Recently, a disagreement came up between a friend of mine (we'll call him John) and, well, the rest of his class.
At our school, many classes have windows that open to the outside--in this case, his classroom windows open up right by the senior tables where many students choose to eat their lunch when the weather is nice. As in most high school settings, territories among students are established...in this case, a small group of lesbians girls sat at the table directly outside the windoww of John's class.
That day, John had a substitute teacher...with the newly realized freedom, other students in the classroom (most of which are Southern Baptist, devout Christians) opened the window and pulled a couple of bibles from their bookbags. From there, they proceeded to point out areas of scripture that "say" that the lesbians would be in hell for practicing their lifestyle. John, being a very open-minded individual, took offense to the fact that these Christian students were actually telling these lesbians that they were going to be in hell for their lifestyle.
Matters became worse when the substitute realized what was going on and she, too, withdrew a Bible from her bag and began discussing things with the students. After John asked twice for her to put her Bible away and for her to get the other students to quit harrassing the ones outside the window, he walked out of the classroom--she had given in to neither of his requests.
So, by the "Separation of Church and State" clause, was it wrong for the substitute teacher and students to discuss the Bible as long as they were not forcing their beliefs upon anyone else. Where the students wrong for opening the window and essentially "preaching" to the openly homosexual girls? Or should we just be able to say what we want to...freedom of speech, right?
Just a thought. Or two.
As some people say, "your right to swing your fist ends at my nose." In other words, it may be considered freedom of speech (discussion of the Bible, assuming appropriate setting, such as a philosophy, English, or comparative religions class, and context - open, unbiased discussion) until it infringes on the rights of others (verbal persecution of the girls). The teacher, especially, was out of line. She is an employee of the public school system and, as such, is not legally allowed push her beliefs on others, which is precisely what she did.
-- quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
I attended Catholic high school, so my hands on experience of separation of church and state is limited, but I'll throw in my two cents.
In the school I attended I was refused exemption from "religion class", something I requested on the grounds that I had been Agnostic since I was a very young age and was sick of hearing nothing but Catholicism in these kind of classes. But while being refused exemption, I was also, however, banned from discussing the Bible from any point of view which was unfavourable to the agenda of the Catholic Brother whose job it was to force the benevolence of his belief system down our throats, by the fistful I might add.
My request to be made exempt from this clumsy lead-with-the-stick approach being denied, did not mean that I would not be punished for contributing critically to this disingenuously titled "religion class" though, rather it meant that instead of allowing me to retire to the library to enlighten myself, the Catholic mind control consortium preferred to punish me in each class for "being disruptive".
My request to be allowed to separate myself from church in a country which doesn't recognize separation of church and state was met with forceful attempts at corrective therapy, not reason. It is most preferable to such religious minds to be legally allowed the right to attempt a Pavlov's Dog type approach to religious conditioning, rather than have a situation where the student can just walk away without punishment.
You see, state doesn't want to force religious peoples' children to sit down while teachers tell them why their belief system is wrong. State is not interested in dedicating classes to the express purpose of forcing Atheism upon children. Religions are, however, interested in forcing their belief, exclusively, upon a captive child audience.
In a school like the one I attended, where church is not separated from state, John would have been told to sit down and listen to the other students; if he failed to comply or upon complying chose to argue or contradict any of the other kids points in any light unfavourable to the Catholic agenda, he would have been punished. If I attempted to introduce so much of a whiff of Skepticism into a class I was punished or physically removed from the class to endure one-to-one religious conditioning at the hands of the school chaplain, or the principal, depending on the seriousness of my thought crime.
The reason church needs to be kept separate is because church wants to be state; through separation we can have a church and state, without we will only have church. The religious school I attended is like a microcosm of what the world would be like in a Christian theocracy: skeptical thought subject to officially sanctioned discipline, rising right up to expulsion, which is the high school micro-cosmic equivalent to the death penalty.
So, John was dead right in his actions, the teacher dead wrong; the Bible wielding students were just simpletons and so need to be judged with the same grade of severity we might mete out to the mentally challenged.
The teacher should have instructed them to put their Bibles away and highlighted the fact that religion has no place in the classroom, by law, not by whim.
The Bible Brigade would have complied, because that is what religious people do, they bow to religious authority; it's just how they're conditioned, from God right down, Christians love being told what to do.
Then John and the rest of the class could have continued learning whatever it was that they were meant to be learning about in the first place, instead of bullying homosexuals persecuting heretics and all that usual Christian carry-on that they try and pass off as true education.
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I am the people my mother warned me about.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/tuffgong
TUFFGONG
Senior Executive Administrator™
I am a firm believer in Freedom of Speech, however, I believe even more strongly in the right to let people do what they want as long as they're not hurting others and on some level, these people were probably hurting the lesbians.
And, I don't mean in a spiritual, oh no, I'm going to hell sort of way. I mean they were harassing them because they felt they were right and needed to force their beliefs on these girls.
But, the students don't bother me so much. What peers discuss is not such a big deal. What bothers me is the teacher, that is completely uncalled for. First of all, she should have at least had enough of a handle on the class to not allow for that sort of activity to be going on right under her nose. And secondly, under no circumstance should she have joined in when she realized what the students were doing. As soon as she realized what was happening she should have stopped the students.
Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too. ~Voltaire
Did you ever hear anyone say, "That work had better be banned because I might read it and it might be very damaging to me?" ~Joseph Henry Jackson
LizzieD
It's not wrong for a teacher and students to discuss the bible, if it is done in the context of a class about religion. It is entirely wrong for a teacher to discuss her personal beliefs about the bible, or to allow the harrassment of bisexual or lesbian girls.
For the record--this was an "Everyday Statistics" class...from any angle of the course's curriculum, a Bible would be irrelevant.
I don't know about that:
It could be relevant if you were trying to work out the stats on the number of Christians in an average high school class who are prone to arbitrarily persecuting homosexuals at any given moment while employing Biblical justification.
It could be relevant if you were trying to work out stats on how many students in an average class would actually have the fortitude to stand up to such bullying instead of sitting in silence.
I think statistically, the Bible and the scenario it inspired in your classroom is interesting, as I went to school in a different country to you, yet the behavioural stats would probably correlate nicely. In my class too, there was a John, he spoke out regularly against the Bible, the Church and it's abuses, and the abuse of our rights as students. Many agreed with John, but none would stand with him, prefering to pat him on the back out of sight of the clergy.
Even when John went head to head with the religious leaders of our school when he leveled an accusation at a teacher who he suspected of child molestation, he stood alone, the students applauded him in silence, but kept their conformist heads down. Actually that's being too kind; they ran for cover, making John some kind of heroic pariah. They became more vocal when actual legal charges were leveled at the teacher a year later by two students he had molested. The clergy retracted the expulsion they had tried to issue to John, an expulsion John spent that year fighting with legal threats.
Yet, even with the kiddie-fiddler in court, the clergy refused to remove him from his post as a teacher. So, John went at it again, accusing them of attempting to sweep the issue under the rug; again he stood alone, in an auditorium packed with the entire high school, he raged with the vice principal. Every student who spoke to John directly afterwards was full of high-fives and right-ons, but not one actually said a God-damned thing or lifted one solitary voice in support when John was battling in the auditorium.
Statistically, I would be interested to know if, despite there being an ocean between where I went to school and where you attend, if the same stats apply for the number of people who will just bow down and allow religion to run riot, leaving one statistical anomaly to stick his neck out for them and attempt to halt the unreason, because they don't want to get in trouble with teacher/authority.
I'd like to know, statistically, how many people who sat idly by while these Bible antics were going on in your classroom, actually believe that people like John should reserve more respect for them in their cowardice, than for the Bible Brigade, who at least had the balls to actively defy authority in numbers larger than one. Everybody who agreed with John should have walked from that class; anybody who didn't is worse that those barbarians who were taunting those lesbians, because they are facilitators; statistically, I fear such facilitators are in the gross majority.
When good men stand idly by, religion prevails.
_____________________________________________________________
I am the people my mother warned me about.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/tuffgong
TUFFGONG
Senior Executive Administrator™
They became more vocal when actual legal charges were leveled at the teacher a year later by two students he had molested.
At least it inspired some action. Who knows how long it would have gone on before someone took him to court, if they ever would have at all?
-- quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
It gets better: the court cases were settled out of court, so the beautiful and benevolent clergy who ran our school feted this as an opportunity to pretend that his guilt was a moot point; they allowed him to teach for a further two years before he died of cancer. They acted as if nothing happened.
Needless to say, I took them up on this. Particularly when the vice principal called the entire school into assembly and announced that we would all be expected to attend his funeral in full uniform. I accused him of ordering us to worship at the graveside of a known child-predator and stormed out; alone. The gutless Christians I attended school with just sat there.
I think that it's rich that the Catholic church seems to tolerate and protect child predators but abhors ordinary decent homosexuals. There was a gay guy in my year in school who endured unrelenting bullying from students and was afforded little/no sympathy from the clergy. Yet all and sundry rushed to obfuscate the sinister and perverted practices of a certified child molester to defend the faith and the reputation of faith based schooling; par for the course when it comes to Christian churches though I suppose, what, with the Catholics, Protestants, JWs etc.
Christians have a nasty habit of brushing these transgressions under the rug with the old "sorry you had that experience with Christianity, but it's not all like that.." line of horse-shit, but the fact is that those kind of Christians are just spineless facilitators.
I have no doubt that many of the Christian Brothers who were connected to our school were disgusted by the actions of the teacher who molested those kids. I have no doubt that his crimes made their stomachs churn. But they never once took a stand for fear of the damage it might do the public image of their precious religion. I believe they call such a blatant act of cowardice 'keeping a brave face', which is fitting since the purported benevolence of their religion is merely a facade, one maintained over the bodies of innocents and the rape of children (Sounds harsh, but the truth often is).
_____________________________________________________________
I am the people my mother warned me about.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/tuffgong
TUFFGONG
Senior Executive Administrator™
Christians have a nasty habit of brushing these transgressions under the rug with the old "sorry you had that experience with Christianity, but it's not all like that.." line of horse-shit,
Ugh, I hate that line. I've had complete strangers try that to get me "back into the fold" of Christianity. Sorry, no. I left because those actions are widespread and there seems to be more people than not that embody the exact opposite of what Christianity used to be about. The religion has become so bastardized, they don't even know what they're actually supposed to stand for anymore.
-- quis custodiet ipsos custodes?