I’m presenting a series here called Exposing the Religious Right.

The introduction/first installment is here.

The second installment, discussing the motivations/starting points of the RR is here.

The Religious Right & Public Schools

Many in the RR are pulling out of public schools, especially in blue-ish states.  However, as long as people in the RR are paying taxes and especially if they do have children or jobs in the public school system, they are going to speak up about various public school issues.

My belief is that there should be a separation of state and school.  There should be no Department of Education at the Federal level - as there wasn’t for most of our history.  People should make their own educational arrangements for their children, whether the schools have a religious affiliation or not, or home school.  This would eliminate these disputes as well as many, many others as public policy concerns.

However, this is never going to happen because too many people are invested in the status quo, including the politically powerful teachers unions (who have a self-interest in churning out government-dependent citizens).  As such, the RR, like any other segment of society, will continue to be involved in the public schools.  They have every right to be - just like anyone else.  So, let me briefly touch on a few of the hot-button issues the RR has with public schools.

Vouchers – Vouchers would encourage competition and competition encourages excellence and innovation.   It is a basic law of human nature.  Some object on the grounds it would give tax money to religious institutions in the instances where parents choose to send their children to those schools.  Somehow, it’s okay to these people to take the money from religious people to spend on public schools. Of course, this objection pretends that the public schools are religiously neutral, which is a fallacy.

Evolution in Science Curricula - The assertion that humans, life in general, and everything else in the universe and the universe itself came about without any supernatural involvement is a philosophical assertion, not something that is actually scientifically demonstrable.  The RR believes that God was involved, somehow, in at least some of it.  Some think God’s involvement can be determined from a straightforward reading of Genesis.  Others see Genesis as a poetic abstraction of what happened.  Still others look primarily to solid scientific knowledge rather than Genesis, and still conclude that even if evolution provides some of the details of the “how”, it still would have needed supernatural involvement.  All agree that God was involved.  Hence naturalism as a philosophy goes against their philosophy.  Evolution may go against their religion.

As such, when evolution is taught in science classes in a way that promotes naturalism, the RR usually wants some of the challenges to macroevolution to be presented and also wants some form of supernaturalism presented as an alternative to naturalism.  A common objection to this is “which brand of creationism should we teach?”  That objection is really a hoot, because it implies that there is only one unified universally accepted brand of macroevolutionary theory among naturalists, which is false.  Another objection that doesn’t stand up is that “intelligent design” is the same thing as Biblical creationism.  While some specific models of intelligent design may line up with Biblical creationism, it is possible to hold to intelligent design and still believe that evolution played a major role.  What intelligent design of any variation is incompatible with is complete philosophical naturalism.

So, especially in high school biology courses and earlier courses, why not stick mostly with what can be observed, tested, measured, and repeated today in living organisms and natural systems, instead of making dogmatic assertions about past events, especially since the details and the timelines keep changing?

The RR believes that promoting naturalism will encourage students to conclude that, if they are really nothing more than cosmic accidents, then there is really no such thing as right and wrong and that the future doesn’t matter, and what the RR sees as harmful behavior could result.

Sex Ed, “Health” Clinics, Condoms - As I discussed earlier, the RR believes that sex is for marriage and holds sex in the highest esteem, it believes that killing a human being through abortion at any point after conception is wrong, and that teens are already being overly stimulated, enticed, and sexualized.  Distributing birth control and contraception in school legitimizes the activity and creates an expectation.  Therefore, they oppose instruction and programs that will do anything less than promote abstinence until and fidelity in marriage as the ideal.

“GLBT” Issues - As I discussed earlier, the RR believes that homosexual behavior is wrong and that sex is for marriage, so they’re not going to support anything that insists same-sex couplings are equivalant to both-sex couplings and that homosexual behavior is normal, acceptable, and to be glorified.  “Transgendered” means refers to someone who either dresses inappropriately or is undergoing chemical treatments and surgery to change healthy, functional body parts and systems in order to pretend to be of the opposite sex.  These are things with which underage people should not be involved, according to the RR, and thus do not belong in public schools.

History - The RR is generally patriotic, considers the U.S. to be unique (in a positive way) in the world, believes in objective truth and right and wrong, and that Christianity and Judeo-Christian values haved played an important role in shaping the West and the U.S.  Therefore, they do not support multiculturalism, revisionism, postmodernism, relativism, nihilism, or minimizing the role of Christianity in Western culture and the rise of America in teaching history.

Prayer and Religious Freedom - I understand that objection to teacher-led communal sectarian prayer in the classroom, though for many years in the U.S., this was commonplace. For the RR, though, their faith is inseperably a part of every area of their life, and so they want the freedom to pray, read the Bible, meet, discuss religious matters, wear religious symbols and clothing with religious statements, use Biblical content in schoolwork where the student gets to choose a subject, and so forth.  Strangely, many people who would tell a student they can’t speak about Jesus in a class presentation would never, ever prevent someone from talking about Mohammed.  The RR students also don’t want to be exposed or pressured to participate in certain practices or symbolism that run counter to their faith - for example, things they consider pagan celebrations or traditions.

The Bible in Curricula - For many years, the Bible and Biblical themes, stories, and personalities were used in teaching.  While it is understandable that a government school shouldn’t officially present the Bible as the Word of God, removing the Bible from - and avoiding the Bible in - curricula does a disservice to students.  Even today, much of our society and culture (arts, history, morality, politics, laws, etc.) is influenced by the Bible.

There are a few of the issues that the RR engages in regarding public schools.  Again, I note that these disputes and many, many others could be avoided entirely with a separation of state and school.  The RR, and anyone else, should be able to keep their own money and send their kids to schools of their own choosing, without having to pay twice (once through taxes, again through tuition).  You shouldn’t be forced to fund schools that have policies with which you disagree and push philosophies contrary to your own, and you shouldn’t send your kids to them, either.