Dan you are so right. As a bishop, I find it wrong to do any sort of religious instruction in the public schools. I remember growing up being treated as a second class person because I was Catholic in a WASP town. I wasn't considered a Christian. And those "Christians" prayed denigrating my faith in public at Football games and graduations. I was so glad when that was stopped. It is not the place for religious instructions. Period.
We were forced daily in school to say a different version of a prayer than learned in my church, at a time when we weren't supposed to per law. Yes, I was already viewed differently because of not belonging to a majority religion in that area--and it should not have been an issue at public school, period.
Public education is not religious education. No religion should attempt to invade public spaces. The far right is so far wrong I cannot stand it and I will fight against this BS with everything I can.
The 11th Commandment: “Thou shall not thrust genitalia into boys and girls.”
Scandalous to bring up, but this abuse (as hushed as some would prefer) has perpetrated since the dawning of religion. I too was brought up in a catholic school and lucky that I took the nuns educational mantra to heart when they admonished us to always use reason and logic as our guiding posts in life and I reasoned myself right out of that school and institution at a very young age.
This is a smoke screen issue. MAGAts, like to give their supporters cultural "gifts" but will willingly stop them from receiving anything of monetary value like a livable minimum wage or a good education so that they would know what equity and respect they deserve as citizen of the USA. They like them poor and subservient so their disenchantment can be pointed at whomever they want to excoriate. Meanwhile we have an election year of enduring consequence before us and we need to focus on far right's dark money politics and their perception that they alone are capable of governing.
This is ludicrous and not what Jesus would do. Making kids feel uncomfortable if they don’t practice a faith that features the Ten Commandments. Everyone involved in passing this into law is an abomination.
Too bad indeed! If they had, there might have been a sufficient number of members in the KY legislature who had actually read and understood the First Amendment, and we would not be having this conversation!
Speaker Mike Johnson (2nd in line of succession to the Presidency) not long ago publicly stated that as far is concerned, there is nothing in the Constitution about a "wall" between church and state -- implying that imposition of religion into secular life, and into government itself, is Constitutionally correct. This equivocation about the "Establishment" clause from his powerful position is cause for questioning his eligibility to hold the office.
The students in Louisian are more likely than not to be cut from the same religious cloth, though it's still against the Constitution to push religion in public schools. They're going back in time when we had to recite the Lord's Prayer.
I know - the 10 Commandments are in the Old Testament, and therefore, in some form, in every religion that arose from it - but the push to display the 10 Commandments in schools is not an inclusive one. It is yet another attempt by the religious right to create the religious theocracy that they want to live in - the one they believe the Founding Fathers (their own statements to the contrary notwithstanding) intended when they wrote the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
I'm a retired teacher, and I'm Jewish. I've spent my entire life - first as a student, and then as a teacher - as the recipient of microaggressions against me due to my religion, ranging from teachers who asked me, every year, to explain Chanukah, to a principal who objected to me using a reading activity about Chanukah, alongside a similar activity about Christmas ("How will it look to parents if a Jewish teacher is teaching about a Jewish holiday" - never mind every Christian teacher in the building teaching about a Christian holiday), to the coworker who described his bargaining for a new car as "I really Jewed him down", to the assistant principal who was fired for antisemitic statements he made and refused to rescind. That doesn't even touch things that occurred outside the school setting.
Putting the 10 Commandments in schools will only add to the divisiveness that already exists, by telling staff and students that the government's choice of wording - which comes from a recent version of the Christian Bible - is the "correct" one, and that only those whose religion uses that version, and its source material, are, therefore, correct.
This is the action of a group of Christian legislators, intended to support the desires of the religious right. It is incredibly inappropriate in many ways, but most especially for the students who are not Christian, Jewish, or Muslim, whether they are Sikh, Buddhist, Shinto, Jainist, Taoist, Pagan, or follow a folk religion - or no religion at all
Well said! I do take issue with one point, however, and that is you're calling the people behind the law mandating the 10 Commandments be displayed in every classroom "Christian". There is nothing Christian about forcing children to go hungry or brainwashing them into believing there is only one acceptable religion.
These faux "Christians" are little different from the Taliban claiming to believe in Islam while beating women to death because they dared protest their lack of basic human rights. Both groups are driven to subjugate and brainwash the masses in order to gain power and control.
It's wrong any way you cut it. There are religious schools, which the public should not have to pay for, and there are public schools which we do pay for. Schools are for learning, not indoctrination into anyone's faith. It is insulting to Christians who think this is bunk to have others think this is what Christianity is all about. Check out Faithful America if you want to see an intelligent group pushing back hard against Christian Nationalism.
Thank you for this excellent commentary. I also experienced this when I was a teacher, and in my second career as an Account Executive for an major insurance company. In fact, one of my own employees told me when she was selling her house that one potential buyer was trying "to Jew her down" on the price. When I told her that was an antisemitic statement she looked at me as if I was crazy.
In the first place, the Ten Commandments are not Christian . They were given to Moses for his Jewish people. Jesus commanded people to love one another as they loved themselves. Doesn't this apply to ALL people, regardless of their race or creed? THAT is what is lacking today. To do this has nothing to do with separation of church and state. I have friends who are of different religious backgrounds, or are atheists. I respect their beliefs and they respect mine. As one friend, an atheist, said "I love my neighbours, not because someone commanded me to do so, but because I want to." Putting the Ten Commandments into schools will not solve anything. Sure, it is correct to follow them, but not because people have this forced upon them. Rant over!
These are the people that are getting elected to run our country. Their base are the ones that vote! We need to get the word out to those that don't vote. The JWs don't vote but accept Social Security and drive on our roads and send their children to public school.
My mother’s family were occult Jews. I remember my grandfather telling me to “tell no one!” He witnessed a KKK lynching in the 1920’s and was forever afraid they would find out. We didn’t even practice but we carried the blood taint.
Long before Judaism and Christianity there were codes of behavior. Those said to be from the Seven Sages (Delphic Maxims) were much more extensive and contain many if not most of the same principles. For example “follow god” “shun murder” and “respect your parents” “shun what belongs to others” and so on. Some like “rule your wife” Christians of certain sects still prefer.
This is really scary, but everything that Trump and his magna followers do is scary. This election scares me to death. I can’t wait for it to be over. I’m praying for the Democrats.
Separation of Church and State is fundamental to our country. If Louisiana’s state government would like to continue disregarding the Constitution, they can also stop receiving Federal funds which of course only hurts the citizens of LA. Churches in LA can also start paying taxes. You have every right to post the Ten Commandments in your home but not a public school. You would think LA would put more effort in educating their students than indoctrinating them. Oh wait isn’t that what liberals are always being accused of for encouraging critical thinking?
It is very strange that the ‘evangelical christians’ are calling the tune in LA. The history and the demographics don’t match the rhetoric. Mike Johnson is a Baptist. The majority religion is Catholic as is its history. What sort of Catholics are they growing in LA now? Ones who have forgotten the church’s history of persecution?
"We could quibble about the total number [of the Ten Commandments Trump has violated]."
Nope, I would say that insofar as we know, he has violated all 10, including killing. His disastrous and intentional mishandling of the COVID pandemic qualifies.
I’m not wasting another minute despising trump. He can’t help the fact he’s been a practicing malignant narcissist his entire pathetic life. It’s the Republicans with absolutely no sense of shame or irony that have truly earned our disdain. Here they are demanding the Ten Commandments be posted in all public classrooms in Louisiana while nominating and worshipping a sick man who openly and repeatedly violates all ten. Trump is no longer just the problem…it’s his Republican minions including the criminal, duplicitous “justices” on the no longer supreme court.
Separation of Church and State is well stated in the US Constitution. So this Louisiana Governor thinks can just circumvent the Constitution? And at the same time he has said no to federally funded school lunches stating he wants Louisiana families to be self-sufficient. How hypocritical! SMH
Annette -- Please see my comment above, in which I point out that Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House, (LA-04), graduate of LSU Law School, and very public in his Christian faith, has committed not only the logical "fallacy" of equivocation (*) -- but also the Christian "sin" of equivocation. And here's a link to a Christian minister committing the sin of equivocation while condemning it. https://bcsmn.edu/equivocation/.
I am so happy that my education included studies in the works of Plato and Socrates, and the concept that logic, language, and ethics and intertwined.
It's not just that he thinks he can circumvent the Constitution. It's that he thinks the Supreme Court's conservative majority will carve him the path by which he can do so. And I fear he's right, even though, if stare decisis meant a damned thing, the court's ruling in 1980 in a very similar case would prevent this court from even granting cert.
Lex, perhaps I’m wasting my time with this, but I still don’t accept calling the far-right extremists, whether on the Court or elsewhere, “conservative.” If they were truly conservative they would honor precedent, and not make up nonsensical and illogical things like textualism to justify their political agenda. I think every time we use the word “conservative” to refer to them we confer upon them a legitimacy they do not deserve.
Mr. Rather is correct in his reference to the First Amendment, and Governor Laundry is very much in violation of the Constitution.
"Governor Jeff Landry argued that the Commandments are not simply religious treatise but “foundational documents of our state and national government,"
Where he came up with this perversion of the document is clearly the work of a warped and brainwashed mind that defies logic. To argue from a false premise is a weak place to start, and after the courts get hold of it, will surely come to a bad end. Or at least it should. With some of the courts today, confidence isn't high that they won't ignore the Constitution. Louisiana schools would do better to concentrate on education rather than indoctrination. They're pretty low on the "best educated" scale.
None of this has anything to do with education, and a lot more to do with indoctrination and proselytizing. It's almost as if this is deflection from the fact that the level of education is sorely lacking in the state.
Dan - I look forward to your posts; they are like a summer breeze coming in my window - ALWAYS a breath of fresh air. And, as you did today, you bring a sense of foreboding. It's politics, of course, but you also highlight a backward state with bottom-of-the-list stats by various metrics - a state where despair is probably more common than hope, and MAGA-zealots pander to those they've so poorly educated. Sad, sad, sad ...
Thus Supreme Court will support the Louisiana governor. Trump and a substantial number of politicians in Congress are guilty of breaking most of these commandments. So expose the hypocrisy on 40 foot ad boards using their names. Here is an opportunity to speak plainly and forcefully about transgressions...and the First Amendment.
Of all the horrible things happening in our country and world today, this one hit me especially hard. I think it’s the attempt to indoctrinate young kids that really upsets me. I desperately hope something can be done to prohibit this from becoming a reality.
I find it hard to believe that every few days another state or another court or another government "leader" comes up with something that sets this country backwards in time. This is just another one of those set backs. Why do those on the right want to continue to do this? Do they think that living in the Puritan Age was better? I guess all these right wing inane roads lead back to Donald Trump. I still can't get my arms around the fact that he is a Major political force in this country and that half or more of the population will cast a vote for him. I thought that the United States of America was better than this. Just sickening.
Dan you are so right. As a bishop, I find it wrong to do any sort of religious instruction in the public schools. I remember growing up being treated as a second class person because I was Catholic in a WASP town. I wasn't considered a Christian. And those "Christians" prayed denigrating my faith in public at Football games and graduations. I was so glad when that was stopped. It is not the place for religious instructions. Period.
We were forced daily in school to say a different version of a prayer than learned in my church, at a time when we weren't supposed to per law. Yes, I was already viewed differently because of not belonging to a majority religion in that area--and it should not have been an issue at public school, period.
Public education is not religious education. No religion should attempt to invade public spaces. The far right is so far wrong I cannot stand it and I will fight against this BS with everything I can.
The 11th Commandment: “Thou shall not thrust genitalia into boys and girls.”
Scandalous to bring up, but this abuse (as hushed as some would prefer) has perpetrated since the dawning of religion. I too was brought up in a catholic school and lucky that I took the nuns educational mantra to heart when they admonished us to always use reason and logic as our guiding posts in life and I reasoned myself right out of that school and institution at a very young age.
This is a smoke screen issue. MAGAts, like to give their supporters cultural "gifts" but will willingly stop them from receiving anything of monetary value like a livable minimum wage or a good education so that they would know what equity and respect they deserve as citizen of the USA. They like them poor and subservient so their disenchantment can be pointed at whomever they want to excoriate. Meanwhile we have an election year of enduring consequence before us and we need to focus on far right's dark money politics and their perception that they alone are capable of governing.
The evangelicals have never gotten over Thomas Jefferson who deposed them.
https://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9806/danpre.html
Separation of Church and State. PERIOD.
Secondly, not all students are Christian or Jewish and public schools must never forget that little fact.
The thing is, they don’t care. They’re extremists.
Those other religions are considered irrelevant to the churchianity crowd. This kind of religious bullshit boils my butt!
These schools are proselytizing period.
Sadly history has shown that public schools and the students have forgotten, overlooked or refuse to acknowledge other religious groups.
This is ludicrous and not what Jesus would do. Making kids feel uncomfortable if they don’t practice a faith that features the Ten Commandments. Everyone involved in passing this into law is an abomination.
Too bad they don’t put this much effort, time any money into the betterment of the education they give their kids.
Too bad indeed! If they had, there might have been a sufficient number of members in the KY legislature who had actually read and understood the First Amendment, and we would not be having this conversation!
Speaker Mike Johnson (2nd in line of succession to the Presidency) not long ago publicly stated that as far is concerned, there is nothing in the Constitution about a "wall" between church and state -- implying that imposition of religion into secular life, and into government itself, is Constitutionally correct. This equivocation about the "Establishment" clause from his powerful position is cause for questioning his eligibility to hold the office.
Mike Johnson is a smarmy MAGA man. As my late mother once said of one of my boyfriends, "I wouldn't trust him any farther than I could throw a piano."
This MAGA movement is so so so dangerous!!
OMG
EXACTLY Cathy. Exactly.
Nothing about Christian Nationalism is anything Jesus would have done period. This isn't about Jesus. This is about money, power, and control.
You nailed it sister, that’s exactly what it comes down to.
Yes power to a dictatorship and all its devoted hencemen/women. MAGA -- Make America Goosestep Amen.
And most of them likely broke at least one of the Ten Commandments at one time or another, making them hypocrites.
Their orange god has broken all of them!
👏 💯
The students in Louisian are more likely than not to be cut from the same religious cloth, though it's still against the Constitution to push religion in public schools. They're going back in time when we had to recite the Lord's Prayer.
And had daily "devotionals" over the PA in school. Please!
I know - the 10 Commandments are in the Old Testament, and therefore, in some form, in every religion that arose from it - but the push to display the 10 Commandments in schools is not an inclusive one. It is yet another attempt by the religious right to create the religious theocracy that they want to live in - the one they believe the Founding Fathers (their own statements to the contrary notwithstanding) intended when they wrote the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
I'm a retired teacher, and I'm Jewish. I've spent my entire life - first as a student, and then as a teacher - as the recipient of microaggressions against me due to my religion, ranging from teachers who asked me, every year, to explain Chanukah, to a principal who objected to me using a reading activity about Chanukah, alongside a similar activity about Christmas ("How will it look to parents if a Jewish teacher is teaching about a Jewish holiday" - never mind every Christian teacher in the building teaching about a Christian holiday), to the coworker who described his bargaining for a new car as "I really Jewed him down", to the assistant principal who was fired for antisemitic statements he made and refused to rescind. That doesn't even touch things that occurred outside the school setting.
Putting the 10 Commandments in schools will only add to the divisiveness that already exists, by telling staff and students that the government's choice of wording - which comes from a recent version of the Christian Bible - is the "correct" one, and that only those whose religion uses that version, and its source material, are, therefore, correct.
This is the action of a group of Christian legislators, intended to support the desires of the religious right. It is incredibly inappropriate in many ways, but most especially for the students who are not Christian, Jewish, or Muslim, whether they are Sikh, Buddhist, Shinto, Jainist, Taoist, Pagan, or follow a folk religion - or no religion at all
Well said! I do take issue with one point, however, and that is you're calling the people behind the law mandating the 10 Commandments be displayed in every classroom "Christian". There is nothing Christian about forcing children to go hungry or brainwashing them into believing there is only one acceptable religion.
These faux "Christians" are little different from the Taliban claiming to believe in Islam while beating women to death because they dared protest their lack of basic human rights. Both groups are driven to subjugate and brainwash the masses in order to gain power and control.
Thank you! These same people scream about Sharia Law while imposing the “Christian” version!
I've said for a very long time, if it weren't for the Jewish religion, Christians wouldn't have one.
It's wrong any way you cut it. There are religious schools, which the public should not have to pay for, and there are public schools which we do pay for. Schools are for learning, not indoctrination into anyone's faith. It is insulting to Christians who think this is bunk to have others think this is what Christianity is all about. Check out Faithful America if you want to see an intelligent group pushing back hard against Christian Nationalism.
Yes. I follow Faithful America.
Really well put.
Thank you for this excellent commentary. I also experienced this when I was a teacher, and in my second career as an Account Executive for an major insurance company. In fact, one of my own employees told me when she was selling her house that one potential buyer was trying "to Jew her down" on the price. When I told her that was an antisemitic statement she looked at me as if I was crazy.
People are weird.
No, not EVERY religion. There is Buddhism, Shinto, and many others who have no root in the Judeo-Christian tradition.
In the first place, the Ten Commandments are not Christian . They were given to Moses for his Jewish people. Jesus commanded people to love one another as they loved themselves. Doesn't this apply to ALL people, regardless of their race or creed? THAT is what is lacking today. To do this has nothing to do with separation of church and state. I have friends who are of different religious backgrounds, or are atheists. I respect their beliefs and they respect mine. As one friend, an atheist, said "I love my neighbours, not because someone commanded me to do so, but because I want to." Putting the Ten Commandments into schools will not solve anything. Sure, it is correct to follow them, but not because people have this forced upon them. Rant over!
These are the people that are getting elected to run our country. Their base are the ones that vote! We need to get the word out to those that don't vote. The JWs don't vote but accept Social Security and drive on our roads and send their children to public school.
My mother’s family were occult Jews. I remember my grandfather telling me to “tell no one!” He witnessed a KKK lynching in the 1920’s and was forever afraid they would find out. We didn’t even practice but we carried the blood taint.
Exquisite reply -- Thank You.
Long before Judaism and Christianity there were codes of behavior. Those said to be from the Seven Sages (Delphic Maxims) were much more extensive and contain many if not most of the same principles. For example “follow god” “shun murder” and “respect your parents” “shun what belongs to others” and so on. Some like “rule your wife” Christians of certain sects still prefer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delphic_maxims
This is really scary, but everything that Trump and his magna followers do is scary. This election scares me to death. I can’t wait for it to be over. I’m praying for the Democrats.
Pray and VOTE!! 🇺🇲👍🇺🇲
Even better - DO something, even if it’s writing postcards
Agreed. I’m a 72-yr-old Texas native. And shaking in my shoes.
I’m 86 years old and I do plan to vote thanks for all your supporting comments
Separation of Church and State is fundamental to our country. If Louisiana’s state government would like to continue disregarding the Constitution, they can also stop receiving Federal funds which of course only hurts the citizens of LA. Churches in LA can also start paying taxes. You have every right to post the Ten Commandments in your home but not a public school. You would think LA would put more effort in educating their students than indoctrinating them. Oh wait isn’t that what liberals are always being accused of for encouraging critical thinking?
They don’t want a well-educated electorate.
It is very strange that the ‘evangelical christians’ are calling the tune in LA. The history and the demographics don’t match the rhetoric. Mike Johnson is a Baptist. The majority religion is Catholic as is its history. What sort of Catholics are they growing in LA now? Ones who have forgotten the church’s history of persecution?
So lawmakers in Lowsyanna voted against free lunches for disadvantaged kids but they’ll force feed them religion.
Got it. Little wonder they rank at the bottom of the educational standards.
It is unchristian not to feed the poor. How well can hungry students learn anything?
Of course it would help if the schools were actually intent upon teaching too.
It really shows just how much they really care about those families that need assistance...very Christian of them 😡
"We could quibble about the total number [of the Ten Commandments Trump has violated]."
Nope, I would say that insofar as we know, he has violated all 10, including killing. His disastrous and intentional mishandling of the COVID pandemic qualifies.
Hear! Hear!
I’m not wasting another minute despising trump. He can’t help the fact he’s been a practicing malignant narcissist his entire pathetic life. It’s the Republicans with absolutely no sense of shame or irony that have truly earned our disdain. Here they are demanding the Ten Commandments be posted in all public classrooms in Louisiana while nominating and worshipping a sick man who openly and repeatedly violates all ten. Trump is no longer just the problem…it’s his Republican minions including the criminal, duplicitous “justices” on the no longer supreme court.
Separation of Church and State is well stated in the US Constitution. So this Louisiana Governor thinks can just circumvent the Constitution? And at the same time he has said no to federally funded school lunches stating he wants Louisiana families to be self-sufficient. How hypocritical! SMH
Not just hypocritical- cruel! That seems to be the whole point of modern rethuglicans.
Annette -- Please see my comment above, in which I point out that Mike Johnson, Speaker of the House, (LA-04), graduate of LSU Law School, and very public in his Christian faith, has committed not only the logical "fallacy" of equivocation (*) -- but also the Christian "sin" of equivocation. And here's a link to a Christian minister committing the sin of equivocation while condemning it. https://bcsmn.edu/equivocation/.
I am so happy that my education included studies in the works of Plato and Socrates, and the concept that logic, language, and ethics and intertwined.
It's not just that he thinks he can circumvent the Constitution. It's that he thinks the Supreme Court's conservative majority will carve him the path by which he can do so. And I fear he's right, even though, if stare decisis meant a damned thing, the court's ruling in 1980 in a very similar case would prevent this court from even granting cert.
Lex, perhaps I’m wasting my time with this, but I still don’t accept calling the far-right extremists, whether on the Court or elsewhere, “conservative.” If they were truly conservative they would honor precedent, and not make up nonsensical and illogical things like textualism to justify their political agenda. I think every time we use the word “conservative” to refer to them we confer upon them a legitimacy they do not deserve.
Good point, Harry. Let's call them fascists.
Mr. Rather is correct in his reference to the First Amendment, and Governor Laundry is very much in violation of the Constitution.
"Governor Jeff Landry argued that the Commandments are not simply religious treatise but “foundational documents of our state and national government,"
Where he came up with this perversion of the document is clearly the work of a warped and brainwashed mind that defies logic. To argue from a false premise is a weak place to start, and after the courts get hold of it, will surely come to a bad end. Or at least it should. With some of the courts today, confidence isn't high that they won't ignore the Constitution. Louisiana schools would do better to concentrate on education rather than indoctrination. They're pretty low on the "best educated" scale.
A quick review of the 10 Commandments shows putting them in school is all about pushing religious supremacy. The first 4 ‘commandments’ say:
1. You shall have no other gods before Me.
2. You shall not make idols.
3. You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.
4. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
None of this has anything to do with education, and a lot more to do with indoctrination and proselytizing. It's almost as if this is deflection from the fact that the level of education is sorely lacking in the state.
I believe an educated population frightens them.
There is no lack of them in that state, and that's according to statistics as well as observation.
Dan - I look forward to your posts; they are like a summer breeze coming in my window - ALWAYS a breath of fresh air. And, as you did today, you bring a sense of foreboding. It's politics, of course, but you also highlight a backward state with bottom-of-the-list stats by various metrics - a state where despair is probably more common than hope, and MAGA-zealots pander to those they've so poorly educated. Sad, sad, sad ...
Trump has broken all ten Commandments. That is certain. And most elected Republicans have broken half of them.
Thus Supreme Court will support the Louisiana governor. Trump and a substantial number of politicians in Congress are guilty of breaking most of these commandments. So expose the hypocrisy on 40 foot ad boards using their names. Here is an opportunity to speak plainly and forcefully about transgressions...and the First Amendment.
Of all the horrible things happening in our country and world today, this one hit me especially hard. I think it’s the attempt to indoctrinate young kids that really upsets me. I desperately hope something can be done to prohibit this from becoming a reality.
I find it hard to believe that every few days another state or another court or another government "leader" comes up with something that sets this country backwards in time. This is just another one of those set backs. Why do those on the right want to continue to do this? Do they think that living in the Puritan Age was better? I guess all these right wing inane roads lead back to Donald Trump. I still can't get my arms around the fact that he is a Major political force in this country and that half or more of the population will cast a vote for him. I thought that the United States of America was better than this. Just sickening.
Half or more won't vote for him and never have. See 'Electoral College'
But I agree that it is hard to believe so many did and will again.