The Gaytheist Agenda

When I was in the 5th grade I recall getting out of school one day and encountering a Gideons representative handing out lime-green New Testaments on the sidewalk. Flash forward more years than I care to count and Gideons International is still giving miniature Bibles to 5th graders. Of course they’re well within their 1st Amendment right to do so provided they’re doing so on public property. However that wasn’t the case in the South Iron School District of Missouri.

For more than three decades, the South Iron School District in Annapolis, 120 miles southwest of St. Louis in the heart of the Bible Belt, allowed representatives of Gideons International to give away Bibles in fifth-grade classrooms.
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The district altered its policy, saying the Gideons and others were still welcome to distribute Bibles or other literature before or after school or during lunch break, but not in classrooms.

On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Catherine Perry ruled both practices were illegal and granted a permanent injunction.

The purpose of both practices “is the promotion of Christianity by distributing Bibles to elementary school students,” Perry wrote. “The policy has the principle or primary effect of advancing religion by conveying a message of endorsement to elementary school children.”

Mathew Staver, president of Liberty Counsel, a Florida-based law group that represented the school district, said he would appeal.

“I think the current policy creates an open forum that allows secular as well as religious persons or groups to access the forum to distribute information,” Staver said. “The court has clearly misread the First Amendment and the cases regarding free speech.”

Technically the policy allows secular and other religious groups to access the forum to distribute information. We’ve seen before where that goes.

Some teachers in the Albemarle School District in Virginia are rebelling against their managers’ orders to hand out to students as young as kindergarten a promotion for a summer camp that advocates for “Atheists, Freethinkers, Humanists, Brights, or whatever…”

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It was the same school district that WND earlier reported was distributing publicity about a “Pagan Christmas ritual” being held in the community.

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The earlier advertisement was from a group called NatureSpirit from the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church, a Unitarian Universalist congregation that also teaches “Exploring Islam,” “Women Weaving Wisdom,” “Discovering the Healing Power of Dreams” and other religious subjects.

Yes, they want religion promoted–but only their religion. If they get the tiniest whiff of any other religion (or freethinking) being promoted all hell breaks loose.

Kudos to District Judge Catherine Perry. Let Gideons International hand out their little Bibles in church or on the streets. Children shouldn’t be indoctrinated on the taxpayer dime.

Dawn Sherman is only 14-years-old but she’s working to overturn her state’s new Silent Reflection and Student Prayer Act in court.

“My rights were being affected because, first of all, the teacher is being made to stop teaching, and I’m being [made] an audience to something that is heavily suggestive in the direction of prayer because of the title of the act. It’s called the student prayer and silent reflection act,” she says.

On Nov. 14, U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman issued a preliminary injunction barring Arlington Heights-based Township High School District 214 from observing the moment of silence, calling the law too vague and “likely unconstitutional.”

Likely unconstitutional? There’s no likely about it. Anything called the Student prayer and silent reflection act is unconstitutional on its face. Religion does not belong in public schools.

“This was never about trying to require prayer in the schools,” Rep. Will Davis (D-Homewood) has said in published comments. “This is a way for teachers and students to [start] their day off in the right way.”

I have a few questions at this point:

1. If this was never about trying to require prayer then why is the word “prayer” included in the act?
2. What is the “right” way for students and teachers to start off their day?
3. If so-called “moments of silence” aren’t meant to be used for prayer then why is it that advocates for prayer in school are the ones who stomp and scream loudest when anybody tries to have them put to an end?

Regardless of the ultimate outcome of this case, I offer a round of applause for Dawn Sherman.

Anybody who follows newspapers, Internet message-boards or Blogs is likely familiar with the recent trend among pharmacists to refuse to dispense birth control pills and emergency contraception to customers. They do so claiming (wrongly) that said medications are abortifascients and therefore violate their religious beliefs as pro-life Christians. Some chain stores such as Wal-Mart have refused to stock oral contraceptives and EC altogether. South Dakota permits pharmacists to refuse to dispense any medication if there is reason to believe it would be used to “destroy an unborn child”. That gives the pharmacist a great deal of latitude in determining what s/he believes a pregnant (or potentially pregnant) woman should take, and allows him/her to pass judgement on the intentions of the customer as well.

Naturally this trend spiraled once the grandstanding moralists began to feel their power. We now had to contend with physicians who refused to prescribe birth control, Muslim cab drivers who would not transport passengers who were carrying alcohol, and cashiers who wouldn’t scan pork products.

In an interesting turn of events an atheist in Lebanon, ME, is suing Wal-Mart claiming he was wrongfully fired last month for refusing to wear a Santa costume.

(Christopher) Nolan, 27, had worked at Wal-Mart for three years, most recently as a bicycle assembler.

n his complaint, Nolan said he thought it was a joke when he was asked Dec. 8 to fill in as the store Santa Claus at the Main Street Wal-Mart. He said his co-workers were laughing.

Nolan, who described himself as an atheist who doesn’t believe in Christmas, said he laughed as well and then declined. “I said, ‘Uh, no way,’ ” he said in an interview last month.

Nolan said he was surprised when his supervisor called him later to say that Nolan had an hour to change his mind. When Nolan again refused to don the Santa suit, he said, his boss brought him into his office and told him he was fired.

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Nolan’s lawyer, Chad Hansen of the firm Peter Thompson & Associates of Portland, said he sent the complaint to the Maine Human Rights Commission on Monday.

Under Maine law, people alleging discrimination must file a complaint with the commission before filing a lawsuit.

The commission will assign an investigator to look into Nolan’s allegation. The investigator will issue a report for the full commission, which will then vote rule on whether there are reasonable grounds to conclude that Nolan was discriminated against. It can take up to two years for the commission to decide if Nolan’s rights were violated.

So here is an atheist who refused to perform a requested job claiming it violated his lack of belief. That in and of itself is a unique twist.

This is also somewhat different than the above cited cases in that playing Santa wasn’t part of his routine duties. It may fall under the “other duties as assigned by a supervisor” clause that so often is tossed into wage-slaves’ job descriptions. But nonetheless it wasn’t one of his distinct job functions in the way that dispensing prescribed medications is for a pharmacist, scanning groceries is for a cashier, or transporting passengers is for a cab driver. Accordingly I can grant Mr. Nolan a bit more leeway in his situation than the others.

It will be worth watching the case to see how it works out, particularly considering the inherent bias against atheists in America.