Date: Wed, 26 Nov 1997 10:46:42 0600
From: Frank Grose
To: Rob Weinberg
Subject: Re: School
Hi Rob,
Don't know if you are in today, but I've got a few minutes to invest in our project.
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?) ; )
Yep, laziness and procrastination are among my other attributes! : ) Seriously, help me understand this. Okay, you personally do not see "practiced Christianity" as a threat, but others must. If not perceived as a threat or potential threat, why are so many against it? I ask that question from the basis of accepting your position that there is no "anti-religion" or "anti-Christianity" motivation behind this. The question is intended to be on the broad scale; not just the Jewish community.
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.
The problem with rulings such as this is that it creates a large gray area, not in the mind of the judge or lawyers, but in the minds of teachers, principals, administrators, and the general public. Fear of the law and trying to be "good law abiding citizens" ("Loyal subjects" might be a more descriptive term with regard to some of our judicially created laws.), they won't go near that line. Thusly, far more liberty and freedoms are suppressed by the "effect" than the "letter" of the law. Should I believe that this is NOT a calculated fallout benefit realized by the left? The effect of such is as much a part of the protest from the right as is the law itself. It is the implementation that hurts.
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.
Yes, I believe the teacher has the right under the First Amendment to "say" an audible prayer of thanks before her class. The question of "leading" could be argued, I suppose. Rob, I thought we'd gotten beyond using the ridiculous in our dialog. Your question regarding turning "a history lesson into a prayer meeting" reflects either your ignorance of what prayer meetings are, or you are resorting to using ridiculous expressions. All that does is create emotional argument, with which we get nowhere. You keep insisting on using the term "promote religion." Even if it were promotion, which it isn't, compared to what else the government is promoting it is nothing to worry about. I'm eager to get your response to the Presidential promotion of homosexuality in the public schools, just to see if you are using a double standard. If you do, don't give me the "it's not anti-religion" counter again. It would have a very hollow ring.
"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?
Neither this prayer, prayer before football games, nor any other prayer of the type we've been discussing are designed to MAKE people pray. All are welcome to pray if they so choose. That is another ridiculous expression. How much is lost? Very good question. History shows us that the Pilgrims were a religious people. God provided for and preserved them through very difficult times. They thanked God for what He had blessed them with. Today, for many adults and children, giving thanks to God for what he has provided them is part of their belief and way of life. The history lesson was a poignant reminder to that kid that they should be thankful, and if the Pilgrims thanked God for their food, shouldn't they also. What message was conveyed to that second grader about "freedom of religion?" Won't future instruction in government, specifically the First Amendment, seem inconsistent to what he experienced in the second grade? Now he is taught the arrangement of letters of the alphabet in a certain way says, "THE BALL IS RED." and that is what it means. Later when he reads, "CONGRESS SHALL MAKE NO LAW RESPECTING THE ESTABLISHMENT OF RELIGION OR PROHIBITING THE FREE EXERCISE THEREOF." how can he understand that it doesn't mean just what it says. (Well, I guess we could explain to him that it wasn't Congress that made the laws that prohibit the free exercise of religion; that it was the courts. But then that is inconsistent with the functions of the three separate branches or our government. Boy, is this kid going to be confused!) What is lost in this process is genuine honesty.
Obviously, your friend has been soaking up the David Barton propaganda.
After reviewing some of the stuff (I'm being kind) linked to your web page, one can readily recognize that propaganda has been pushed to a high state of perfection. Fine examples they are! Come on, Rob, we are not supposed to say things like that. In the field of statistics, one data point is meaningless, yet on brief exposure to Barton you label all his work as "propaganda!" That isn't like you. : (
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.
Some of what you say may be legally true; however, history doesn't show a major turning point in the acknowledgment of God in public and government when the First Amendment was ratified. That didn't happen until the 1960's, when the Court began to misinterpret our Constitution. Jefferson made it clear (to the Danbury Baptist Association) what he meant by "wall of separation" too, but what difference did that make to justices (and subsequently many others) who didn't want to accept the fact that his words said what he meant. And now, if it supports the (I really don't want to use the term "anti-Christian," but I don't know a term that is apparently more descriptive.) "agenda of the left," (How was that?) you'll take his words as they appear without questioning what he "really meant." Let's be consistent.
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 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?
(My great emotional urge is to say, "Screw the courts!" but I won't. You've taught me better than that. Thanks.) For the courts to decree that Thanksgiving is a secular holiday, carries about as much real weight as saying certain prayers and "IN GOD WE TRUST" is ceremonial deism. To them, in their individual capacities, it may be, but not to many American citizens. Besides that, what right have the courts to strip the citizenry of their religious heritage? You would scream if they were trying to diminish your Jewish heritage.
“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.
To pray or not to pray is your choice. Considering James 1:17 "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father..." as being true, as I do, I shall acknowledge the source of my blessings, especially, on Thanksgiving, in keeping with the spirit and intent of our National holiday. Thank God we are both Americans. What would happen to me if I were in Israel and didn't observe their holidays? Rocks thrown, as you mentioned before? How can one "be thankful" without being thankful to "someone?" ; )
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?
Ask your kids who Gaia is. I'm sure they have been taught to respect the "Mother Earth Goddess." (No they don't promote "religion in public schools," do they?) No, the kids should not be made to fast for Ramadan, but if studying that holiday, they could be invited to observe the fast, just to be more understanding and sympathetic of Islamics. Peyote? Might be hard to come by. How about if they substituted cannabis instead? Hey, aren't they already doing that at school? ; )
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?
My friend is not a lawyer, but he is a good civic minded citizen who happens to be an informed, concerned Christian. Like me, not a whacko. I'll simply ignore your last two questions. They fall into the category addressed above. }: (
Don't eat too much turkey.
Regards,
Frank
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