Date: Tue Nov 25 09:15:29 1997
To: Frank Grose
From: Rob Weinberg
Subject: Re: School
At 06:06 AM 11/25/97 0600, you wrote:
I am forwarding you a message I got from a friend of mine today. As much as I try to accommodate your concerns of the threat of practiced Christianity, such a sad example is not the solution. This is suppression of religious liberty as surely as slavery was suppression of personal liberty.
Frank, I have NEVER said the "threat" comes from "practiced Christianity." Our dialog began with this specific query from you following your friend's return from a Rosh Hashana service in Huntsville, and I quote: "The rabbi also said one of the greatest enemies in the U.S. is the 'Christian Right.' Is this perception widely held in the Jewish community?" That quote began our dialog on the subject. As you are quick to point out, there's a major difference among Christians in what they believe and how they practice. I have always and only been talking about the political activities of the "right" using the power and trappings of government to promote their individual religious practices. You're taking things I have said out of context and are generalizing them. (See what happens when we don't talk for a couple of days?) ; )
Let me get this straight. The kids in a SECOND GRADE CLASS are having a history/social studies lesson, and they're being taught about the first Thanksgiving, ending with the great feast of celebration and "giving thanks." Only, it's not a drama, a re-enactment, or a presentation, they're just all sitting down to eat like the Pilgrims did, in costumes.
A smart second grader points out the historical inconsistency in the omission of PRAYER before everybody digs in to eat. The kid was right. But the teacher was right to hesitate, because -- and this is very important -- the lesson isn't about endorsing or promoting prayer, it's about history. If you want to talk about or teach the history of prayer, that's fine in the law, and Judge DeMent specifically says so in his orders. If you want to use a history lesson as a subterfuge to use the schools as a "mission field" to establish, endorse or promote prayer, you're violating the first amendment.
I know this teacher and she in times past would pray, but know she was intimidated by the current news articles and confusion. It is a sad day when 1st Amendment Rights are trampled on by unelected Judges.
Now, we go from a simple second grade history lesson to the deprivation of religious expression and trampling on first amendment rights by unelected judges, all because the teacher failed to be "historically consistent" by not LEADING the CHILDREN in PRAYER?! What first amendment rights do children and teachers have to turn a history lesson into a prayer meeting? I see your friend's confusion, but this is still just hysteria and hyperbole. Your friend is mixing apples and oranges. Teach history, or promote religion. Don't use the former to do the latter.
What kind of message are we sending our children who, like adults, are intimidated about Thanking the God of the Universe for the blessing He has given us? I doubt that William Bradford had all those present just say a silent prayer. History records that the moment that stood out the most in the Pilgrim's memories was Bradford's Prayer.
This may very well be true. And if this had been a dramatic presentation, or re-enactment of what the Pilgrims actually did, that would've been fine. Teach that religion and Christianity played a major part in the foundation and settlement of the Americas all you want. Just don't make people pray, or entangle government and the schools with that prayer, in teaching that history lesson. How much of the history lesson is lost by teaching that our "forefathers" had sincerely held religious beliefs, that they gave thanks to their God, and set aside a day to do so that we've adopted today in a secular way, without having to actually engage in prayer?
Prayer is foundational to our lives and history. The Pilgrims not only showed the natives on that First Thanksgiving where they put their trust but asked for God's blessing on the Indians as well. Those first settlers set up a governmental system that respected the rights of the governed but held that Foundational belief that all Provisions and Liberties came from God. Now our Governmental system, through Governmental Schools tramples on these belief. When you destroy the foundation what will the righteous do?
Obviously, your friend has been soaking up the David Barton propaganda. There are a couple of obvious problems with his view of history. First, of course, what the Pilgrims did is irrelevant to what our country does after the first amendment was ratified. Does he know that Jefferson and Jackson refused to sign bills proposing a "national day of thanksgiving" precisely because they believed the first amendment prohibited it? Jefferson thought the states could do so, if they wanted, and that's where people like Barton point to what he did or is said to have done on the local school board as proof of what he believed about interpreting the first amendment. But Barton misleads, because Jefferson also made clear that the reason states could do it was that the first amendment didn't apply to the states at the time. What he said the states could get away with didn't hold true for what he thought the federal government could do. So, we've got a couple of "founding fathers" who believed that Thanksgiving was unconstitutional.
As we've discussed before, the free speech clause would not be considered applicable until 1925 in Gitlow v. New York. It would not be held to actually apply to the states until a six years later. And the establishment clause would not be applied to the states until the 40's. Does your friend know that Thanksgiving is considered a secular holiday by the courts, devoid of government endorsed religious significance?
The kid who asked that question, a second grader, recognized that Thanksgiving meal without a prayer of thanks was just plain wrong. He wasn't coached either. I suppose a prayer to Gaia would have been okay with Judge DeMent, the Supreme Court, and the ACLU!
Not that the meal without the prayer was wrong, historically inaccurate. Smart kid. Hey! I'm smoking a 19 lb. turkey this Thursday, gonna' take it to my in laws, gentiles every one of them. (Should'a seen me try and squeeze that sucker in the car! Gobble, gobble!) Are we gonna' pray? Naaaah, and not out of any accommodation to me, either. Are we gonna' think about the origins of this "holiday" and the hardships our "forefathers" endured? I know I will. Will I be "thankful" for living in this country and having the bounty we do? You bet! Do I have to pray to learn and appreciate the lessons of history? No.
I don't know who Gaia is. And when the third graders do a class on comparative religions, should they be made to fast during the month of Ramadan, Islam's most sacred holiday? When they study American Indians, should they sample peyote as they learn about religious ceremonies of some Native Americans? Is not the failure to do so during the study of religion in history or comparative religion (both of which are perfectly legit), the "deprivation of religious expression and trampling on first amendment rights by unelected judges" your friend is suggesting?
Your friend's first response will be to say that those examples are irrelevant, because we're a "Christian nation." Too simplistic. I didn't set up the original scenario. It was your friend who said that in the context of a history or social studies lesson, his child studied the Pilgrims, that they came in costumes and ate a "feast" catered by the parents. Now, were they studying the Pilgrims to teach history? Or was the history lesson a subterfuge to promote religion?
I'm working on a response to an old message, but it isn't finished.
Uh, oh..... Make sure you "quote back" what you're responding to, if you can, or I might not know the context.
You know your friend. If you think he would read this email in the spirit of debate, and that it is not an attack on his own religious beliefs, feel free to share it with him. If you do, please advise him that I mean no disrespect to anything he holds dear or believes, that I do not challenge his faith in God or the correctness of the path he has chosen to follow. You and I have been in this dialog for long enough now that we're actually developing our own shorthand way of expressing ideas that may take a little extra "homework" on your friend's part in order to see where I'm coming from.
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