what was obviously a metaphor. Transubstantiation just means that through a memorial ritual, you are actually calling forth his spirit. It is understandable the native Americans would have missed the nuance– language barrier, right? 😉
While I agree with much of what you say, I must object to the broad brush with which you paint clergy. I have known more ministers who have fought hard for civil rights and tolerance than I have known people from other walks of life. Let’s give the profession some credit. After all, MLK was clergy.
Agreed, Roy. The Abolition Movement, the Civil Rights Movement, Liberation Theology–there have definitely been other currents, and long before those, the Cathars, the Diggers, the Levellers, the Brethren of the Free Spirit, and many other cities on a hill with what we would identify as progressive ideas. The great work of Pastors for Children is in these fine traditions.
One of my dearest friends was the late Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr. I loved him, but his noble work and values did not depend on his religious beliefs. I think you’re being kind, but too generous.
“Most people are too intimidated by their early indoctrination to speak out against religion or religious bigotry.”
Exactly! Well stated!
Duane and Steve Nelson “Most people are too intimidated by their early indoctrination to speak out against religion or religious bigotry.” “Exactly! Well stated!”
. . . maybe back in the 50’s and before. But as you know, part of the American ethos is that we question doctrine and indoctrination and judge it true or not, or partially so on its own merits and in a changing context. Of course, we do have our followers of Jim Jones et al., or dead headed fundamentalists, but that’s hardly “most people.”
Also, freedom of speech is not only about speaking but hearing and having access to what is said and written. “Most people” raise questions about what they hear and sometimes even change accordingly.
Also, there is a huge body of literature written by people who have “left the faith” for THAT and a number of other reasons. You probably can google or check out amazon for examples of such literature. As a kind, it’s been around a very long time.
I think in our time, “most people” have ears, but that’s about as far as it goes. Good to hear from you, Duane. CBK
Thanks for the kind words! I stand by Steve’s statement and my concurrence. Most, almost all are brought up to give respect where respect hasn’t been earned, i.e., to religious faith beliefs. And yes, the vast majority do not question those beliefs and even if they do our culture considers questioning and condemning faith beliefs to be, as Hook claimed “Bad form*.”
Now that doesn’t preclude the fact that many, like myself, also have left those faith belief systems. But those numbers are miniscule in comparison to those who don’t/can’t due to the faith belief indoctrination of their upbringing. And even ones who have overcome that upbringing hardly publicly question them as it is considered “Bad Form”.
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ty_QxHOeErw
Duane No matter . . . I doubt anyone actually has those kinds of numbers anyway. And it’s too easy to project our own experience or its contrary out on the whole of everyone. I don’t know if you are doing that, but I try to remind myself often of that and other analytical hazards.
That said, for public education, earlier ideas (many written into state constitutions, if I remember correctly from my education courses) were about “assimilation,” which, even by a general meaning, includes juxtaposition of the old and the new for new and broader understanding (one meaning of a liberalizing education), including and perhaps even a focus at the time, on the political order.
But for the U.S. back then, it meant for many: kids who were first generation Americans and whose relatives were from the Old Country where even the language was a barrier to becoming “American.” The upshot is that insofar as it was about such assimilation, public education WAS explicitly and now, at least IS implicitly about the inherent challenge of being involved with a bunch of “others” who probably do not think like we do and who hail from different traditions.
It is implicit now because public education still assumes a classroom and schoolyard full of kids with different backgrounds than children experience in our own families alone. this includes different religions, of course, which is one reason WHY many abhor it. My thought is that such loss, even if only implicit, is a MAJOR problem with the way things are going today with both privatizing education and with home-schooling.
In a way, and in its general form, we are trying to go back to Old Country mentality? CBK
Tax dollars made Catholic organizations, the U.S.’ third largest employer. Religious encroachment into services that should be limited to government provision guarantees prejudice based on race, sex and religion and strengthens the theocracy that will replace democracy.
It is the Koch network plan and the plan of the alliance of evangelicals and the U.S. Catholic Church.
Agree in general principle, Linda. Each of these SCOTUS decisions moves us closer to the day when religious tax exemptions will be abolished, IMHO.
Never underestimate this Court’s zealous belief in religious freedom, which they prioritize above civil rights, separation of church and state and all other values.
As an atheist who has unconditional respect for the Constitution’s protections for religious freedom, I would not characterize this Court’s zealous belief as being in any way related to it. They do not want freedom of anything, much less religion, they want legally-sanctioned advantages for the “believers” (morals and ethics not required and generally discouraged) of the religions the State prefers, or is generally accepted as preferences. Real religious freedom or freedoms of any kind embodied in the first amendment, for that matter, scare the hell out of them.
Well said, GregB.
If I were denied service by a business establishment because the owner says it’s against his deeply held religious beliefs to serve women or Jews or a woman unaccompanied by a man, this Court would uphold the right of the business owner to discriminate against me, based on his freedom of religion.
As always, Greg’s comment is a clarion call. And, Diane’s examples illustrate with great clarity, what is to be feared.
Linda, I have an assignment for you. Do the research on the evangelical Christian Right and report back about how their ideas have been so powerful in our politics.
It’s a deeply immoral position. The fundamental right of equal treatment under the law subjugated to the “free exercise” of religion– on public property, in public schools, supported by public dollars. I can discriminate against you because my religion says I can– and you have to pay me to do it.
It is indeed immoral to expect the public to pay for religious institutions. Period. To pay for religious institutions that discriminate is outrageous. But that’s where this Court is going.
That’s a pretty broad assignment for Linda worthy of years of documentation. A bit unfair! How about a couple of examples of how the “evangelical Christian” Right have retranslated (perverted?) laws and policies that began with good intentions? Shanker and charters comes to mind immediately.
Another way to look at the same question is to change it slightly. “Do the research on the American Left and report back about how their ideas have been so powerful in our politics.” Or, as I would add to it–the fact that people like Joe Stiglitz, Paul Krugman, Robert Reich or Diane Ravitch have never been taken seriously by top policy makers, that they can’t get a fair hearing to have their ideas implemented, is perhaps the greatest lost opportunity, one we can only imagine.
Greg-
Thanks. I remember your observation about acquiescence to religion, which was posted in a different thread.
For other blog commenters-
Richard John Neuhaus, advisor to “W” Bush, dismissed evangelicals as inadequate for theocratic power. He advised that the Catholic Church, “should assume its rightful role in culture forming to construct a religiously informed public philosophy for…ordered liberty.” The almost 50 state Catholic Conferences, IMO, operate to that end.
The selectivity that I employ in commenting about political/religious activities tends to have focus on info. that media with big audiences choose not to report and/or on those activities that are, IMO, substantive in impact.
Linda “The selectivity that I employ in commenting about political/religious activities tends to have focus on info. that media with big audiences choose not to report and/or on those activities that are, IMO, substantive in impact.”
You are kidding, . . . right? Please say you are kidding. . . . . And BTW, how about posting your citations for “studies say” kinds of comments? CBK
Addition – the alliance of Koch, conservative religious allies, the Walton family,…
Diane Just when I thought the Greater Democratic We were up against unscalable walls, along comes an idea that can change and enhance democracies. As the article below relates, Citizens’ Councils are not new to many countries and cultures, but are beginning to take a better hold. I was really warmed by reading this article from NOEMA:
May 14, 2022
PUBLISHED BY THE BERGGRUEN INSTITUTE
“Another Kind Of Democratic Future: The new wave of non-electoral representation empowers the collective intelligence of citizens.
“A Movement That’s Quietly Reshaping Democracy For The Better by Claudia Chwalisz/Citizens’ assemblies can help us better address societal challenges, overcome polarization and strengthen trust.
“The great promise of robust citizen participation,” notes the 2020 Berggruen Institute report on “Renewing Democracy in the Digital Age,” “is that it can generate innovative solutions to pressing public concerns and break through the insider establishment of organized special interests” that tend to dominate representative government chosen through periodic elections.
“Similarly, as Kalypso Nicolaïdis has written in Noema, “Collective intelligence magnifies our understanding and capacity for social innovation. Inclusiveness buys intelligence.”
Such enhanced citizen engagement can only be effective, however, if equipped with the capacity to bring knowledge and expertise to bear on the issues at hand while being embedded in institutional arrangements that enable and encourage the reasoned practices of negotiation and compromise. In short, participation that avoids populism through informed deliberation conducted in a nonpartisan space insulated from the fever of electoral contests.
“Writing in Noema this week, Claudia Chwalisz surveys the wave of experiments in this “new, non-electoral understanding of democratic representation” washing over the West.
“The current democratic system for taking public decisions — anchored in the short-termism of elections and the inward-looking logic of political parties — has perverse incentives that are preventing action, exacerbating polarization and fueling distrust,” she writes.
“For Chwalisz, the alternative path to forging a governing consensus would be widespread citizens’ assemblies, such as we’ve seen in Ireland on abortion or France on climate action. Instead of standing for elected office, citizens are selected through a random process that reflects the profile of the body politic at large, much like a jury, to address issues elected legislatures are too mired in immediacy or too riven by partisanship to resolve.
“‘Over the past four decades,’ she reports, ‘hundreds of thousands of people around the world have received invitations from heads of state, ministers, mayors and other public authorities to serve as members of over 500 citizens’ assemblies and other deliberative processes to inform policymaking. Important decisions have been shaped by everyday people about 10-year, $5 billion strategic plans, 30-year infrastructure investment strategies, tackling online hate speech and harassment, taking preventative action against increased flood risks, improving air quality, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and many other issues.’
“Taking these best practices around the world into account, Chwalisz makes the case that there is now enough experience under the belt to institutionalize citizens’ assemblies as a permanent feature of democracies that would stand alongside elected legislatures.
“‘While citizens’ assemblies today are largely advisory and complementary to our existing electoral institutions,’ she argues, ‘it is not impossible to imagine a future where binding powers shift to these institutions— or where they perhaps even replace established governing bodies in the longer term. Recent polling in France, Germany, Italy and the U.K. suggests we are getting there. While only around a third of people in these countries currently think that deliberative democracy should be institutionalized, around two-thirds are supportive of making it mandatory for the government to implement citizens’ assemblies’ recommendations.’
“Indeed, as Chwalisz reports, in 2021 the city of Paris appointed a vice-mayor for citizen participation and established a permanent citizens’ assembly to consider budget and urban planning issues. The Ostbelgien region of Belgium has also established a permanent, agenda-setting citizens’ council to convene one-off citizens’ assemblies that, so far, have proposed policies ranging from the welfare of health workers during COVID to affordable and sustainable housing. In the Belgian case, the elected parliament is bound either to implement the citizens’ recommendations or publicly explain their reasons for not doing so.
“A further iteration of non-electoral representation should be considered in those places, such as California, where direct democracy — the recall of elected officials, referendums to repeal laws and initiatives to make laws — dominates political life. In this case, the public vote is binding. But the absence of deliberation on the measures put before the public, such as through a citizens’ review panel or agenda-setting assemblies, means the process is more often than not hijacked either by short-term populist passions or organized special interests who have the time and money to sway an electorate ill-informed about the consequences of their vote.
“Another kind of democratic future through deliberative practices that empower the collective intelligence of citizens is taking root in the shadow of dysfunctional electoral politics. As these practices are scaled up in the coming years in response to more demands for social inclusion, they will surely become as integral to the practice of liberal democracy as elections have been.”
Thank you, CBK. I’m reminded of the citizen town halls in New England, where neighbors would meet to discuss and debate issues. I can’t wrap my mind about how to bring those methods to scale. Our elections today are warped by propaganda, lies, dirty tricks and other distortions. But I can imagine an alternative. One huge obstacle to democracy is the electoral college.
Hello Diane We talk about democracy, and it’s THAT, of course; but it’s really more comprehensive than that . . . it’s about the loss of what it means to be civilized, as in “civilization.”
I couldn’t even sit in the same room with the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene without my teeth bleeding . . . just as an example; and how many of us have become totally alienated from “particular” family members. (I have . . . these people are obsessed with their version of what I should do with my life . . . I’ve tried for years to break through, just to be a family, but that’s all over now. I took the highway in the “my way or the highway” choice that lived in EVERY conversation. And even THEN, it took some doing to peel them off.)
Like with climate change, however, I’m not the only one who thinks we’ve already passed over the “it’s too late” line with regard to legitimately calling ourselves civilized. That article and its very concrete ideas gave me some (I think legitimate) hope. CBK
CBK: This is fascinating! However, note that we already have lots and lots of organizations in the U.S. that style themselves as Citizens’ Militias, and these represent everything that Ms. Chwalisz detests. Still, there is merit in this proposal.
Oh, and would “make my teeth bleed”–lol, that’s hilarious.
Hello Bob Threads of hope, though one of the first things I thought of was that some lowlife oligarch will come along and start spreading the around the cash to buy support for “certain” arguments and corrupt the whole process.
On the good side, as I read that article, I was reminded of Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms speech, especially freedom from fear, as it sort of crawled out of the narrative. CBK
Wonderful, Catherine. I love how your mind works.
So good to get a hopeful note, Catherine. Thanks for this.
bethree5 Glad to share. I don’t always agree with these articles from this group, but they always push my thought a little further, or make present thoughts come more clearly into fruition. Free subscriptions, I highly recommend. CBK
Lifesite News (7-30-2021), “Why sex education has so successfully increased promiscuity…”… “Petition. Support school choice and call on the U.S. Senate to pass….”
Salon (5-12-2022) described the websites, Lifesite News and Church Militant. Those sites and similar ones had 10,000,000 visits in the final 3 mos. of 2020. The Salon article informs readers that Rep. Paul Gosar shared a video of an event at the door of the Basilica of St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral. Gosar praised a young man reciting the rosary and other young men at the event as, “heroes…defending their church against an abortion horde.” Another video taken on that day at the same location shows a man shouting at the “horde”, “…not your body, not your choice. Your body is mine and you’re having my baby.” The title of the Salon article is, “White Nationalists Get Religion…”
Those who haven’t read, “The new official contents of sex education in Mexico: laicism in the crosshairs (3-3-2021), at the Scielo site, should.
Linda I had to laugh . . . what hypocrites! . . . The priest should have asked those young men, “where was your so-called responsibility when you were getting naked?”
(Did I write that?)
I’m sorry . . . but your note points to the question: WHERE IS MEN’s RESPONSIBILITY IN THIS ARGUMENT? And I suppose because they were so outraged, they were offering to birth the baby and raise the child? HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!
You know, Linda, I think it important to note that, by anti-abortion RIGHT WINGERS, including Catholics and evangelicals, pushing doctrinal ideas on others by overplaying their rights and power grabbing in a democracy that gives them freedom and support, they have subtly obscured the very real MORAL issue that abortion and irresponsibility in a democracy really are and should be about. CBK
Catherine– Yup. The male half of the quotient is missing in Alito’s draft as well as every state law that has been making abortion (&, next goal, birth control measures being drafted as we speak) almost completely unavailable to its citizens over the last decade+.
Interestingly enough, Pew research shows 99% of every religious denomination uses both birth control (including by men, including vasectomy) and abortion in equal measure. I suspect if we can manage to find a way to bring the issues to popular referendum, it would put the SCOTUS right out of the picture [which is apparently where Alito prefers them to be anyway…]
The right-wingers always blame the wrong stuff. They blame the surge in teenagers having sex on sex education, the surge in teens identifying as 2SLGBTQX on teacher recruiters. Just ridiculous. It’s like blaming the last flood in New Orleans on lawn sprinklers. These people are idiots. Ofc, this stuff is all about changes in the culture at large.
And, of course, the fact is that teen sex is WAY down, as is teen pregnancy, both due to wide availability of birth control, including long-term birth-control shots.
Bob I didn’t know that about teen sex and pregnancies. Thank you for the information, (and for the nice compliment). CBK
In 2019, some 38.4% of high schoolers reported that they had ever had sex, down from 39.5% in 2017, 46% in 2009, and 54% in 1991. (From the CDC’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey)
Bob I wonder how much thy allow for fudging? Though even a relatively wide range would still be “telling.” CBK
cx: both due should have been the latter due
I fear that this Court might outlaw contraception.
The Dobbs decision provides a template for overturning Griswald v. Connecticut (giving married couples the right to obtain and use contraceptives) and Eisenstadt v. Baird (extending this right to unmarried persons) and returning the ability to regulate or ban contraception to the states, many of which will adopt extremely restrictive laws, such as ones criminalizing providing contraception to teens. It has already ruled in favor of restrictions on availability of contraception based on religion in Little Sisters of the Poor v. Pennsylvania, Hobby Lobby v. Burwell, and Zubik v. Burwell. These decisions are disastrous because, of course, availability of contraception is the major reason for declines in unwanted pregnancies among teens and the very poor as well as declines in abortions.
Nah, Bob. I don’t even believe that. Cultural changes at large show us secularizing. 30% now “unaffiliated.” And Catholics leaving the fold at 5x the rate of any other denomination. And 2/3+ polls showing Americans want abortions legal with some restrictions. And Pew says 99% of every denomination practices the whole range of birth control and gets abortions. What we’re seeing is a $/power control grab, plain and simple.
…Of course, that may be exactly what you meant ;-D
Of course we are secularizing, but Europe, with its traditions of established (state-sanctioned) religions got there way ahead of us. My point is that matters like young people being nonracist or antiracist, being tolerant about sexual orientation, and so on are general cultural phenomena, not stuff taught by a cabal of Socialist high-school teachers, as Fox News would have it.
Again, Ginny, the official teaching of the Catholic Church is that this is a LITERAL transubstantiation into the body and blood of Christ, though how that occurs, exactly, and what it means, exactly, is said to be “a mystery.” This is one of the issues that distinguishes the official view of the Catholic Church from that of the Anglican Church.
Bob With assumptions about “literal,” you are talking about and assuming interpretive issues flowing from very different, and differently developed, persons, even with those who write the official texts of the Church. Like so many of these kinds of issues, the conflict goes more to philosophical rather than religious development. Like the candle smoke ceremony in Jewish tradition or dropping the ball in New York on New Year’s Eve, there is a unification of spirit that is sought in the moment where time and space of all that is important in history come together in that moment of participation. But again, this is hardly the forum . . . . CBK
I understand that unification of the spirit thing, but this also happens in Trump rallies. That’s why people are there. And I’ve attended meetings at these huge evangelical megachurches. Same, and powerful. I didn’t invent the business about taking the Eucharist literally. The Catholic Church did, and it distinguishes itself from Protestant churches in part by this insistence on a literal, real, actual transubstantiation–turning into the substance of the body and blood. Not my idea or my formulation–the Church’s.
Bob It’s a different understanding of what “literal” means. And that’s a philosophical issue and, again, this is not the forum for it. I do think you are correct in your understanding of the mental depravity that exists in many “fundamentalists.” CBK
Indeed. There’s Alice’s notion, and there’s Humpty’s:
“I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory,’ ” Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t—till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!'”
“But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument’,” Alice objected.
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”
Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. “They’ve a temper, some of them—particularly verbs, they’re the proudest—adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs—however, I can manage the whole lot! Impenetrability! That’s what I say!”
Bob . . . amazing how fairy tales, like poetry, can hold all the complexity and challenges that life affords us all in a few wonderfully put-together lines. For you, I hope you don’t make a mockery it. CBK
I do believe that Mr. Carroll was having a bit of fun. But, hey, this is the Church, we’re talking of, and according to Church Logic, three cups of tea can be one cup of tea and vice versa.
Bob Case closed. CBK
But, but, you charged me for three cups of tea! I had only one!
But sir, I served you Trinitarian tea. It was one cup and three cups. It’s all about what “literally one cup” means!
As GregB has pointed out here, when fascism takes over here in the United States, all the same words will be used, but they will have different meanings. All animals will be equal, but some will be more equal than others are. Women will be free not to have control over their own bodies, and everyone will be free not to marry someone of the same sex, just as everyone is free to participate in the totally “free” market in 200-million-dollar yachts.
In the free market of housing, you are free to buy a penthouse in the best buildings of NYC, on Fifth Avenue, Park A ensue, anywhere. If you can afford to pay $40 million-$100 million.
LOL Save me a couple, Diane!
Bob Basically, again, in my view, this is not an appropriate forum to explore philosophical issues . . . in the way they need to be explored. I mean no offense, but I must bow out of that part of the discussion. On fascism, I am completely aware and “affeared” of its “present dangers.” CBK
All women will be “free” not to control their own reproduction, and all people will be “free” not to marry someone of the same sex. Will that be a perversion of the language? Well, yes, it will be.
Bob I already took a hard swipe at relativism, which you seem to ignore and still think it’s what I mean when I bring up complexity.
No, I am not indicating relativism; and yes, I am aware that language can be and often is perverted, but not always. NOW HEAR THIS: AGAIN, these are philosophical issues that cannot be appropriately addressed for this forum. Can we get on with other concerns now? CBK
certainly
Philosophy is simply careful thinking about anything, so the proper place for philosophy is anywhere, same as the proper place for women is anywhere that is a proper place for people.
Bob “Philosophy is simply careful thinking about anything, so the proper place for philosophy is anywhere, same as the proper place for women is anywhere that is a proper place for people.”
Of course, it’s careful thinking but not at all simple. PLEASE STOP. CBK
Sure
From the Catechism:
Catechism of the Catholic Church cites the Council of Trent also in regard to the mode of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist:
In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist “the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained.” (Council of Trent (1551): DS 1651) “This presence is called ‘real’ – by which is not intended to exclude the other types of presence as if they could not be ‘real’ too, but because it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present.”
This young woman has the completely orthodox view officially held by the Church, that transubstantiation is not a metaphor:
https://youngmoderncatholic.com/2019/08/news-flash-the-eucharist-is-not-a-metaphor/
See also:
https://www.ncregister.com/blog/transubstantiation-may-be-a-hard-teaching-but-it-s-a-true-teaching?gclid=Cj0KCQjwpv2TBhDoARIsALBnVnlDUtTQjvy7jWIdrcTVsZVuC1faTh320nOFvzv1OwmOiagZqidgkxwaAk5tEALw_wcB
Well, Bob all I can tell you is I was not raised as a robot instructed to believe every jot & tittle of the Boston Catechism– which at 12yo I assumed from its title was invented by Boston Irish Catholic priests & paid little attention to. (Ornery independent rural here). In my family we had grandpa who. though an Irish Catholic, kept his beliefs to himself and encouraged others to follow their own lights. And mom who studied Aquinas and other Catholic thinkers & loved nothing better than a debate with the monsignor at the monthly discussion group. Church is like a school, not an army.
My family was mixed Catholic & Protestant. (Grandpa drove grandma to her Presbyterian church when she got too short to see over the steering wheel.) The main reason I went in the Catholic direction was because the mass is primarily a ritual, leaving one to one’s own thoughts, with less than 10mins for pastors to bloviate on the way they do in Protestant churches.
I so love your post, Ginny! Just wonderful!
Bob
I just read for the first time about the castrati in Italy. That was some sick stuff done 3-4 centuries ago to the sons of the poor under the label of honoring God.
Linda Your hair is on fire again. CBK
Bob About the Catechism you quoted from: It’s a way of understanding all of everything, including time, space, and anything physical. CBK
Not just schools. This is a symptom of a probable new segregation in which private prejudices and approved hierarchies prevail based on a legal framework of vicious intent married with a malleable deniability designed to prevail in any argument. This will include selective enforcement of laws that codify these gross inequalities. The laws will come quickly if Republicans take back control of Congress later this year and the White House in 2024. The next two years will be time to refine legislation so that it is ready to be implemented in a flurry in January and February, 2025.
This morning I had an exchange with a friend who noted the Pennsylvania republican primary might be the biggest s#!t show in the state’s history. With the same things happening around the country, I realized these candidates and their supporters are spitting on the Constitution they claim to revere. In Pennsylvania, the leading candidate to be nominated for governor is a man who has banned press coverage from his events and only campaigns in front of his potential supporters. A reporter recently rented a hotel room that had a balcony where they could record him. In the Senate race, “Dr.” Oz’s cross border carpetbagging candidacy does much the same on the campaign trail.
What these and other candidates are doing is another example of how fragile the essential social, cultural, and political norms needed to give life to the concept of democratic-republican governance are and how they are changing right before our eyes, for everyone to see and some to deny. They are explicitly saying and demonstrating that, to them, elected representation is for certain people, those who can publicly demonstrate support for them. They have dispensed with even the appearance of support for the idea of broad-based representation of a congressional district or state. We, the People… has morphed into Us, the People Who Decide and Profit. Even those of us who are not “originalists” can figure out that was never the Framers’ intent, even if it was their practice. Democracy will not disappear. It’s just in the process of being rebranded as a more exclusive product.
A forced- birth GOP organization is reportedly giving Kathy Barnette (Pennsylvania U.S. Senate race) $300,000 for her campaign in the final days.
Also supporting Barnette (1) The Club for Growth launched a multi-million dollar ad campaign for her. Rolling Stone has an interesting article about Josh Mandel and David McIntosh who heads Club for Growth (2) Catholic Vote is an organization that praised Hungary’s Orban. The Tennessee Star (5-13-2022) quoted Catholic Vote, “Pennsylvania’s Catholic population will make up the swing vote necessary to ensure Barnette’s victory.
Catholic Vote plans to contact 200,000 Pennsylvania Catholic voters via mobile devices to urge them to vote for Barnette.
Linda It was a rhetorical question . . . the point is that I had to drag it out of you. And my guess there are others who have no religious affiliation at all; but since I’ve been on this site for a long time, I wouldn’t expect your clarity on the issue anyway. On the contrary.
The more prescient point, however, is that joining a religious affiliation is a choice in a secular/democratic state, or if you are born into a particular faith, then you can leave, and it has no effect on one’s citizenship. CBK
Barnette denied that she tweeted ridicule for Islam, labeling it an irrational religion and that she tweeted a comment stating pedophilia is a cornerstone of Islam. The Hill alleges the comments are in her twitter feed.
If true, oh, the irony for Barnett to be backed by Catholic Vote.
Linda Apparently, and again, for some power-grabbers, abortion trumps morality. CBK
Islam is essentially irrational religion? And Catholicism and its magical brethren are rational? And where are the pedophiles? smh
I hope you noticed Elise Stepanik’s tweet where she referred to “pedo Democrats.” This is the Cingreswoman chosen by Kevin McCarthy as a leader to replace Liz Cheney after she voted to impeach Trump and keeps insisting on telling the truth about January 6.
George Conway (Kellyanne’s husband) tweeted that Stepanakik was “vile.” It seems that the entire GOP has been captured by QAnon.
The only convicted pedophile who came to national attention was Jeffrey Epstein, and he was a good friend of Trump.
Linda BTW, what OTHER GROUPS are supporting Barnette?. CBK
Republicans seem to be worried that the cuckoo Barnette might win, setting up a victory for Dems. She is Islamophobic, homophobic, and who knows what else.
GOP is fearful of Barnette’s surge in the polls.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/kathy-barnette-soars-polls-pa-gop-senate-primary.amp
Barnette homeschooled her kids for 6 years.
Religious conservatives like Stepanik lie with ease and use transference to assign the sins and crimes of their church leaders to others.
One of the comments I am ignoring so that my reply doesn’t increase Diane’s reading, “I had to drag it out of you.”
Linda Here, . . . I’ll try to be clearer: While I think these forums require brevity, they do not require that we select and post resource material (sans citations) according to our bias-only while leaving all else behind. CBK
married with a malleable deniability designed to prevail in any argument
Been a lot of that going around.
This all happens because they blame public schools and teachers for the devastation caused by the failed system of education.
I know how much you guys hate trolling so I will only do this once. I am sick and tired of teachers getting blamed for what the system forces on them. This will never change until we, as educators, pressure the Secretary of Education to allow public school teachers to design Target Schools that without the fake big test and make education about learning again rather than about winning.
When the pandemic struck, a lesson should have been learned. Students are returning with their skills all over the board. So do we promote without learning, or do we fail them and retain them until they lose hope of graduating. Under this system there is no answer. And this devastation has been going on for 200 years with black and brown students as well as some poor white students.
The ONLY way to resolve this problem is to change the system. And the ONLY way to change the system is to set up Target Schools run by the real professionals, public school teachers and in the public school with parents, students, teachers, unions as full partners
It is time we show the world what we are made of when out from under the heavy hand of politicians.
I apologize for the trolling but for more thoughts go to http://www.wholechildreform.com. or search for my new book, A FAILED SYSTEM, PANDEMIC SOLUTIONS TO A 200 YEAR OLD EDUCATION CRISIS. I really don’t give a rats ass about selling books. In September I turn 80 and have worked my whole life to save the students.
It’s time to pass the torch to younger educators who no longer want to be controlled by fake politicians. If not now, when? If not us, Who?
caplee68 writes: “The ONLY way to resolve this problem is to change the system. And the ONLY way to change the system is to set up Target Schools run by the real professionals, public school teachers and in the public school with parents, students, teachers, unions as full partners. It is time we show the world what we are made of when out from under the heavy hand of politicians.”
I think you are correct here . . . However, implied in your note is that teachers, too, have to become politically aware and, from my experience teaching teachers for several years, they are very nice people who tend to project their niceness AND their political well-meaning-ness out on politicians and capitalists alike.
In other words, and though things are slowly changing (thanks to Diane and others), as a rule teachers tend to think all “actors” in education want what’s best for ALL of the children. Boooo! Hisss! Polyanna lives!
THAT nice thinking too has to change. CBK
Addendum to my note about politically naive teachers:
ADULT educators (NLA etc.) have had this recalcitrantly naive idea, and been snookered about it, for a very long time (I have lurked on several websites for YEARS where my comments got little or no response). They have thought that everyone wants what THEY want for their adult students. They do research project after research project, and Congress just sends them back to do MORE research.
Even if policy makers are genuine (not much), they still want proof BEFORE they pay that education works, revealing their own brand of ignorance about it.
However, the capitalist-entrepreneurs know how to do half-truths, and to penetrate their target (public) institutions without causing apparent conflict:
Their “prepare for jobs only” gruel (code for modified slavery) has held sway on those sites for a very long time, and enlisted genuine adult educators to do their bidding. NADA. CBK
Entirely agree. Dr. Lee, about killing the federal tests, but the teachers’ unions need to be behind this. They could marshal the people in the street to overturn the federal standardized testing mandate, and until they do that, they are complicit in that child abuse and teacher abuse and debasement of curricula and pedagogy to make it test preppy.
Randy Weingarten supported one of my books and I’m convinced her union and the NEA will be on board. 😀
And, Dr. Lee, congrats on your 80th!
Why do right-wingers want to overturn the clear precedent of separation of church and state in schooling? Well, they can read the polls. They can see that on issue after issue–guns, abortion, Medicare for all, taxes, climate change, LGBTQX rights, etc.–there is, among young people, a SUPERMAJORITY that is against them. If right-wingers don’t convert MILLIONS of young people, they are facing extinction a generation from now. And what better way to effect indoctrination of a new generation of right-wing lemmings than to create fundamentalist Christian madrasas around the country? (“They have to be taught, before it’s too late, before they are six or seven or eight, to hate all the people their relatives hate; they have to be carefully taught.”) Doing so would also have the salubrious effects, from their point of view, of killing teachers’ unions (which are a public-school phenomenon) and diverting billions of taxpayer dollars into private profits.
However, right-wingers, be careful what you ask for. For much of their history, the nation states of Europe were officially theocratic, with what our founders called “established”–by which they meant “government-sponsored”–religions. After the Reformation, there were Protestant nation states and Catholic nation states. In England, since legislation rammed through Parliament by Henry VIII, the monarch was officially the head of the church.
When Jefferson wrote the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which provided the basis for the clause in Article Six of our Constitution that prohibited a religious test for office and later for the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, there were those who were horrified by this Roger Williams-like call for strict separation. Would the new United States become an irreligious country?
Well, precisely the opposite happened. Today, in the former theocratic nation states of Europe, religious belief is in sharp decline, and many grand old churches stand empty. They still hold Sunday services in these, but no on shows up. In the United States, with its wall of separation between religion and the state, religion flourishes, and LITERALLY many thousands of denominations have sprung up. Freedom is a fertile soil.
The nutcase Evangelicals who gathered around their predator pol Don the Con in his Offal Office in his Whiter House for the infamous laying on of hands, and others like them, might think that they want government sanctioning of religion–the use of taxpayer dollars to fund their madrasas. But they won’t, if they are successful, end up with the Handmaid’s Tale world they so fervently pray (prey?) for. They will end up with schools full of kids pushing back against the rigidity, the stupidity, the dullness and sameness, of the official line, what with the arc of history and all. LOL.
However, in the short term (for many decades, before we arrive at that future irreligiosity) there will be much strife if the justices rule for the plaintiffs. If the justices force the country to swallow this diseased Apple of Discord, much sickness will result in the Body Politic, which is already on life support due to the autoimmune disease of factionalism. There will be massive demonstrations in the streets against specific religion-inspired legislative fiats, violence in response to these, more demonstrations, more violence, in a negative feedback loop. Issues will arise, over and over, again and again, in other areas of public life. Will the citizens of a town be able to declare it officially Christian? Will the Church of Satan and the Wiccans and the ayahuasca churches and the Pastafarians and the Church of Bob (yes, there is such a thing) and the Church of the Dude be able to set up schools in Florida and Mississippi and demand taxpayer dollars (in the form of vouchers or direct subsidies) for those? What will the bible thumpers of Florida and Mississippi and Ohio and Tennessee and West Virginia think of that?
So, there will be all these battles, further dividing us, further factionalizing us, at the very time when we are so factionalized that reasonable pundits are talking about the possibility of Civil War again in these dis-United States.
Lord help us. LOL.
Dear right-wing oligarchs and religious nutcases funded by these: You can’t put that Jack (or Jill) back in the box via fundie madrassas. Doing that will require a whole lotta state violence, and those young people, they will give it right back to you.
There were Eastern Orthodox states in Europe too. 🤔
Yes!
Just as alcohol and drug prohibition create vast undergrounds of criminal alcohol and drug dealing, the creation of taxpayer-funded fundie Christian madrassas will create, in today’s world, undergrounds within those schools OF IDEAS, OF ANTIESTABLISHMENT THOUGHT and ACTION BASED ON THAT THOUGHT.
This Extreme Court might well require states not to “discriminate against religious persons” by forcing states to use taxpayer dollars to fund religious schools. Years ago, I made some money and bought a house in a fancy neighborhood. (Yeah, I was young and stupid.) My neighbors turned out to be almost all miserable old men with young trophy wives. This was an abject lesson in a truth that time reveals: Be careful what you wish for.
Be careful what you wish for, Pugs.
In the meantime, everyone else, fashion your seatbelts. Extreme and extremist turbulence ahead.
For those of us who consider the possibility of religion as a positive motivator in our society, the wall between church and state, indeed the wall between religion and politics, protects the purity of the religion as much as it protects the state from being dominated. I know this latter complication was uppermost in the minds of people like Jefferson.
The thirty years war hung close to the minds of eighteenth century European thought. Religious massacres, always the stuff of medieval history, had arisen at a time when Puritan citizens read exaggerated reports of catholic atrocities in the war. The founding fathers feared the Puritan reaction to this not entirely fake news as well as the truth of Hapsburg depredations. Separation of church and state was an antidote for these ills.
But in modern times we also see the development of antagonism toward the religion that results from perversion of religious ideals due to material society including political society. As Dave Macon said: “Now they preachin for the money, and the money multiplies.”
The Founders were well aware of religious wars in Europe over centuries. They wanted separation of church and state because they knew European history. We are descending into the religious wars that the Founders sought to avoid.
And Diane!
Well said, Roy.
But this wasn’t just in “modern times,” Roy. See, for example, the Papal Bull Inter caetera and the Treaty of Tordesillas–wholesale expropriation of indigenous lands, leading to extirpation and extermination of the indigenous, all with the enthusiastic support of the Church.
Well, more than just support, an active call from the Church to do those things
Bob More Catholic bashing. Sigh . . . Fortunately, sort of like one’s family, or one’s country, we don’t always define the whole by its awful failures or even by some members’ intentional oversights of them. And by definition, the older churches/faiths have a much longer and history to account for than the post-16th Century and American manifestations of the religious question. Bash away. Most of us are used to it. CBK
No, not Catholic-specific. Cotton Mather, the foremost preacher of the Protestant Massachusetts Bay Colony, wrote in his Wonders of the Invisible World that the New World was formerly the dominion of Satan and the indigenous peoples where his followers and that he and his brethren were there to wrest these territories away from the Devil. So, this was not, emphatically not, a specifically Catholic matter.
And I think that I was pretty clear that I was addressing Roy’s statement about this being a modern phenomenon and that that is why I referred to older phenomena.
Selective Catholicism enables the whole corrupt institution. And it’s essentially self-serving mystical nonsense.
Steve Nelson Ha! HA! Ha! I’m glad to hear it! AND that we have religious freedom in this country. Enforced atheism is just another form of totalitarianism, like religious zealotry, based in ignorance, and to rightly fear. Atheism is just another answer to the religious question. It just says NO to the same very human question.
But back to abortion. I’ve stated here at least twice that I think it’s a moral, and only derivatively a religious, issue. CBK
You have no understanding of atheism. it isn’t enforced. The meaning is simple: It rejects theism, which is the theological belief in a higher power that answers prayers and is active in human life. a-theism rejects that nonsense. It says nothing more or less about the human condition. The absence of a belief is not equivalent to a belief.
Steve Nelson I didn’t say atheism IS enforced. I’m saying that IF it is enforced, like any religious ideology, . . . . CBK
Steve Nelson “Selective Catholicism enables the whole corrupt institution. And it’s essentially self-serving mystical nonsense.”
I think you are right in our time and for way too many people, including many in authority; and in this context, for way too many Catholics.
Please know, however, that for me, after a long experience with it both personally and as an academic, there is a luminosity at the core of the Catholic faith that (for me) is shared with other faiths, but it happens to be the one I have come to habituate and love.
But it’s a big church. Like way many of my fellow parishioners, I wouldn’t force any religious views or doctrinal practices on anyone, on principle. And I certainly don’t harbor a sense of contempt for atheists. CBK
Well, that’s reasonable. I, for example, love much music composed for religious purposes.
Bob and Roy: My response about the bread and wine went to moderation. CBK
Some states already have approximations of voucher programs. Missouri has a program that provides help for religious school involving tax credits. This blog had a posting last July. The St. Louis Post Dispatch newspaper had a recent piece about the religious groups involved.
Yes, there are many of these. And several of them have sneaky names, as they do here in Florida, where they are called “academic scholarships.” But they could be called aardvarks, for that matter. They are still vouchers. The question is whether these state laws allowing taxpayer dollars to be used for private religious schools violate the Constitution’s provisions against establishment of religion and discrimination based on race or other characteristics (if they go to schools that discriminate) and what the current Extreme Court will decide about that.
The Florida state constitution explicitly prohibits the funding of religious schools.
Jeb Bush got a referendum on the state ballot in 2012 to change that provision and permit funding of religious schools.
He deviously named the referendum the “Religious Liberty” act.
People had to vote against “religious Liberty” to oppose vouchers.
Jen’s sneaky referendum was defeated by 55%-45%. If it had been honestly named as a “support the funding of religious schools” vote, it would have gone down by a much larger margin, as it has in other states.
Amen!
Steve Nelson “(Atheism) rejects theism, which is the theological belief in a higher power that answers prayers and is active in human life. a-theism rejects that nonsense. It says nothing more or less about the human condition. The absence of a belief is not equivalent to a belief.”
Insofar as atheists go further than claiming an “absence of belief,” to rejecting theisms claims (probably on the grounds that it IS faith and belief and not some form of empirically established knowledge), then you are fooling yourself . . . your own rejection is incoherent based on your own claim to believe, or perhaps even to KNOW among yourselves with all the contempt you can muster, that a theistic belief IS nonsense. In fact, neither position knows, at least, in that way.
My own point is the more modest philosophical claim that atheists are answering the same question that theists are answering; that is, if history has anything to say about it, human beings ask the religious question. the answers differ in myriad ways and with the historical period, but the basic question is the same.
The relevant point here, however, is that your rejection and claim of NOT is NOT an absence at all, but rather tries to hide a claim; and neither knows, at least while sharing the same understanding of knowledge as such, that is, as empirically establish-able, e.g., to others as the limitations of the natural and physical sciences will allow.
But then AGAIN, my view is that these issues don’t belong here; but my bad, I keep letting myself get drawn into them. CBK
Double talk. Saying “I don’t believe a God figure dabbles in humanity” says nothing more than the words within the quotation marks. Your attempt to ascribe other meaning(s) is without foundation. It is a typical device of whataboutism used by theists to counter criticism of their mythology.
Steve Nelson “Atheism rejects . . . . “? “nonsense“? CBK
Huh?
Steve,
Public school defenders avoid all mention of the school choice politicking by the state Catholic Conferences, regardless of its success and pervasiveness. When research focus is on the Catholic church’s politicking, public school defenders omit the info., for example, the article, “The New Official Contents of Sex Education in Mexico: Laicism in the Crosshairs.” (The research is much broader than the title indicates and includes the U.S.)
As long as two false pretenses continue, public schools will be fighting for survival with their hands tied behind their backs. The first guise is that the Catholic Church politicks for progressive causes. And, the second is that the Catholic Church is not the stronger political power in its alliance with evangelicals.