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York
County Superintendent of Schools Steven
Staples wrote a letter in the local paper
explaining why a teacher’s Christian posters
were censored. I wish the Yorktown
Crier/Poquoson Post would publish a picture of
the "religious posters" that
"endorsed" a religion in the
classroom. Even better, post the pictures on
the Internet.
The
People should be able to see what was so
religious, such an endorsement and so
offensive. Let the People judge the York
County School Board and Superintendent’s
judgment. If Steven Staple’s opinion is as
far off as his facts are on the Founders'
belief in the separation of church and state,
then the School Board has some homework to
correct.
The
cultural cleansing of Christianity,
euphemistically called "religion",
from government schools is a modern
phenomenon. It began innocently enough with
John Dewey’s educational reforms, but the
courts are the hammer, sickle and broom of
cultural cleansing. It’s a function of
judicial tyranny, not the Founding Father’s
wisdom, as Staples suggests.
Suppressing,
then expunging, Christian prayer, speech,
symbols and music began with the 1962 Supreme
Court decision written by a former KKK member,
Justice Hugo Black. Black was the rabid
anti-Catholic who made the Supreme Court
decision that Japanese-Americans could be put
into concentration camps, "Constitutionally",
in WW II. All the "law" cited in the
U.S. Department of Education 1998 guidelines
(which are about as fair as you can get today)
are judicial decisions, not laws written by
legislatures and signed by executives – as
the Founding Fathers really intended.
The
Founding Fathers wrote a First Amendment which
prohibited the establishment of an official
church, a single Christian sect, for the federal
Government only. Every state had an official,
established Christian church for a
church-state at the state level. Massachusetts
taxed all of its citizens to pay for its
official church until the 1830s. Its
legislature, appropriately, changed the law.
Religious tests for state and local officials
existed until the Courts ended them in the
1960s.
The
first state to get rid of the established
church was Virginia in 1786. But, York County
would rip a poster of Thomas Jefferson’s
"Virginia Statute on Religious
Freedom" off the walls, because it
begins:
Well
aware that Almighty God hath created the
mind free; that all attempts to influence it
by temporal punishments or burdens, or by
civil incapacitations, tend only to beget
habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and are a
departure from the plan of the Holy Author
of our religion, who being Lord both of body
and mind…
Some
separation of church and state. The same Mr.
Jefferson, a deist, who wrote the phrase
"separation of church and state" in
a letter to a Baptist congregation, signed
bills for the federal government to pay for
Christian missionaries to the Indians, bought
thousands of Bibles for public school
textbooks, and attended weekly Christian
services every Sunday inside the U.S. Capitol
building.
Likewise,
the Founding Fathers passed the Northwest
Ordinance in 1787 for new territories, saying,
“Religion, morality, and knowledge, being
necessary to good government and the happiness
of mankind, schools and the means of education
shall forever be encouraged.”
You
can’t separate the "religion" from
the "schools" in their intent.
Neither did the Founding Fathers. The
so-called fundamental principle of separation
of church and state is false, Liberal Human
Secularist revisionism.
Likewise,
employees of the school division, as an
extension of government, shouldn’t be
banning Christmas songs, decorations and
symbols. The School Superintendent should make
sure that doesn’t happen in any York County
school.\
Does
he?
Or,
are parents, students, teachers and staff
told, “We only have time for things on the
SOLs"... even though non-SOL
Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Earth
Day, Cinqo De Mayo, or Walking for the Cure
somehow have crept into the schools. (Funny
how Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, who
are in the history SOLs, won’t be
recognized, like Christmas, even though they
have an official Virginia holiday too.)
Or,
are you told that if one religion’s symbols
are shown, then all must be shown?
Not
according to the U.S. Department of Education
guidelines, which state that, “Although
public schools may teach about religious
holidays, including their religious aspects,
and may celebrate the secular aspects of
holidays, schools may not observe holidays as
religious events or promote such observance by
students.”
Not
a word about all or other religions.
Or,
are you told that if a parent sues the school
(for following federal guidelines no less),
that York County will not pay the teacher’s
legal defense? Perhaps you should sue the
County if a school violates the guidelines and
culturally cleanses Christmas. The Rutherford
Institute, ACLJ, and many other organizations
are ready to help for free.
Or,
are you told that it isn’t inclusive and
someone may feel infringed upon or excluded?
What a golden teaching moment that would be,
if a teacher believes, actually, that a child
who is surrounded by traditional, American
secular and Christian symbols and hears the
music in every public place and most
neighbors’ homes will be traumatized,
suddenly, by seeing them in public school.
The
teacher could take little "Mikey Newdow
Jr." aside and show him the Virginia
Guidance SOL that K-3 grade “students will
understand that Americans are one people of
many diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds and
national origins who are united as Americans
by common customs and traditions”. So, an
example is the official, legal federal and
Virginia holiday called
"Christmas’" not "Winter
Holiday".
The
teacher could say, “85 percent of America
claims to be Christian and 95 percent unite to
celebrate Christmas. If the 10 percent,
non-Christians all, find something to
celebrate, so should you. Our Virginia
Constitution calls for the "Christian"
tolerance of all religions. You must learn to
tolerate Christmas to be a good Virginian. And
precisely because the majority of Virginians
are Christians and Jews who adhere to the rule
of law, you are free to believe whatever you
like, religion or not.
York
Citizens should check and see if their schools
are Christmas-free. When the Communist Human
Secularists took over Russia and created the
Soviet Union, they got rid of Christmas and
put in the Winter Holiday. What is happening
in York schools?
--
December 12, 2005
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