As today's
NYT reports, 312 school districts around the country are now teaching that "the Bible was the foundation and blueprint for our Constitution, Declaration of Independence, our educational system, and our entire history until the last 20 to 30 years." They also teach that NASA has proved that the earth stopped -- twice -- orbiting the sun, that "the sun stood still," just like it says in Joshua and II Kings.
While bragging about their takeover of Congress and the White House and demanding that U.S. Courts be packed with Right Wing believers in their narrow, selfish and authoritarian doctrines, extremist leaders of the Right are using public schools to indoctrinate America's children. Their political and cultural assault on America is real. It's winning. It's why DriveDemocracy is going to Nashville on August 14 to provide a public alternative to the Right's "Justice Sunday II."
The First Amendment's anti-establishment clause is, in the view of these theocrats, included in the Bill of Rights to protect the right of True Believers to coerce and intimidate their fellow citizens into doing what the extremists tell them to do.
The extremists are patiently colonizing our schools. Many Republican elected officials, including President Bush, are little more than their spineless handmaidens. It's difficult for us to imagine that these people are actually making progress (I'm not sure their doctrine includes an idea of progress, but they're winning coverts, anyway), but they are.
The real impact of televangelists' political events like "Justice Sunday II" is the growing belief that these cynical, manipulating Right Wing leaders are mainstream. Because we haven't publicly challenged them, they are normalized.
If we don't rise to the challenge, we're going to find ourselves living in a modern Salem.
DriveDemocracy, along with the Christian Alliance for Progress, Faith Voices for the Common Good, and several other groups are going to Nashville to challenge the frightening belief that the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence are subordinate to Biblical inerrancy. You can join the effort here. We need your help, your active involvement in turning back this assault.
We were in Louisville for the first Justice Sunday event, holding our "Freedom AND Faith" rally just across town from Bill Frist's follies.
In Texas, the Odessa school district is now considering becoming the 53rd Texas school district to adopt the Biblical curriculum. The Texas Freedom Network, which has long battled the regressive forces of the Religious Right, has produced a powerful, revealing report on the public school course pushed by The National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools.
I want to conclude with one important disclaimor. The followers of these extremist leaders have every right to follow. We don't challenge the sincerity of their religious beliefs, or their right to practice in the faith tradition of their choice. No one should try to take that right away from them.
But they don't have the right to take our beliefs away from us, to impose on us their doctrine, to make their unique beliefs the law of the land.
If they succeed, the earth won't stand still, but history might. And that will be the beginning of a dark, dark age.