Religious Intolerance in Oklahoma.
A historical case that will have you shaking your head in disbelief. But it’s all very real, sadly. From Americans United:
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In 1981, (Joann) Bell had just moved to Little Axe and enrolled her children in the local public school system. At that time, school officials were allowing a teacher-sponsored student group called the Son Shine Club to gather before school to pray.Though the fundamentalist Baptist meetings were supposedly voluntary, the school buses dropped students off 30 minutes before classes started. Those who were not attending the religious meetings had to wait outside the building, sometimes in the rain or cold. The Son Shine sessions also extended into first-hour class time, Bell said.
One student told a reporter with the National Catholic Reporter in 1984, “If you wanted to be warm, you prayed.”
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Aren’t these the “family values” and “won’t somebody please think of the children” people? Apparently leaving children out in the rain and snow is OK according to their family values, because only those who kowtow to their religious dogma matter. (Hence Sally Kern and her pals.)
Now back to that radical atheist, Bell.
Bell, who was very active in the Church of the Nazarene, wanted to be able to teach her children about their own religion. But her kids began questioning their beliefs based on what they heard at school. When they came home with Bibles, Bell and another parent, Lucille McCord (a member of the Church of Christ), decided it was time to take it up with the school board.
The two women were met with hostility. Bell recalled that board members told her “they did things the way they wanted to. If I didn’t like it, that was my problem.” Those at the meeting chanted “atheists, go home!” and one school board member handed out homemade placards to the crowd that said “Commies Go Home.”
Surprise. Bell wasn’t an atheist, nor was McCord. But that didn’t seem to matter to the townfolk. To some if you aren’t part of their group you are the enemy, period. And apparently being a member of the “wrong” Christian church made these two women not only atheists but “Commies”.
Yes, it seems that in Little Axe they’re not only horrifically bigoted but also severely lacking in reasoning skills. Then again those two often seem to go together.
That was just the start. After contacting the ACLU and filing a lawsuit, Bell and McCord became the subjects of hatred and even violence. Bell’s house was burned down by a firebomb. McCord’s 12-year-old son’s prize goats were slashed and mutilated with a knife. Bell was assaulted by a school cafeteria worker who smashed her head repeatedly against a car door. (School authorities praised the cafeteria worker, and she was forced to pay a $10 fine and Bell’s hospital bills, community residents raised donations on the assailant’s behalf.) McCord and Bell were both mailed their own obituaries.
If this is how such people treat other Christians I’d hate to see how they treat gaytheists. Monsters like that belong in jail, not teaching children and declaring themselves the arbiters of morality.
They eventually won their case, Bell v. Little Axe Independent School District, in the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals years later. But it wasn’t the court battle that resonated. Rather, it was the difficulties that their families had to endure in order to maintain their religious liberty. Their story shows why it remains so important to protect the separation of church and state.
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I couldn’t agree more. State-sanctioned religion endangers all. Anybody who truly desires religious freedom will oppose the melding of religion and state, even if it is their own religion that would be supported by the state.
