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You are here: Home / The Damage Done

The Damage Done

by John Cole|  February 17, 201112:49 pm| 42 Comments

This post is in: Decline and Fall

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Via OTB, another Ten Commandments suit:

Two Giles County families have come forward to pursue legal action against the Giles County School system for the posting of the Ten Commandments in its schools.

Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Freedom from Religion Foundation, confirmed the Wisconsin-based group is planning to go forward with legal action.

She said the lawsuit would likely be filed through the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia and the Freedom from Religion Foundation’s attorney would act as co-counsel.

However, Gaylor said nothing has been filed yet and the language is being perfected.

The group and the ACLU plan to seek a protective order to keep the families’ names confidential.

Gaylor said the families have students in Giles County Schools and came forward in the last few weeks.

It is really hard to state how much damage the culture wars have inflicted on this country. Rather than issues that matter, so much energy is pumped into crap like this rather than things that really matter. ED Kain just had a long post up on the problems with current education reform, and the issue will get little to no media attention. This story, however, will be all over the news.

The really appalling issue is not whether or not the Ten Commandments are present in schools. The problem is that if they are, most of the damned kids can’t read them.

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42Comments

  1. 1.

    BGinCHI

    February 17, 2011 at 12:54 pm

    The problem with the culture wars in this country is that the people doing the fighting don’t seem to have any idea what culture is.

    Here’s a hint to the Christian fundamentalists: if you have to fight this hard to post the 10 commandments, you’ve already lost.

    Oh, and ps., assholes, we already have laws. They’re called laws. You can look them up.

  2. 2.

    Tonal Crow

    February 17, 2011 at 12:56 pm

    It is really hard to state how much damage the culture wars have inflicted on this country. Rather than issues that matter, so much energy is pumped into crap like this rather than things that really matter.

    It really matters whether government uses the force of law to promote religion. Not only is that unconstitutional, and thus disrespectful of the rule of law, it also directly promotes the very wingnuttery that’s destroying so much that “really matters”.

  3. 3.

    Cat Lady

    February 17, 2011 at 12:56 pm

    It’s interesting that wingnuts all love that Old Testament angry daddy god and want to have its babies. I never hear about them fighting the culture wars on behalf of posting the Golden Rule. Assholes.

  4. 4.

    Villago Delenda Est

    February 17, 2011 at 12:56 pm

    Of course, another problem is, which version of the Ten Commandments do you post in the schools?

    (I know the answer to this, of course…the KJV, naturally, the one true rendering of the word of God that exists on this planet…)

    Given that the first half of the Ten Commandments are all about some whiny deity bitching about rivals to his affection…

  5. 5.

    scav

    February 17, 2011 at 12:57 pm

    The really appalling issue is not whether or not the Ten Commandments are present in schools. The problem is that if they are, most of the damned kids can’t read them.

    Well, that and those that embrace the ten most vociferously seem to A) follow only those they damn well feel like at the time and B) use interpretations of the words and phrases often entirely devoid of congruence with the OED.

  6. 6.

    DougJ®

    February 17, 2011 at 12:58 pm

    We may need a Granite Countertop tag for posts like these.

  7. 7.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    February 17, 2011 at 1:00 pm

    The really appalling issue is not whether or not the Ten Commandments are present in schools. The problem is that if they are, most of the damned kids can’t read them.

    From a culture war perspective, one of the worst things that happened was teaching the masses to read, meaning they no longer needed to go to a central authority figure to find out how they were supposed to think. We’re slouching our way back to that here. It’s much better to be told that the commandments say:
    1. Thou shalt not kill anyone before they are born.
    2. Do not worship idols, but money is not one.
    3. Government is evil, except when it does what your church wants it to do.
    4. Every man for himself.

  8. 8.

    Villago Delenda Est

    February 17, 2011 at 1:07 pm

    From a culture war perspective, one of the worst things that happened was teaching the masses to read, meaning they no longer needed to go to a central authority figure to find out how they were supposed to think.

    I blame Gutenberg for all of this.

  9. 9.

    Ash Can

    February 17, 2011 at 1:08 pm

    Actually, I do think it’s pretty appalling if the 10 Commandments are posted in a public school. It may seem small, but it’s a conspicuous sign of inappropriate proselytizing, and really does need to be nipped in the bud. Give the religious wackos an inch like this, and they’ll grab as many miles as they can before someone can throw a net over them.

  10. 10.

    Zifnab

    February 17, 2011 at 1:10 pm

    The really appalling issue is not whether or not the Ten Commandments are present in schools. The problem is that if they are, most of the damned kids can’t read them.

    These kinds of monuments kinda struck me as the dog peeing on your lawn to mark his territory. Now that we’ve marked turf, we can start running around demanding English class be converted into Bible Study and making the school mascot the Fight’n Jesus.

  11. 11.

    Warren Terra

    February 17, 2011 at 1:10 pm

    The really appalling issue is not whether or not the Ten Commandments are present in schools. The problem is that if they are, most of the damned kids can’t read them.

    Well, the state of Hebrew language instruction in the Giles county public school system is rather deficient.

    ETA the first commandment is “I am the lord thy God who brought thee out of the land of Egypt”, or some similar translation. The manifest unsuitability of this statement for the public schools has precisely nothing to do with how well the school is performing its job of teaching kids to read. The kids could be winning Nobel prizes in middle school and the Ten Commandments would still be inappropriate.

  12. 12.

    jacy

    February 17, 2011 at 1:11 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    I blame Gutenberg for all of this.

    You are obviously not appreciative enough of his fine work in the “Police Academy” franchise.

  13. 13.

    Chet

    February 17, 2011 at 1:12 pm

    Nothing in the world keeps Christian parents from having their kids read the Ten Commandments, or any other part of the Bible in the translation of their choosing, each day at home.

    Nothing in the world prevents Christians from saying “Merry Christmas” if they so desire, or putting up nativity scenes in front of their own homes, businesses, churches, etc.

    Nothing in the world prevents Christians from privately affirming their trust in God, while handling legal tender or any other time.

    You don’t need the imprimatur of the State to do any of this stuff, and indeed there’s a strong argument to be made that having such an imprimatur does more to corrupt and distort Christianity and its would-be prophetic role than it does to cow nonbelievers (assuming, as I do, that the latter is the true intent behind this kind of stuff).

  14. 14.

    Villago Delenda Est

    February 17, 2011 at 1:15 pm

    @Chet:

    Chet, their “faith” has to be reinforced, constantly….by the state, by science, by culture. If it isn’t, they’ll stray into something twisted and evil, like Satan-worship or, even worse, Pastafarianism.

  15. 15.

    gnomedad

    February 17, 2011 at 1:18 pm

    I’ve done substitute teaching at a local high school. One teacher I subbed for quotes Bible verses at the end of his memos. No one has a problem with it. I’ve seen a Christian group praying around the flagpole in the morning. There are posters for multiple religious after-school groups. But all this lame voluntary religion just doesn’t say “fuck you” to the heathens like school officials posting the Ten Commandments does.

  16. 16.

    greylocks

    February 17, 2011 at 1:20 pm

    So, John, I take it you’re okay with teaching creationism in public schools? Is teacher-led prayer okay?

    If not, what exactly are your criteria for deciding which expressions of religious dogma are to receive de facto taxpayer funding and tacit government sanction?

    Also, you’re blaming the victim here. The bad guys aren’t the parents filing the lawsuit to protect their children from taxpayer-funded religious indoctrination. The bad guys are the assholes who put the Ten Commandments in the school in violation of established constitutional precedence.

    These assholes have made no secret of their agenda. They only want Christianist ideology taught in schools. They want to replace the teaching of most types of science with a bunch of religious nonsense. They want to replace the history books with their own made-up version. They’ve already succeeded in some of these objectives, or have come close to doing so, in some areas, especially the rural south (see also the anti-ethnic-studies law in Arizona). They would probably target certain branches of mathematics, especially probability and statistics, if they had the brains to understand the concepts.

    They have to be stopped. If you stop them from doing the small things (putting up Ten Commandments plaque) it’s a lot easier to stop them from doing the big things (teaching creationism as science).

  17. 17.

    Stefan

    February 17, 2011 at 1:20 pm

    The really appalling issue is not whether or not the Ten Commandments are present in schools.

    Nope, actually, I do find that really appalling. A public school — that is, a public institution run by state and local authorities and funded by taxpayer dollars — is no place to put up the religious paraphanalia of one particular religion.

    I note that these morons might also want to pay attention to the Second Commandment, to wit:

    “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them….”

  18. 18.

    khead

    February 17, 2011 at 1:21 pm

    Been on this for a while.

    Glad someone came forward. I read a story just earlier this week that said they were having trouble finding a plaintiff. Guess not.

  19. 19.

    flavortext

    February 17, 2011 at 1:23 pm

    This post reminds me of people who consider NASA a huge and immoral waste of money because there are starving children in Africa. We’re a big country, nothing is preventing us from reforming education AND keeping civil liberties alive in schools. The fact that the ACLU is more successful than education reformers just means that the ACLU is more effective at what it does.

    And this really isn’t “crap”. Not everyone is Christian, and it can be really alienating if you are not Christian but your public school that is supposed to educate all members of your community elevates Christianity. Not to mention that this kind of thing goes hand in hand with actively oppressing minority students like Atheists and LGBTQs.

  20. 20.

    FlipYrWhig

    February 17, 2011 at 1:23 pm

    The problem is that if they are, most of the damned kids can’t read them.

    Bob Somerby will want to chide you for abetting the notion that American education is lagging or failing. He’s been on a tear lately.

  21. 21.

    scav

    February 17, 2011 at 1:24 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: worse, they apparently fear that if their precious chillin see even the merest hint of a viable alternative to their parents’ worldview or lifestyle (e.g. the world may be older than 6K, sex with someone of the same gender may be be possible, let alone that sex may be enjoyable) same chillin will instantly adopt the alternative. Free-market forces are only for cash, not for ideas. Heaven forfend that somebody bring up that the early xians were thrown to the lions for not adhering to the state religion.

  22. 22.

    John Cole

    February 17, 2011 at 1:25 pm

    Oh for fucks sake. I’m not going to address each and every one of you, but I am absolutely 100% opposed to posting the nonsense in schools.

  23. 23.

    ed drone

    February 17, 2011 at 1:26 pm

    @DougJ®:

    We may need a Granite Countertop tag for posts like these.

    Too bad this isn’t happening in New Hampshire — we’d need a “Granite State Countertop” tag.

    Ed

  24. 24.

    Villago Delenda Est

    February 17, 2011 at 1:31 pm

    @John Cole:

    John, I see your point that the efforts expended on this nonsense are more productively used elsewhere, but, unfortunately, the fucktards are adamant about pushing their totalitarian theocracy down everyone’s throats, and if you don’t lie back and enjoy it, you’re oppressing them!

  25. 25.

    gnomedad

    February 17, 2011 at 1:32 pm

    I hear that many schools have granite lab benches.

  26. 26.

    harokin

    February 17, 2011 at 1:37 pm

    The really appalling issue is not whether or not the Ten Commandments are present in schools. The problem is that if they are, most of the damned kids can’t read them.

    Wait a minute — you stole that from Johnny Hart’s classic comic strip “B.C.!” That was the gag he used every other Thursday!

  27. 27.

    Hawes

    February 17, 2011 at 1:40 pm

    I feel the same way about abortion.

    http://zombieland-nowbrainfree.blogspot.com/2011/02/on-religion-and-politics-1840-style.html

    I want a woman to have the right of choice, but mostly I want every pregnancy to be planned and wanted. And most of all, I want the issue to go away, because it’s poisonous as hell.

  28. 28.

    schnooten

    February 17, 2011 at 1:41 pm

    You can move my focus from the culture wars when you pry my pearls from my cold, dead hands.

  29. 29.

    ThatLeftTurnInABQ

    February 17, 2011 at 1:54 pm

     

    It is really hard to state how much damage the culture wars have inflicted on this country.

    Wars in general tend to inflict a lot of damage, almost all of it collateral, on the places where they are fought. For once, the metaphor is apt. US politics is the continuation of civil war by other means.

  30. 30.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    February 17, 2011 at 2:06 pm

    Gaylor said the families have students in Giles County Schools and came forward in the last few weeks.

    Prolly liberals from Radford. We need to find these people and stone them.

  31. 31.

    Jules

    February 17, 2011 at 2:35 pm

    I wonder if the families have begun getting death threats from the good Christians in their school district yet?

  32. 32.

    Wile E. Quixote

    February 17, 2011 at 2:35 pm

    @jacy:

    @Villago Delenda Est:
    __
    I blame Gutenberg for all of this.

    You are obviously not appreciative enough of his fine work in the “Police Academy” franchise.

    It’s not Gutenberg you should be blaming, it’s the Stonecutters. If it weren’t for them Steve Gutenberg wouldn’t be a star and we’d all be driving electric cars on highways that had speed limit signs delimited in kilometers. The bastards!

  33. 33.

    Stefan

    February 17, 2011 at 2:52 pm

    I want a woman to have the right of choice, but mostly I want every pregnancy to be planned and wanted.

    And I want a pony!

    Sadly, though, as long as men and women fuck, every pregnancy will not be planned and wanted.

  34. 34.

    Wile E. Quixote

    February 17, 2011 at 3:02 pm

    Why we consider these people and their ten commandments bullshit any less crazy than those dumb bastards in the Heaven’s Gate cult who believed that if they cut their balls off and overdosed on tranquilizers that they’d get a ride to heaven on Comet Hale Bopp. I wonder, can we convince the Christoids they shouldn’t wait for the Rapture but should instead cut their balls off and overdose on tranquilizers?

  35. 35.

    Matt

    February 17, 2011 at 3:11 pm

    I’ve never been able to figure out why conservatives have such a boner for putting the 10 Commandments everywhere. They claim that they’re important because they are the “foundation of our laws” – but if you look into it, we’ve only got 3 out of the 10 within our legal code:

    – don’t kill

    – don’t steal

    – don’t bear false witness

    Not exactly the most specific things, really; pretty much every set of laws (even from *before* the OT) include these. And I doubt even conservatives really want the rest of them made into laws – “coveting thy neighbors stuff” is practically the raison d’etre for conservative philosophy, and they’d lose quite a few luminaries if adultery was illegal…

  36. 36.

    Mnemosyne

    February 17, 2011 at 3:17 pm

    Uh, guys, I’m pretty sure the reason John said that the real problem is that the kids won’t be able to read them is because the school system is spending its time trying to push religion on the students instead of actually teaching the kids.

    Also, too, one of these days I would love a Catholic to sue because the school put up the wrong 10 Commandments. That would be a hoot to fight out in court and see the fundies try to insist that the KJV Bible is the only real Bible.

  37. 37.

    Calouste

    February 17, 2011 at 3:36 pm

    @scav:

    Heaven forfend that somebody bring up that the early xians were thrown to the lions for not adhering to the state religion.

    Nah, that’s a myth. It’s the lions that were thrown to the christians, although no one is really sure what the lions had done to deserve that.

  38. 38.

    cyntax

    February 17, 2011 at 4:15 pm

    The problem is that if they are, most of the damned kids can’t read them.

    I dunno. I think for the fundie’s that’s more of a feature than a bug. I mean sure they want they’re kids to be able to read but they only want them reading the Bible so…

  39. 39.

    gex

    February 17, 2011 at 4:19 pm

    Hell’s no, the real problem is religion in schools. Not reading doesn’t make people want to kill gays. Religion does.

    ETA: I’d rather fight to keep religious brainwashing out of schools than get perfect literacy of the Liberty University variety.

  40. 40.

    Vince CA

    February 17, 2011 at 4:30 pm

    Whenever the stupid 10 commandments come up, it’s worth noting that the 10 commandments as we have them aren’t the things in the Hebrew Bible that are listed as the 10 commandments (regardless of which translation you use). But the ones we use are very ancient near eastern in their origin and application. They have little real bearing on the modern world. Here’s a translated reading that updates their intended meaning to the modern reader.

    1. The cult of Yahweh is to be promoted above all others.
    2. No religious icons allowed (as that usually means a golden cow, which represents the rival cult, Baal)
    3. Yahweh is a swear world. Don’t use it unless you mean it (the priests are pretty good about enforcing this one).
    4. The temple priests want to see you on the Sabbath, don’t be late, and bring your purse. Plus, it’s a day off, so it’s not all that bad.
    5. Ours is a patriarchal society. Mom and Dad matter, and your citizenship depends on keeping them happy. They’ll sell you into slavery otherwise, or just disown you.
    6. Killing your in-clan is a bad idea, as retributive justice is a bitch.
    7. Since we’re a patriarchal society, we can only know whose mother your were born of, so don’t go messing around with other men’s wives, otherwise property rights and inheritance get all out of whack.
    8. Stealing is just a bad idea. See retributive tribal justice above.
    9. We are a culture of near eastern laws, so don’t lie to the judge. It throws off our already precarious hold on inheritance rights.
    10. Even wanting what your neighbor has (especially his ass, or the ass of his slave girl) breaks tenuous society bonds down. Keep to your own wives and slave girls, and we won’t have to worry about whose father is whose.

    All of these are worthless in a world of DNA testing, non-patriarchal inheritance laws, conspicuous consumption, and secular democracy. I don’t really see the point in teaching, much less attempting to follow, any of them.

  41. 41.

    Garrett Severson

    February 17, 2011 at 5:18 pm

    I actually grew up in Giles Co. and I can’t say this episode is unexpected in the least.

    I spoke out against the school board’s decision and got a panicked phone call from my parents that I needed to stop saying things about this issue because it might make their friends in Giles upset. They eventually came around, but I thought my mom’s closing statement was telling: “Well, I guess we can forget about retiring there.”

    Most of the people who still live there and want to do the right thing are terrified: I spoke to one of my elementary school teachers about this, and she said that she’s afraid to speak up and feels that there’s about to be a “civil war” in the county. According to her, no one that she knows is in favor of taking down the commandments.

    I’m really worried about the families who spoke up, though. See, Giles Co Public Schools has something called the “Bible Bus” where they load all the kids in 4th grade onto a bus and go off to the church parking lot next door and they get indoctrinated into a really scary regressive form of Christianity that I hesitate to classify because it’s mostly about how everyone but the people on the bus at that particular moment are going to hell (this is probably the earliest beginnings of why I’m now an atheist). It’s “totally optional” in that you have to opt your kid into it, but in practice no one does because if you don’t send your kid to learn why everyone else in the world is a terrible sinner who’s going to hell, the entire community looks at you funny and you find yourself excluded from “polite society.” My parents swear up and down that this is the only reason why they subjected my sister and me to the tyranny of that glorified Sunday-school teacher once a week. In fact, when I asked them about this a few weeks ago, they told me that they knew about the lady and thought she was a bad influence, but sent us there anyway because of the terrible social stigma on families that didn’t opt in. If that was enough motivation for my family to send both of their children through a program that they thought was a bad idea, I can’t even imagine the shit-storm that would land on these families if one of the local bigots finds out who they are.

  42. 42.

    LanceThruster

    February 17, 2011 at 5:52 pm

    It’s just more proof of just how G-damn insecure the churchies are that people will not flock to their God and Jeebus unless governments, federal to local, pay proper lip service.

    It’s every bit as big a lie as “IN GOD WE TRUST”. I have no trust in god(s) and the governement has NO place making such a declaration for me. Either that or I am somehow not included in the “WE” even though I’m an American citizen.

    I guess the “Thou Shalt Not Lie” of the 10C’s is more of a ceremonial statement rather than words to actually live by. And that’s not even addressing the “Thou Shalt Have No Other Gods Before Me” horse-shite.

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