Religious Right pushes for "Academic Freedom" in teaching as well as Professional Society

[Thomas Lammers]

----- Original Message -----
From: Ron Gatrelle <gatrelle at TILS-TTR.ORG>
> As a fundamentalist preacher myself, I am sure the most  controversial thing  I ever did was get involved in a public discussion where I was in  favor of stopping a local municipality from shutting down a strip (nude)  club.  (This particular club was on a main comercial street - not in a  "neighborhood" nor
even near a school. Some people just didn't want it - anywhere.)   My reasons to leave them alone was very simple.  1) They had borken no laws.   2) If we give the government the power to "shut down" anything just because  somebodydoesn't like the "morality" of it, then the Government can  shut down anything somebody doesn't like.   Such as shut down my church  because some other religious zealots want us out of their town.<

This is a major problem when issues are presented as a simplistic dichotomy between The Godly and Atheistic Liberal Science.   Both sides tend to see Religious People as some monolithic assemblage of like-minded individuals all marching in lock-step.  Among other things, it makes it difficult fot Religious Folks to see that strict church-state seperation is as much for THEIR protection as for us folks not much interested in religion.

On several occasions, when someone has carried on at length about "putting God back in schools," I (playing advocatus diaboli) say I agree -- I think our students SHOULD be told that the Pope in Rome is leader of the one true universal church and that refusing to obey him is an affront to God; that Christ is physically present in the elements of the Eucharist; and that thanks to Predestination, some of you aren't going to heaven no matter how pious you are.  They were of course apalled that I would suggest such a thing, but I said, "Hey, that's good Christian morality there.  Why shouldn't your kids be taught that in the public schools?  What are you, some kind of atheist?"

Tom Lammers