Rob
Sherman Advocacy
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Rob
Sherman Advocacy
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"Fighting injustice, one victory at a time."
I received an e-mail message from Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn, who wrote articles on February 5th and February 9th regarding the "patriotic bus" issue that I had raised with a local bus agency. I wrote about that issue in the previous two editions of Liberal News & Commentary.
Eric's e-mail contained a letter that he received from K. F. of Downers Grove, Illinois. Downers Grove is a southwest suburb of Chicago. K. F.'s letter suggested that atheists are thin-skinned about public religion.
Eric's e-mail also contained his reply to K. F.
I sent Eric my response to his e-mail message. Below is a copy of K. F.'s letter, Eric's reply and my response. Eric tells me that K. F. is a he, so I used the male gender in referring to K. F. in my response.
Please feel free to send comments about what you read, below, to Eric, to me or to both of us. Click here to contact Eric. Click here to contact me.
K. F. of Downers Grove:
When I was in grade school, we sang both sacred and secular
Christmas carols.
Now, only secular carols are allowed. But, I learned to dance the Hora in
third grade music. Is that a violation of church and state? To some
degree,
people have gotten thin-skinned. I don't see how a two-minute prayer at a
high school or college graduation hurt anyone. I know people who felt that
without divine guidance, their science and math grades would have been much
lower. Rob Sherman is incredibly thin-skinned. I'm a Methodist, and I've
taken pot shots from Baptists, Mormons, Pentecostals, Muslims, Catholics,
Lutherans, Jehovah's Witnesses, Congregationalists, and non-denominational
Christians. Usually, I turn the other cheek. So why Rob Sherman is offended
every time he sees a crèche in a park or the word, "god" on a bus,
I'll never
understand.
Eric Zorn of the Chicago Tribune:
Let me try to help you understand. Imagine shoes on other feet
—–imagine that some 90 percent of Americans described themselves as atheists
and you walked down to your town hall and there on the front lawn was a sign
saying “God Is Make Believe! Have a Happy Solstice!” Or you saw
a public
bus drive by emblazoned with a large decal saying “Your so-called `God’
failed you on 9-11.” Or you went to a graduation ceremony and an
administrator got up and said “There is no God or other creature of
superstition and desire to watch over you or help you children, you’re on
your own.” You would be, rightly, offended. You would, rightly, say
“it is
not the government’s job to advance theological positions or say whose
view
of the divine is favored. I barely trust it to collect the trash and
prevent
perverts from driving school buses, why would I trust or even consult it on
matters so deeply personal? I don’t want it spending my money to advance
any
views about religion.” At least I hope that’s what you’d say.
For it truly
would be an intolerable crossing of the line between public and private and
it would implicitly threaten and demean your exercise of faith. That said,
however, I agree with you totally about carols and school performances. I
believe there is a major difference between songs performed in the context of
worship and songs performed in the context of musical education. It’s my
understanding that the pendulum is in fact swinging in this direction, and I’
d be the first one to support that kind of movement. Religion belongs in
historical and sociological and musical and art classes. It is not only
possible but desirable to include generous references to such matters and not
have such inclusions rise to the level of advancing or retarding the cause or
course of faith itself. If you catch Rob Sherman disagreeing, let me know and
I’ll bust him for it.
My response to Eric:
I agree as far as you went, so no need to bust me on that.
The situation,
however, goes far beyond what K. F. said. K. F. didn't omit, through
malice, the following. He just wasn't aware of it, so I present the
information here for the benefit of both of you. You are welcome to copy
it, at your discretion, into any of your publications, with attribution to
me.
Atheists such as I are not thin-skinned about citizens expressing their
opinions about religion. This is America. People have a right to
their
opinions about religion, even when they are mistaken in their beliefs.
Rather, we are thin-skinned, and have every right to be, about the
persistent way in which Christians pull gimmicks to do the following five
things:
1. Imply government endorsement of god-belief and/or Christianity;
2. Link patriotism with god-belief and/or Christianity;
3. Cram Christianity and god-belief down the throats of atheists and other
non-Christians in captive-audience secular situations;
4. Cancel the civil rights of law-abiding, patriotic atheists simply
because we are not superstitious; and
5. Use our tax dollars for programs that have a policy of No Atheists
Allowed.
Here are details on some of the ways Christians do these things:
1. Christians put their nativity scenes on our government property and put
their god-message on our public bus to make it look like the government is
endorsing their message. The purpose for putting their message on our
property is to imply that government endorses their message. They do that
by making it look, to the greatest extent possible, as though the message is
that of the government, not that of a private party. It is not surprising,
then, that they resist, to the greatest extent possible, the placement of
disclaimer signs to indicate the true ownership of the message. They are
reluctant to have disclaimer signs attached to the displays because that
defeats the whole purpose for putting the message there. The purpose is to
falsely imply that it is the government's message, not a private message.
If Christians really wanted to make a religious message look like a private
message, rather than a government message, they would put their religious
message on private property, not public property. In every community,
there
is no shortage of private property to accomplish the mission of sending a
theological message in a way that implies that the message is a private one,
not the message of the government. In fact, in every community, there is
no
shortage of private property in conspicuous locations for accomplishing that
goal.
The Village of Skokie is a great case in
point. When a controversy arose,
about ten years ago, regarding Christians putting a nativity scene in front of
Skokie Village Hall, I attended the meeting there in which the controversy was
discussed and suggested two other locations. Village Hall is located on
the south side of the 5100 block of Oakton Street. That's the second block
west of the central intersection of Skokie's downtown business district, the
intersection of Oakton with Lincoln Avenue - Niles Center Road. There is a
large church with a huge front yard almost directly across the street from
Village Hall, on the north side of Oakton, with no nativity scene. I
suggested,
"Why not put the creche there?" There is another church, St.
Peter's Roman
Catholic Church, about three blocks away, located right on the most
prominent
corner of all of Skokie: the V-intersection, one block north of Oakton,
where Lincoln and Niles Center Road divide. The church is in the V,
between
the re-divided Lincoln Avenue and Niles Center Road. There is an all-way
stop at the corner, so when northbound traffic stops at that corner, the
driver is looking directly at the church. Again, no nativity scene, there.
Why not put the creche there, instead?
The reason Christians at that meeting objected so strongly to my suggestions
may not be obvious to your writer, K. F. Putting a creche in front of a
church does not convey the impression of government endorsement of and
approval of Christianity. Putting a creche in front of Village Hall does.
Next month is the Primary Election. If a volunteer for a candidate for
public office puts a candidate's campaign sign in the front yard of
someone's house or business without the permission of the owner, it is not
for the purpose of freely expressing the political speech of the volunteer.
Rather, it's for the purpose of implying that the person who lives in that
house or owns the business endorses that candidate, without regard to the
true political opinions of the occupant. If the volunteer really wanted to
send a message that the opinion expressed on the sign belongs to himself,
and not to somebody else, he'd put the sign on his own private property.
Similarly, when Christians put a nativity scene in front of the seat of
government, or put God Bless America on the side of a public bus, it is
clearly not for the purpose of freely expressing the religious opinion of
Christians. Rather, it is for the specific purpose of implying that the
government endorses the opinion expressed by the message.
2. Christians got "under God" put into the Pledge of Allegiance
for the
purpose of forcing citizens to express, against their will, a particular
theological opinion when all they want to do is express their patriotism.
Those who will not recite the Pledge are presumed to be not patriotic. A
person can no longer recite the Pledge without appearing to embrace the
theological perspective that there is a god, and that's just what Christians
intended to do by intertwining a theological statement into our national
patriotic message. Christians intended to imply that those who are not
god-believers are not patriotic. Christians deliberately rigged the Pledge
in such a way as to require those who take the pledge to affirm that they
are god-believers, but then complain that atheists are thin-skinned for
objecting to the intertwining of a religious message into a secular,
patriotic theme. Our national patriotic message that has been
intentionally
corrupted to imply that, if you are a patriot, you are a god-believer and if
you are not a god-believer, you are not a patriot.
Similarly, "God Bless America" was put on the bus to falsely imply
that
government regards god-belief and patriotism to be linked together, and to
falsely imply that you can't have one without the other. Would K. F. be
thin-skinned about Pace proclaiming on its
web site that they have rolled
out their Patriotism Bus, if "God is
make-believe" was the theological
message incorporated into the patriotic themes? Would K. F. be magnanimous
if Pace said, "Oh, we only meant to endorse the patriotic themes, not the
atheistic part of the message." Would K. F. buy that one?
Christians got "In God we trust" put on our money to force citizens to
make,
against their will, a pro-theistic statement as a condition for
participating in the economy. Just how thin skinned do you suppose K. F.
would be if the government proclaimed the truth about the fact that God is
make-believe on every coin and dollar bill that he used? You don't suppose
that K. F. would be so thin-skinned that he would actually object to the
government making THAT statement about theology on our financial
instruments, do you?
3. If songs about religion in public schools were included simply to
expose
children to different aspects about American culture, nobody would mind.
If
a theological theme were to be included in a graduation message simply to
express the deeply held religious feelings of a particular speaker, nobody
would mind. Those things, however, are not the case. Christians
specifically choose those venues as the time to deliver their message about
theology because the audience is captive. The audience has no way of
evading the theological theme without being excluded from the entire
ceremony or class. Those ceremonies and classes are deliberately targeted
by Christians for the delivery of their message because the audience does
not have the opportunity to decline having Christianity crammed down their
throats, against their will.
If Christians sincerely wanted their message to be offered to only those
people who were interested in hearing it, Christians would pick venues in
which the audience has the opportunity to turn off the message by departing
from the situation. Christians have a right to their opinions. We
atheists, however, and surely Jews and Muslims, too, are sick and tired of
Christians targeting, for the delivery of their theological messages, venues
in which we do not have the opportunity to depart if we don't want to hear
about it.
There are plenty of venues, such as churches, TV stations, radio stations,
print publications and public parks, where Christians can talk about Jesus
or god to those people who voluntarily choose to be an audience to that type
of message. However, we are quite tired of having Christians cram
Jesus
and god down our throats every time we go to a government venue for a
secular event. Leave us alone about religion when we go to attend secular
events and we'll stop being so thin skinned about you not leaving us alone
about religion at secular events.
This goes to the "pest" factor that you have frequently attributed to
me.
Instead of regarding me as a pest for objecting to being nagged about
religion by Christians in and out of government, it is the Christians who
are the pests, for they are the ones doing the nagging. If they were to
stop being pests about religion, I would stop being a pest about objecting
to their being pests about religion.
4. In state after state in this country, the civil rights of
law abiding
citizens have been cancelled, simply because those citizens are atheists.
Believe it or not, that is still the case in this country. Our rights are
not merely being infringed upon. They are being cancelled, outright.
In a number of states, atheists are still prohibited by law or by the state
constitution from:
holding a government job;
serving as a juror;
serving as a notary public;
testifying in court; and/or
holding elective office (serving as an elected official).
These laws and constitutional provisions have been challenged in state and
federal court, but have been sustained by Christian judges. They say that
the Constitution does not specifically state, "Atheists are guaranteed the
right to do" any of those certain things, so the State, therefore, has the
right to bar atheists from doing those things.
The federal and state constitutions do not specifically single out
Christians with clauses that state, "Christians have the right to do"
certain things. Do you suppose that K. F. would become just a little
thin-skinned if, every time he turned around, he found out that yet
another of his basic civil rights were cancelled, simply because he is a
Methodist or because he is a Christian?
So, that's another reason why we are a little thin-skinned about public
religion. As long as religion is being used as a weapon for denying us the
most basic of our civil rights, atheists would prefer, please, to not hear
about religion in the public setting.
5. Article 8, Section 1 of the Illinois Constitution provides that
"Public
funds shall be used only for public purposes." All state
constitutions have
similar provisions.
Federal civil rights laws provide that public funds SHALL NOT be used to
advance a discriminatory purpose.
Yet, despite these clear and unambiguous requirements that tax dollars can
only be used for programs that are provided in a non-discriminatory way,
Christian government officials throughout the nation use our tax dollars to
subsidize the cost of operating Boy Scout and other similar programs that
bar atheists from joining.
I fully support the "freedom of association" provision of the First
Amendment to the United States Constitution. If Boy Scouts want to enforce
its anti-atheist bigotry by excluding our darlings from their programs, it's
shame on them, not me. However, Christians insist on using our tax dollars
to pay for the cost of operating these discriminatory programs. If
Christians want to discriminate, they have a right to do that, but they
should not be doing it with public funds which are reserved for use by only
those programs that are operated in a non-discriminatory manner. To
compound the crime, Christians recruit members for these discriminatory
programs during class. Instructional time which is paid for by the
taxpayers is being used to advance a discriminatory purpose, in clear
violation of the aforementioned constitutional prohibitions against such
conduct.
As long as the Boy Scouts maintains and enforces its discriminatory
policies, Christians should not be using tax dollars to operate, subsidize
or recruit for those programs.
All groups in this country, other than Christians, respect the separation of
state and church because abiding by that line makes it clear as to which
opinions are private and which opinions are that of the government.
Christians, on the other hand, do everything that can to obliterate that
line for the purpose of creating the false impression, as often as possible,
that the Christian perspective is the government-approved view about
theology, and that government regards the Christian view about theology as
the correct theological opinion for Americans to hold.
If it was just GBA on the bus or a few songs in school, I would agree with
K. F. that it was no big deal. However, once you become sensitized to the
fact that there is a concerted and persistent effort by Christians to:
find every way they can to imply government endorsement of their theological
opinion and, by implication, suggest government condemnation of atheism;
find every way they can to link god-belief to patriotism and, by
implication, equate atheism with a lack of patriotism;
exploit every secular situation where there is a captive audience to cram
Jesus and/or god down our throats, against our will;
cancel the civil rights of people who don't share their theological
opinions; and
use our tax dollars to subsidize their discriminatory programs;
only then will you understand that atheists have every right to be
thin-skinned about having religion crammed down our throats yet again with
GBA on the bus or with class assignments to sing praise to Jesus or God.
Rather than condemning atheists for being thin-skinned about Christian use
of these tactics, Christians should simply stop it and leave us alone about
religion.
When Christians stop pulling scams to imply that the government endorses
their beliefs and condemns ours, when Christians stop pulling scams to link
patriotism to god-belief and link atheism with a lack of patriotism, when
Christians stop pulling captive audience scams for engaging in coerced
proselytizing, when Christians stop pulling legislative and judicial scams
to cancel our civil rights, and when Christians stop pulling scams to spend
tax dollars on programs that have a policy of "No Atheists Allowed,"
that's
when I will share K. F.'s perspective that GBA on the bus and Christmas
carols in public school are harmless expressions of American culture.
Perhaps this will help K. F. to understand that I am thin-skinned because
Christians have worked exceedingly hard to make me that way.
Rob Sherman
Founder, Rob Sherman Advocacy
Please feel free to send comments about what you read, below, to Eric, to me or to both of us. Click here to contact Eric. Click here to contact me.