Hemant Mehta's Blog, page 1990

In early 2013, we learned that Joelle Silver (below), a science teacher in the Cheektowaga Central School District in New York who also doubled as the faculty sponsor for the school’s Bible Study Club, had no idea where to draw the line between being a public school teacher and being a representative of her church.

Prompted by a student’s complaint to the Freedom From Religion Foundation, here’s a portion of a letter Silver received from her superintendent:

… the District received a complaint letter from the Freedom from Religion Foundation (‘FFRF”), dated June 7. 2012, concerning your classroom. I arranged for you to be provided with a copy of the complaint letter shortly after I received it. I also initiated an investigation into the allegations contained in the FFRF’s June 7th letter, which was carried out by my administrators. That investigation confirmed a substantial number of the allegations made by FFRF.

Wow. What did they find in her classroom?

A poster reading: “Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin… wash me and I will be whiter than snow.” — Psalm 51:2,7
A poster reading: “The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; My God, my strength, and whom I will trust.” — Psalm 18:2
A poster reading: “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands.” — Psalm 19:1
A poster reading: “Let them praise the name of the Lord, for His name alone is exalted, His splendor is above the Earth and the heavens.” — Psalm 148:13
A poster reading: “Be on guard. Stand true to what you believe. Be courageous. Be strong. And everything you do must be done in love.” — 1 Corinthians 16:13-14.
A drawing of three crosses on a hill, depicting the crucifixion of Jesus.
A poster featuring this quotation by President Ronald Reagan: “Without God there is no virtue because there is no prompting of the conscience… without God there is a coarsening of the society; without God democracy will not and cannot long endure… lf ever we forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a Nation gone under.”
A “Prayer Request” box covered with Bible verses and other religious messages
Sticky notes on her desk that have even more religious messages.
A “humorous” poster of an antique phone that reads: “It’s for you… Good morning. This is God… I will be handling all your problems today. I will not need your help, so have a good day.”

Silver also invited Dr. Luther Robinson, MD to speak to her Anatomy & Physiology class last spring and his slides included two with Bible verses on them — something Silver would have known about since she told the school she reviewed his materials in advance.

Furthermore, as the Bible Club’s sponsor, Silver broke the district’s rules by allowing the club to put the Prayer Request box in her classroom. Religious clubs (and atheist clubs, for that matter) must remain extra-curricular at all times.

Oh, that wasn’t all. A follow-up letter from FFRF indicated Silver tried to guilt-trip the student who ratted on her:

The student also said that Silver told students in the anatomy class that whoever had reported her to the Freedom From Religion Foundation lacked integrity and character and was akin to someone who had cheated on the final exam, [FFRF attorney Rebecca] Markert wrote in her follow-up letter.

Back to Superintendent Dennis Kane‘s letter:

… it is my conclusion that you are using your publicly funded classroom to express your personal religious beliefs to your students, including but not limited to your apparent belief in the divine inspiration and authority of the Bible as the word of God, and to advance Judeo-Christian principles.

(Can you imagine what the response would have been like if Silver were Muslim, with Koran verses lining her walls? Or an atheist, with quotations from Christopher Hitchens greeting students each day? It’s only in situations like these, with a Christian proselytizer, that we even have to debate whether or not this should be allowed.)

Kane told Silver she needed to immediately take down the Christian propaganda and refrain from being anything-but-neutral with regard to religion. She could wear a cross on a necklace if she wanted, but that’s about it.

That warning was incredibly generous. In most cases, a teacher who broke that many rules would be out of a job. It all leads to one question: How on earth is Silver a science teacher? How did Silver respond to the overwhelming amount of evidence showing her promoting Christianity to her students?

First, she removed the items from her classroom.

Then, she filed a federal lawsuit against the district with the help of the American Freedom Law Center.

Among her arguments:

One of the school’s social workers has a picture of a rainbow on her door with a message that says “Acceptance practiced here” and no one tells her to take that down. (So telling gay students they won’t be treated like shit is the same thing, apparently, as preaching the Gospel in the classroom.)
The school is illegally pressuring her to stop being the faculty sponsor for the Bible Club. (Actually, they’re telling her they will remove her as faculty sponsor ONLY if she continues to promote the group’s beliefs in her science classrooms.)
The sticky notes with Bible verses on her desk are entirely personal and not an example of proselytizing. (If this were the only violation, I would argue she could get away with it. But, together with the other examples, it just shows her inability to keep her religious beliefs to herself.

In summary, she knew that what she was doing was wrong, but instead of fixing her own mistakes, she argued that other teachers were just like her… even though they weren’t.

The district wasn’t being anti-Christian; they were anti-getting-sued. They asked of Silver the same things they would have asked of anyone else promoting their faith on the taxpayer’s dime.

But Silver felt she was being persecuted (because, you know, Christians have it *so* rough):

Silver said, “I believe that my First Amendment rights were violated last June when I was asked to do some things regarding taking some posters down and to censor my speech in the classroom. As a Christian and as an American I feel it’s incredibly important to fight to protect the rights that people have died to give them.“

No one died so that Silver could preach to students who have no choice in the matter.

Now, after more than a year and a half, a judge has finally ruled against her. Kind of…

The decision given Tuesday by a judge with the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York dismissed part of the motion given by the Christian teacher.

Judge Leslie G. Foschio argued that Silver’s lawsuit… could not proceed on the basis of her rights being violated when they removed the Christian items.

Boom! Her rights weren’t violated at all. She was breaking the law by pushing her Christianity onto her students.

The decision, however, also said the lawsuit could proceed on the basis of selective enforcement of the rules:

Accordingly, Defendants’ motion, insofar as it seeks qualified immunity for Defendant Kane should be GRANTED as to the First Amendment Claims, and the Equal Protection Claim pertaining to Plaintiff’s display of religious-themed materials in her classroom, but should be DENIED as to Plaintiff’s Equal Protection Claim based on alleged selective enforcement.

I don’t buy the idea that Silver was treated unfairly. While administrators were right to go after a teacher who overtly promotes Christianity in the classroom, they hardly need to criticize a teacher who puts up a picture of a rainbow to promote acceptance of all students.

In any case, that’s not the result the right-wing group AFLC wanted. They wanted the judge to say Silver’s religious rights were being violated and they’re going off against her as if she’s some biased anti-religious judicial activist:

Robert Muise, AFLC Co-Founder and Senior Counsel, commented: “Similar to the School District’s censorship of Ms. Silver’s speech, the magistrate judge’s report and recommendation is dripping with hostility to religion.”

…

Muise continued: “To assert that the School District was justified in ordering Ms. Silver to remove small, sticky notes containing handwritten, inspirational Bible verses that she attached to the back her desk for fear that these small, personal notes would violate the Establishment Clause, as the School District argued and the magistrate judge found, is simply absurd. Indeed, this case should remove any lingering doubts as to whether our government, which includes the judiciary, is hostile to religion. But I can assure you that this fight is far from over.”

Of course, these are the same people who would go batshit crazy if a non-Christian teacher ever did anything remotely similar to what Silver did…

There’s no hostility to religion here. There’s only an administration that’s looking out for the best interests of the students, regardless of their beliefs, and themselves. Maybe Silver just didn’t know any better, but you’d at least expect her lawyers to realize what the legal boundaries are and how badly Silver crossed them. If they can’t recognize that she went overboard, then they’re part of the problem.

You want to know why so many of us roll our eyes at Christian Right claims of “religious persecution”? There’s your answer.

(Thanks to Brian for the link. Large portions of this article were posted earlier.)

A just-released Gallup survey asked respondents, “Do you believe that religion can answer all or most of today’s problems, or that religion is largely old fashioned and out of date?” 30% of Americans, to my delight, went with “old fashioned and out of date.”

It’s not the highest percentage on record, but it’s not an insignificant number either:

Meanwhile, 57% of Americans believe religion can answer our problems, a number that’s either part of a long downward trend or a recent leveling-off, depending on how you look at it:

Over the past 40 years, there has been a gradual shift in Americans’ views of the relevance of religion in answering today’s problems, with an increasing, but still minority, segment saying that religion is old fashioned and out of date.

The question itself is a broad take on Americans’ views of the relevance of religion in today’s society, and clearly, the 30% who say it is not relevant today differs markedly from the 7% who felt that way in 1957 or the 15% who felt that way in 1981. Still, the majority of Americans continue to believe that religion can answer today’s problems, another indicator that the nation, by far, remains a religious country. And, with the trend leveling off in recent years, it appears this aspect of the secularization of U.S. society may have slowed, if not halted, for the foreseeable future.

When Gallup broke down the numbers by various demographics, they found that 39% of Americans 18-29 agreed that religion was old-fashioned as well as as astonishing 49% of liberals.

I know it fits the stereotype, but I’m surprised that so many liberals feel that way, compared to only 36% of them who think religion can answer our problems.

It makes you wonder: When are liberal political candidates going to stop pandering to the religious base and pay a little more attention to those of us who don’t find value in faith?

Earlier this year, the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God in New Zealand ran an advertisement promoting their Healing services:

When doctors and medicines are not enough.

For people who suffer with constant pain, deteriorating health, can’t work due to illness, incurable disease, doctors don’t know what’s wrong, dependent on pills, recovering from injury, weight problems, sick children.

The implication is clear: Prayer will help cure your “incurable” diseases! Just come to our healing sessions!

Mark Hanna, co-founder of the Society for Science Based Healthcare, saw that ad and knew full well that prayers didn’t solve any of those problems. More importantly, for the church to suggest otherwise appeared to him to be a case of false advertising. So he filed a complaint with the Advertising Standards Authority, a self-regulated agency that is pretty effective at getting companies to remove or change their ads.

Yesterday, in a stunning display of common sense, the ASA said Hanna was absolutely right:

… the majority of the Complaints Board said the Advertiser had presented their religious beliefs in evangelical healing as an absolute fact, rather than opinion, and may mislead and deceive vulnerable people who may be suffering from any of the illnesses listed in the advertisement. As such the Complaints Board said the advertisement was not saved by the provision for robust advocacy permitted by Rule 11 of the Code of Ethics.

In light of the above observations, the Complaints Board said the advertisement had not been prepared nor distributed with the due sense of social responsibility required. Therefore the Complaints Board ruled the advertisement was in breach of Rules 2, and 11 and Basic Principle 4 of the Code of Ethics.

In other words, the ad regulators told a church that it can’t say prayers heal anything because there’s no proof that prayers heal anything.

It’s true the ASA can’t force the church to comply with the request to change its ad… but it’s still a strong statement from a respected authority.

In response to the ruling, Bishop Victor Silva of the church basically admitted that their prayers aren’t supposed to do anything so they should be let off the hook:

We do not provide therapeutic, medical or health services or services which claim a therapeutic purpose. We hold prayer meetings, at which the congregation pray about various issues in their lives, including health issues. We are no different from any other Church in this regard. However we believe that God can heal the sick, and it is He who heals. It is not holding a prayer meeting of itself (which is the service that we provide) which may heal somebody — it is a combination of their faith, their prayers and the prayers of others, and God’s mercy. Therefore we consider that the Code does not apply to this article.

Got that? They weren’t saying come to their prayer meetings so you could get healed. They were saying come to their prayer meetings so that they could ask God to heal you! (Even though God wasn’t mentioned anywhere in the ad…) And if God doesn’t help you? Well, that’s totally not the church’s fault. It’s just God’s will. So don’t blame them.

What makes this false advertising especially egregious is that it’s not the first time all of this has happened. In fact, just three weeks ago, the Society for Science Based Healthcare complained about the same church to the ASA for a different reason… and the ASA, once again, told the church to stop with the lies:

The direct mail advertisement for the Universal Kingdom of God promoted the “Holy Oil Event” where it would give away bottled of Holy Oil from Israel. The advertisement included testimonials that made therapeutic claims about the Holy Oil’s efficacy on conditions such as tumours, chronic pain etc.

What did Bishop Silva say after the ASA called out the church for its deceptive advertising?

We don’t claim that our holy oil has healing powers but we believe that God can work miracles and that faith in God can result in miraculous healing. The oil itself is not administered for a therapeutic purpose and is not a medicine, and we don’t ever make therapeutic claims about the oil itself — only about God and His mercy and the power of faith.

Let me paraphrase: Sure, we advertised Holy Oil as helping you with your tumors… but what we really meant was that God would heal your tumors. Unless he doesn’t. Which we totally said could happen in the fine print that contradicted our advertisement.

Hats off to the Society for Science Based Healthcare for keeping the church honest since it can’t be trusted to do the right thing on its own.

I asked Hanna why he began alerting the ASA to these ethical violations and he told me this (via email):

I’ve been making complaints, mainly to the Advertising Standards Authority, about misleading health information in advertising for a few years now. It started as an accident, when I emailed them to ask if something in particular was allowed in an ad I’d seen (a chiropractor implying he was a medical doctor), and they interpreted my question as a complaint. That resulted in the ad being changed, so I discovered that making a difference could actually be easy, and since then I’ve continued to make a lot of complaints.

… I complained about this [healing] ad because I think people have the right to make informed choices about their healthcare, and that right is infringed upon when an organisation spreads misinformation like this…

What an awesome activist and a fantastic organization.

***Update***: The FFRF sent the council a complaint letter in which they request the Wiccan man be able to give his invocation as well as an FFRF member. I would also urge readers in the area to sign up to give their own non-Christian invocation prayers. If you need an incentive, FFRF is offering rewards to speakers!

***Update 2***: Americans United for Separation of Church and State also sent a letter to the city council.

***Update 3***: Reader Dan wrote a letter to the city council urging them to consider their decision and received this response from council member Bill Kling, Jr.:

Prior to last night’s meeting, I did not know that there was an issue concerning Mr. Kirk. No citizen had contacted me to express concern. No news reporter contacted me. At the meeting, I simply thought that we had a “no show,” and should have let Councilman Showers fill in. Until I read the Al.com story after the meeting, I did not know that there was any issue. I know nothing concerning Mr. Kirk, but am disgusted about the whole situation.

Sincerely,

Bill Kling

If he didn’t know about any community concerns, who was responsible for denying Kirk from speaking…?

***Update 4***: Reader Ryan also wrote a letter to the city council and received this response from council member Mark Russell. It seems to contradict what the news reports say:

Thank you for contacting me and expressing your concerns. The City Council did not extend or rescind an invitation to Mr. Kirk.

The difficult and thankless task of coordinating the invocations is done by Rev. Broyles of the Interfaith Missionary Service. I appreciate Rev. Broyles work on this and know that there are always going to be those that criticize the choices.

Regards,

Mark Russell

So the council had nothing to do with who delivers the invocation? Still, it shouldn’t matter. Even if Rev. Broyles controls the speaking list, the council did something illegal by not letting Kirk speak (even if they did it indirectly through Broyles).

…

A couple of years ago, before the Supreme Court ruled that sectarian invocation prayers were legal, the city of Huntsville, Alabama was threatened with a lawsuit for its overuse of Christian invocation-givers. In response, Huntsville City Council President Mark Russell (below) offered a possible solution and his colleague agreed:

A possible compromise, he said, is using a rotating roster of clergy from different faiths. Jewish, Muslim, Hindu and Baha’i leaders have delivered a few council invocations through the years, but Russell estimated that 90-95 percent of the prayers are Christian.

“I think we’ll continue to want to open our meeting with a prayer of some sort,” he said.

Councilman Will Culver said he agrees with the idea of an opening prayer that rotates among different faiths.

“That’s the only way to do it, in my opinion,” Culver said Friday. “Everybody should have an opportunity.”

As we know, that’s essentially the solution the Supreme Court went with: People of all faiths must be allowed to give the invocations, but the invocations aren’t going away.

Blake Kirk gave one of those invocations in Huntsville earlier this year and he was set to do it again last night… but his invitation was rescinded for the worst possible reason:

WHNT News 19 confirmed with Huntsville City Attorney Peter Joffrion that Blake had been asked to give the invocation Thursday, but when the agenda was released publicly earlier this week, several council members received community concerns about ‘a Wiccan’ being invited to speak.

…

“I gave the invocation earlier this year, at the time they did not ask me what my faith affiliation was, but when they did this time and I told them ‘Wiccan,’ I was told I was no longer invited to give it,” Blake told WHNT News 19 from his home Thursday night.

The news segment cited “community fears” as the reason the invitation was rescinded.

(Note to the Christian Right: This is what’s known as “actual religious discrimination.”)

Keep in mind that we have no idea what the “concerns” were, but who wants to bet they were a mix of ignorance and bigotry?

Supposedly, the city council will meet to discuss this matter and invite Kirk back in the future, but it shouldn’t have to come to that. Allowing him to deliver his invocation last night should have been a no-brainer. I promise you community fears would never have prevented a Christian from speaking.

If you’d like to send a message to Council President Russell urging him to do the right thing and apologize before the city is hit with a lawsuit, his contact information is here. (Be respectful.)

(Thanks to Richard for the link)

Earlier this month, Matt Dillahunty debated Christian Presuppositional apologist Sye Ten Bruggencate on the existence of God. Video of the debate went up days later and it was pretty clear — at least to me and everyone else who watched it — that Dillahunty won the debate hands down. (Are we biased? Maybe. Are we wrong? Not a chance.)

Sye Ten Bruggencate (left) and Matt Dillahunty

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Bruggencate will soon release a film about the debate from his perspective. If the trailer’s any indication, it’s going to be *amazing*… I mean, he compares the debate to a long boxing match between heavyweights despite the fact that he actually got knocked out in the first round…:

The actual debate, with Q&A, took nearly two hours. I can’t wait to find out how many seconds of that Bruggencate can extract in which he doesn’t completely embarrass himself.

(Thanks to Jeremiah for the link)

It was announced last night that Jenny McCarthy, who thinks , and Sherri Shepherd, who once questioned the shape of the Earth, were fired from The View:

“It’s been seven wonderful years on ‘The View’ and after careful consideration it is time for me to move on,” Shepherd said in a statement. “I am extremely grateful to Barbara Walters and (exec producer) Bill Geddie for giving me the opportunity. I look forward to the business opportunities that lay ahead for me and I am incredibly grateful to my ‘View’ family and my fans for supporting me on this journey.”

Shepherd and McCarthy are both expected to finish out the show’s current season, which wraps the first week of August. Friday’s edition of the show is a pre-taped seg. It will be on hiatus next week, which encompasses the July 4 holiday, and return to live broadcasts on July 7.

It’s not entirely clear why they were fired… but does it really matter? Good riddance. The smaller a platform both of them have, the better off we all are.

The video below, part of The Atheist Voice series, discusses how a Christian group at Bowdoin College is fighting for the right to discriminate:

You can read more about the story here.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on the project — more videos will be posted soon — and we’d also appreciate your suggestions as to which questions we ought to tackle next!

And if you like what you’re seeing, please consider supporting this site on Patreon.

Since we posted a couple of times about the Irish septic tank that supposedly held the remains of nearly 800 children who died in a nun-run institution, it’s only fair to correct that story in light of new information.

The Associated Press issued a major correction to the widely-reported story, saying that most of the media reports (included the sources we used in our postings) had been exaggerated:

… Contrary to the allegations of widespread starvation highlighted in some reports, only 18 children were recorded as suffering from severe malnutrition.

…

The Associated Press was among the media organizations that covered [Catherine] Corless and her findings, repeating incorrect Irish news reports that suggested the babies who died had never been baptized and that Catholic Church teaching guided priests not to baptize the babies of unwed mothers or give to them Christian burials.

The reports of denial of baptism later were contradicted by the Tuam Archdiocese, which found a registry showing that the home had baptized more than 2,000 babies. The AP issued a corrective story on Friday after discovering its errors.

None of this is to excuse the substandard environment in those homes, but the reality is grim enough. There’s no need to make it sound any worse than it really is.

The downside of a site like this that deals with current events is that you’re often reliant on other, larger news sources for your information. When they get it wrong, the misinformation spreads quickly. For playing a part in that, I’m sorry. The best we can do is correct any false information that we inadvertently spread.

(via NPR)

Sarah Morehead (below), Executive Director of Recovering from Religion and mother to seven children, answered some excellent questions at The Stir about raising children without faith.

This may be my favorite bit:

If you boil everything down, and take away all the differences in religious beliefs, and look at just the positives, what do we have left? We have what are essentially humanist values, which is we’re going to love one another, respect each other, take care of one another, look out for one another, all those things. That’s what I want to teach my kids, and I don’t need religion to do that. In fact, taking religion away takes away the fear, guilt, and shame.

It’s also heartbreaking to read about the episode that led to her leaving her church for good. Check out the whole interview.

Deanna Boudov is an atheist surrounded by a lot of Christian family members and she created several beautiful illustrations of the reactions she’s received from them — including outright denial of her godlessness and character assassination:

This is just a small sampling of things our parents are allowed to say to us without any reflection that what they are saying at best invalidates our feelings, and at worst is emotionally abusive… The hilarious part is, often we hear this crap before we can even tell our story. Sometimes they pretend to listen to us just to wait until they can talk at us some more. If you are the child of a Christian narcissist, they don’t really care about any choices you make for your life and happiness that do not correlate to their limited world-view.

Her full story will resonate with a lot of readers, I’m sure, and there are more graphics, too. Check it out.

(via Godless in Dixie)