Who's the Minority?
Or, Maybe They All WILL move to South Carolina
An Ivory Tower Report by MD Aaron
In one of my earlier articles, I reported that the Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao do Vegetal, a church in New Mexico whose ceremonies require the use of ahuarasca, a hallucinogenic tea, had been permitted to break out the tea one last time for Christmas while they waited on the Supreme Court to decide their case. They’re on the docket this year so pray for them or—don’t pray for them, if you like, just make reverent use of a hallucinogen.
The free exercise of religion is something I take very seriously. But even up here in the ivory tower where the air is thin, it hasn’t escaped my notice that often the people who scream the loudest about “all views being represented” are the same people who want to shove their views down everyone else’s throats, putting it kindly.
I don’t quite know how it is that Christian conservatives can feel so picked upon. And they do feel picked upon—they’re not kidding about that. Why else would a group calledChristian Exodus have a plan to move wholesale to South Carolina, where their views can be heard at last? And if they aren’t heard, well, they can just secede. I’m not making this up. This may or may not be connected, but I noticed that one of the ads on the website was for “hurricane-proof custom homes.” Supercustomhomes.com didn’t say whether or not their hurricane-proof package included one (1) genuine packet of lamb’s blood so the Angel of Death would bypass you and one (1) genuine autographed letter from the Lord Himself not to let the levees fail in your area, but if they don’t, I don’t see how they can be completely hurricane-proof.
Life is hard, if you’re a Christian conservative these days. You can’t get “intelligent design” taught in the schools; you can’t put stickers on the textbooks mentioning that evolution is “only a theory”—well, they’re still duking that out. And don’t even get them started on us uppity lefty college professors. The poor things are so oppressed that they just barely got “Academic Bill of Rights” legislation introduced on the federal and state levels. The federal law states:
(2) an institution of higher education should ensure that a student attending such institution on a full- or part-time basis is--
(A) evaluated solely on the basis of their reasoned answers and knowledge of the subjects and disciplines they study and without regard to their political, ideological, or religious beliefs;
(B) assured that the selection of speakers and allocation of funds for speakers, programs, and other student activities will utilize methods that promote intellectual pluralism and include diverse viewpoints;
(C) presented diverse approaches and dissenting sources and viewpoints within the instructional setting ) (etc.)
(B) means that the university has to pay William Bennet’s exorbitant speaking fees or else it’s no fair. (A) means that professors have to bend over backwards to avoid being accused of discriminating against essays written by hard-right students. (“And just why did you fail Betsy’s paper against miscegenation?” “Uh—it was plagiarized?”)
Ohio’s SB 24 is a bit blunter. “Faculty and instructors shall not infringe the academic freedom and quality of education of their students by persistently introducing controversial matter into the classroom or coursework that has no relation to their subject of study and that serves no legitimate pedagogical purpose.” “No legitimate pedagogical purpose.” Well, that’s the sticky bit, of course. It’s very difficult to discern what constitutes “legitimate pedagogical purpose.”
I tend to get a free pass—sometimes—because almost all the literature I teach is written by dead people. Also, it’s my choice not to discuss politics during class time unless it directly impacts the study of literature, and in twelve years of teaching, I’ve only done it twice. Both times were on the First Amendment issue of “the Constitution says you can read whatever the heck you want to.” But teaching is really an art, and each of my colleagues, even the ones who teach the same material I do, teaches it in a different way. To do anything else is the kiss of death to good teaching, which, I think, is a “legitimate pedagogical purpose.”
The good news in Ohio is that SB 24 was dropped as long as Ohio colleges promised to police themselves. A similar bill was recently derailed in California, but it’s back on the roster again.
Now, you would assume that this flurry of political movement means that the universities have been hijacked by wild-eyed lefties. Occasionally I think that what that really means is that we’ve been corralled onto nice green campuses where we can’t do any real damage. But as far as I can see on my own campus, professors have a wide range of political views. The business and sciences and engineering schools tend to skew more towards the right, and the humanities and performing arts towards the left, but that’s no news flash. And yes, I have met some conservative Christian theater majors. Not a whole lot, but a few.
So where does all this concern come from? Who is the real minority here? Let’s pick Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana, as an example. Tangipahoa Parish recently sent 1,000 K-12 teachers to training in order to clarify what is and is not permissible religious expression in the public school system. Evidently, it’s necessary, because Tangipahoa Parish has been the subject of four federal lawsuits in the last decade alone. It’s just a hotbed of prayer down there. Prayer before football games (which some say is the actual state religion), before school board meetings, silent prayer before school. What started off the latest lawsuit, however, bridges the K-12 and the university religious expression issues.
A student teacher, Cynthia Thompson, began her term of student teaching in Tangipahoa Parish and “entered a ‘nightmare’ of constant prayer and proselytizing. Thompson said she questioned the teacher holding Bible classes, leading prayers in class, and encouraging students to bring Bibles to school.” That’s the elementary school level, but here’s what happened when Thompson complained to the teaching program at Southeastern Louisiana State University: “In her suit, Thompson said she was forced out of the teaching program, given a failing grade for the course and rebuffed by university officials, including one who grabbed her hand and began praying for ‘divine intervention.’ ” (AP article, 6/30/05). And thus began another festival of lawsuits with the ACLU.
Of course, the fourth-grade teacher who runs the Bible classes is standing on her federally-protected right to religious speech (and also to speak against miscegenation, apparently. Well, at least she didn’t plagiarize it.) Here’s the interesting question, to me at least—can anybody come in and lead students in voluntary prayer? I mean, any kind at all?
Here’s where I had to resort to my source of Tangipahoa Parish scuttlebutt. I got my friend and spiritual advisor on the horn and asked him for the scoop. The state sport of Louisiana is gossip and “Tata Ricky Ricardo,” as I shall call him, was happy to dish. “Tata Ricardo” is a duly ordained Santero and Palero. He has been practicing the Afro-Cuban religions of Santeria and Palo Mayombe for over 30 years. And he is Hispanic, of African origin, and gay.
Do you know he has not been asked to lead prayers in the public schools one single time? Not once!
“I do like to joke around with kids and tell them I’ll eat them and stuff but I love ‘em,” he said in a recent phone interview. “I would love to go down there with my rum and cigar smoke and lead the kids in a prayer to Oludumare.” Voluntarily, of course.
(To my skeptical readership, yes, “Tata Ricky” is completely real, all I made up is the name.)
Sooo, the question is, is that going to happen anytime soon? No, because Tata Ricky is part of a vast liberal homosexual Satanist agenda that is taking over the country. Yes, even Louisiana, it seems. Everybody is going to have to have nationalized health care, and learn Spanish, and they’re going to have to dress much, much better. Including you. Yes, you.
Well, Tata Ricky has bigger things on his mind right now, anyway. The last time I talked to him,during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, he was crying. “My people are dying—they’re drowning,--and there isn’t a damned thing I can do about it.” And I suspect that my friends who live up the road in Baton Rouge and teach at LSU feel much the same way. So while Louisiana rebuilds and figures out who its real friends are, and new homes get built and people are relocated, people who still want to freak out over evolution being taught in public school are going to have to find a place where people have the time to listen to this silliness.
I understand South Carolina is lovely.
