Unchecked and Unbalanced: The Inaugeration.

Welcome to the inaugural Moral Minority Report. This is the first in the series of First Amendment violations in the United States, and what we can do to stop them. Before we get started, let's clear up what the First Amendment is.

"Congress shall pass no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech; or the press; or the right of the people to peaceably assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

No matter how much Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity would like you to believe that this amendment has little to nothing to do with religion, they're lying. Along with people like Falwell, Robertson and Bush, they've created a lie for you, in which they claim that the first amendment has nothing to do with the separation of church and state, and that this falsehood is merely a remnant of Soviet Russia's constitution. This is what I like to call "The New Lie."

America was not founded to be a Christian or even religious nation. That is everything that thousands died in the Revolutionary War to prevent.

As one of our more prominent founding fathers, James Madison, wrote, "That religion or the duty we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, being under the direction and conviction only, not of violence or compulsion, all men are equally entitled to the full and free exercise of it according to the dictates of Conscience; and therefore that no man or class of men ought, on account of religion to be invested with peculiar emoluments or privileges; nor subjected to any penalties or disabilities under..."

What this basically means is, although Madison was fervently against the foundation of religion in the first place, "In a free country, we can't dictate that you do or you do not practice religion, but religion is to be separate from state as well as separate from any establishment of state." Madison also wrote in later years, "Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect.

Madison was not alone in his detest against religion, as John Adams wrote, "This would be the best of all worlds if it not for religion." This notion was well carried in the times of the early Americas when our fathers saw a nation being formed with as much religious persecution as the lands from which we sought freedom in the first place. Thomas Jefferson was a very outspoken opponent of organized religion, as one of his more tame remarks on the topic reads, "History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government." He wrote this initially to James Madison who quickly and eagerly responded, "There is not a shadow of right in the general government to intermiddle with religion. Its least interference with it would be a most flagrant usurpation."

Withstanding the words of Hamilton, Paine, and Washington, do these statements sound as though our founding fathers intended a Christian Nation, in which people's rights and even medical research would be halted on the basis of religious faith? Absolutely not. America was founded on secular principles and should be as such today, in the spirit of our founding fathers. The first few editions of this blog is going to be chapters from my book "crUSAder," and I will start with a section on one of the more basic of religious rule, The Pledge of Allegiance and Child Indoctrination. Before you read this part, try to remember that the pledge did not have the words "under god" in it until 1954, 100 years after it was initially written.

Children in schools are mandated to recite the pledge of allegiance, which in and of itself is un-American because of the nationalistic properties therein; but within the pledge, children are forced to recite the following:

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. And to the republic, for which it stands, one nation under GOD—indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

As we can see here, America has become yet another theocracy, much like those countries in the middle-east, that the same conservative talk show hosts should revel in. In a country where our highest freedoms are dissent against our national legislation without imprisonment—most of the time—as well as our freedom of religion, this pledge that our children forcibly say on a daily basis, is the highest of abominations against those previously stated freedoms. When one forces a child not only to pledge their allegiance to their country as well as another’s religion, we are violating those very rights that separate America from middle eastern countries. And those separations that distinguish us from openly theocratic countries are those which many of us—outwardly, anyway—would die to protect. So then, why is it that they are tolerated? I’m afraid that I just don’t have an answer. Maybe it’s because there just isn’t justice for all.

Justice is a word that is thrown around as much in politics today, as the word extreme would be in the vernacular of a professional skateboarding competition. And truthfully, it’s become just as meaningless. After all, where is the justice in the fact that there are stone statues of the ten commandments in front of court houses all over in the south? Is it not bad enough that when testifying in a court of law, you are mandated to place your hand on a book of religious faith? A religious faith that only belongs to about 12% of this country is a mandatory and intrical part of American court proceedings. “I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth—so help me, God,” is what is stated in the beginning of a court testimony, while the testifier has his hand placed in the CHRISTIAN bible. What about this says “religious freedom and diversity”? That’s what I’m trying to figure out. And don’t try bringing this up to any sort of right-winger, because if they don’t just flat out tell you to deal with it, they’ll tell you that this is just the way it’s always been, since the right-wing religious pilgrims founded America.

This is what I like to call The New Lie. I call it this because it’s not only new, but it’s completely false. The word The is only there as a preposition. This new lie is what claims that it’s always been like this. That those of us who chose a different route from Christianity have always had to have it shoved in our face, only because this has always been a Christian nation. The lie claims that our churches have always used their tax free money to buy up real state as well as stock and presidents. The lie claims that all other faiths are to be called “new age” because they always have been. The lie claims that courtrooms have always made people swear on the bible and use the word God before testifying. It claims the same for school children, in regards to prayer.

The truth is, as I’ve clearly demonstrated so far, is that this country was not founded on religion, nor was it founded by religious people. And only when it started adopting these overt religious practices, did the violence, turmoil and moral decay of this country begin. Now we’ve become a neo-fascist religious empire, based on the same type of theocracy as Great Britain so many years ago, as well as many middle eastern countries today. If you want to prove this, then why don’t you try something? Why don’t you call your local congressman or congresswoman, and tell him or her that you want to propose removing the term “In God We Trust” from dollar bills and replacing it with “In Allah We Trust”. What would be more fitting, since I’m sure I don’t have to bring up the statistic again, tell your leaders that you want to replace the religious phrase on the dollar with “There Is No God”. I’m sure that will get you laughed right off of the phone. That may actually get you kicked out of the capital building. If you want to have a larger laugh, why don’t you tell your school that you practice the faith of the Flying Spaghetti monster, therefore you must go to school dressed as a pirate every Thursday. Why don’t you ask for a bible other than a Christian one in a Juvenile corrections facility? Why don’t you ask a hotel if they have a free bible of a religion that is child friendly, and has no murder, rape or bloodshed. Why don’t you propose changing the word God to Buddha in the pledge of allegiance. Well, the fact of the matter is that we’re supposed to have freedom of religion as well as a separation of church and state. Therefore, why is it that anything other than a Christian based proposal is so readily laughed off the table. If you look at the actual numbers, the number of Muslims in America is actually higher than Presbyterians, Roman Catholics and Protestants combined. Therefore, this being a democracy, why would it be so ridiculous to propose changing the word God to Allah in those heavily Muslim areas? Do that and you’ll see the Christian Right pull the separation of church and state amendment out of their hands faster than the bible. The same amendment that they would usually claim doesn’t exist.

Proof of this is what I like to call the happening of 2004. A Jr. high school in Ohio experienced great controversy around Christmas time when the teachers of the school decided it would be a good idea to spend a week teaching children about the faiths around the world, and what they practice on Christmas. After all, December twenty-fifth was the birthday of about nine prophets and quite a few gods as well, even a hundred years before the birth of Jesus. And by the way, that date wasn’t even decided upon until about six-hundred years after the bible was written.

The teachers taught the children about the eastern religions and their lore around this time of the year. They taught the children about Islam, Judaism as well as many of the Nordic and Pagan beliefs, and their lore behind their holidays at this time of the year. Over all, it was a good idea and if done properly, could have been an eye opening experience and would have led the children to be more tolerant of other cultures and religions.

The problem started when the kids all drew pictures. They were all given the choice of one of the religions that were discussed during the week long education, and given an assignment to draw a picture with an accompanying story that averaged about one-hundred words a piece. Again, not that bad of an idea. That is, until the parent teacher conferences when a woman by the name of Valerie Sheldon entered the halls of the school and saw something that her eyes just could not believe. She saw not only a picture drawn by a child of a Star of David, but she also saw a picture of a snowy night with a pentacle in the sky, that represented the pagan celebration of the Winter Solstice.

She immediately started to scream and search around for a teacher. When she found the teacher responsible for the course, she interrupted her conference with another child’s parent and immediately started calling the teacher foul names in front of children and threatened to sue her for teaching the children this kind of “blasphemy”. What struck me was when I found out that she headed up a parent organization that had only two years prior, fought to keep a Christian Christmas play in the schools holiday-time proceedings.

The story is that parents of the children who attend this school, were parents of a very progressive part of Ohio. Yeah, there is one. A few of the parents decided that keeping a holiday play in school was just a little too much when the play involved the birth of Jesus and other solely Christian references. They fought to get it out of the school, however Valerie and her heavily religious parent group fought against them, citing that the play was only a holiday play and not only for people of a certain denomination of Christianity. The other group fought back informing her that the problem didn’t lie with the fact that it only appealed to one Christian denomination, but the problem was that it was Christian in the first place and surrounded around Christian mythology, and not historical timeline. Therefore, this play shouldn’t be allowed in school because many of the parents in the school either didn’t want their children exposed to false history and religion, and others practiced other faiths such as Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, and even a few Wiccan families.

Valerie fired back in outrage claiming that Christianity is hand and hand with history and Jesus is a part of history too, which may or may not be true, more heavily in the maybe not category. Valerie just couldn’t understand that others don’t believe in the same things she does, and attested that they should and that this play would be a good way to educate. The end result came when Valerie threatened to sue the school, and the other parent group did not, and made clear their intention not to bring this into the courtroom. The school sided with the side that threatened to sue, because they knew she would. They left the play in the school, where it remained for a few years, before the music/drama teacher retired and a new one was hired that refused to do a Christian based play.

Now, this same woman who thought it would be wrong to pull Christianity out of school, is throwing a fit because other religions are being discussed in school as well. Now, I’m all for getting religion completely out of school, but this is a woman who fought to keep religion in school in more than one other case. Therefore, purely out of poetic justice, I’m glad that Valerie suddenly knew how it felt. However, the story doesn’t have that happy of an ending. In fact, the three teachers who were involved in the study were fired because the school wanted to avoid another lawsuit, as Valerie had again threatened to sue. Valerie is still a leading fighter of keeping Christianity in school but all other religions out, and even today is involved in a lawsuit against a school in Nevada for teaching the new and radical theory of gravity.

Okay, that last part was a joke, but I could see it being true. After all, I would think she’d be all about going back in time and getting in on some of that sweet Scope’s Trial action. But in truth, this tale illustrates the very core of what the religious right is all about. They’re all for separation of church and state so long as it involves any other religion but Christianity. They just don’t want their children learning about other religions, because then they might have to answer some actual questions about their faith. And if there’s one thing that I’ve learned in the writing of this book, it’s that people don’t like to have their faith questioned, and they will go pretty far out of their way, even to the length of violence, to keep questions away from their faith. I guess that’s because if other people ask them questions about it, they just might have to question it themselves to answer those queries. After all, nothing brings defensiveness to the front lines in a person than to ask them a question to which they don’t know the answer.

As I write this chapter, I’m reading a book called Religious Literacy, by Stephen Prothero, who calls into question the misunderstanding of religion, and blames it on the fact that public schools don’t teach enough about it. I guess what he’s arguing is that public schools should have comparative religion courses, with which I whole heartedly agree. We need remember though, that a comparative religion course is mainly a course on philosophy with small strains of history attached. This should never be taught along side biology or science, as even a Vatican scientist will tell you, “The Bible is not a book of science, it’s a book of faith.” It would make as much sense to teach Mother Goose tales along side anthropology.

However, if the fact that Christianity, as he argues, is only carried out in the manner in which it is because of the lack of education among those who practice it, why is it that parents irrationally flip out whenever the school proposes a comparative religion course? I know that these people are mostly pretty egocentric, but I would think this would solve the problem. Although, they wouldn’t want their children learning that there are many other faiths out there from which to choose, now would they? This might breed a new generation of people who aren’t devout and fanatically obsessed as they are. It brings the defenses up, and nothing can do that like religious discussion.

If you have a problem believing in the defensiveness of religious people whenever a questioning of their beliefs comes to mind, consider the Vatican (outside of their science department, by the way, which has changed much since the time of Galileo). Have you ever tried to interview a person in the Vatican? Or have you ever tried to interview a Catholic, for that matter, about some of the more bizarre beliefs in the religious structure? If you were to ask a Christian why they believe that the world is 6,000 years old, if you were to find a person who even knew what you were talking about, you would not get an answer, you would get, “This interview is over.” This is because none of them really have any kind of scientific data to back this up, they just believe it because they’re told to believe it. And that is the entirety of religion itself. People who are just told to believe something, and after a few years, just believe it because they were told to. And the worse part about this, is that this is how people now perceive politics, because religion has merged into politics. People are told to believe that abortion is bad and that abstinence only education is good, therefore they eventually believe it, instead of looking at the facts and the numbers and deciding for themselves. It seems today that every issue of politics is also an issue of religion. This is the rise of American theocracy.

Note: This post was from earlier on this year, and this is the first time it has appeared on this website. Since writing this blog, I've been exposed to some horrible truths that do nothing but prove that the evangelical uprising was not only a problem of the Bush administration, but Barack Obama has since carried the torch. His election of Alexia Kelley to a high ranking position in the Department of Health and Human Services, his inauguration prayer being given by known radical, Rick Warren, and even the appointment of Mr. Francis (the scientist who is commonly and falsly credited with mapping the human genome, and a man who actually believes that God implanted morality into us during later stages of evolution) as a leading government scientist; proves the point that the fight is far from over, but has just begun. Our future depends on secular culture winning this war of ideals, else our future be as riddled with war and schism as it is now.

Thanks for reading,
C. Allen Thompson