The blithering idiots otherwise known as the Texas State Board of Education want Christian churches to pay taxes. Lots and lots of taxes.
To be fair, like so many of us flitting through the fog and muck of our own lives, they don’t know that’s what they really want. And like so many of us, somebody needs to tell them.
But let’s back up for a second. If you are not aware, the Texas School Board passed new curriculum standards for American History – standards resembling a Right-Winged orgy. Think Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachman sucking down whippets just to make sure they’ve killed the last liberal brain cell in their big plastic heads. You know, education.
Some of the lowlights of these new standards include:
- Excluding some African-American and Hispanic historical figures and dedicating more text-book space to elevating the magical NeoCon movement and its great wizard Ronald Reagan.
- A vindication of McCarthyism (because paranoia is awesome), while eliminating a good chunk of the Civil Rights’ movement of the 1960s.
- The board also attempted to recoin the slave trade as the “Atlantic Triangular Trade,” but, thankfully, failed. I dare the writers of SNL to concoct something that ridiculous.
But the most controversial requirement of these new standards is to downplay Thomas Jefferson, because Jefferson coined the phrase “ separation of church and state.”
More specifically, the Texas standards require students to be taught that the phrase does not appear in the Constitution. And, to be fair, it doesn’t include that exact phrase, but if you read it, you get the point.
We can argue about what the Founding Fathers really meant all day, but one of the authors of the constitution already interpreted it for us.
In a letter written in 1802 to leaders of the Baptist Church, Thomas Jefferson explained the First Amendment:
“Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.”
When I first heard of the Texas School Board Commission’s intention to impose a Christian Fundamentalist revisionist spin onto American History, I got pissed. Really pissed. And I pissed all over Facebook during a heated debate with a couple of old conservative classmates. These Tucker Carlson bow-tied ideologues, arrogant enough to think they can interpret the Constitution more accurately than one of its authors, really believe that the U.S.A. is a Christian nation and there is no separation of state from their religious beliefs.
And then the beauty of it hit me. They have no idea what they are asking for. They are asking for their church to be taxed. Clearly, they hadn’t thought this through.
So, I asked one of them to imagine America “The Christian Nation” — a vast and glorious utopia of red, white and blue crucifixes towering over the landscape like big golden McDonald arches. A nation where children are taught that Creationism is science and the Flintstones really did own a pet Snorkasaurus. A world where women were women and men were men — and all wore gender appropriate clothing.
But most of all, a country where churches are TAXED by the Federal government.
And that’s when my rotund Republican friend trembled at the sound of conservative kryptonite: Taxes.
How could he want his beloved religious institutions to be raped and pillaged by the nefarious Federal government?
It’s simple. The government cannot tax any establishment of religion, because they are considered completely separate. Churches and Synagogues and Mosques are tax-exempt.
However, if you do not subscribe to the idea that church and state should be separate, if you believe that this is a Christian nation, you must also believe Christian churches should be required to pay taxes — since they are not really separate from the government.
Here it was, the secret weapon that will forever protect the First Amendment from these ill-conceived assaults — because we all know there is nothing more horrifying to a red-blooded, red-partied American than taxes.
The modern conservative movement is losing by winning. You don’t have to be a hipster to dig that irony.
One of my snarkier liberal friends – a policy wonk living at the edge of the world (aka Venice Beach) – put the recent passage of the Christian revisionist American History standards into perspective:
“Wait. History is written by the losers now?”
Yes.
For the real facts about the Texas Social Studies standards, go to http://www.juststatethefacts.com.
Although your “Just the Facts,” Ma’am article made me reminiscent of Dragnet, I’m not sure how it applies as a criticism of my article. So, I will go through it one point at a time.
“They claim Thomas Jefferson is not in the standards.”
I know that some people have claimed that Jefferson is completely out. I certainly did not. I said “downplay.” The intent of some of the board members was to replace Jefferson with Calvin in the Enlightenment portion of the new curriculum. Luckily, they failed. I believe that many of these articles/blogs you are reading are written by people who are still reeling from the news stories from March — in which all the board’s intentions and plans were laid out. Doesn’t excuse the more recent stories, especially from the journalists. But the bigger point is this: Although it’s admirable that the measure was ultimately shot down, it doesn’t make it any less frightful that the board even considered passing it.
“They claim religious freedom is watered down in the standards.”
It depends on which religion. If you are Christian, no.
In the Board’s transcripts, their intention was to clearly paint America as a Christian Nation.
“Emphasize the strong Judeo-Christian influences on the nation’s Founding Fathers, but there will be no coverage of the Bill of Rights “Establishment Clause” that was used to outlaw school-sponsored prayer and affirm separation of church and state in the U.S.”
The Board’s words — not mine.
“The attempt to take out Jefferson from the Enlightenment section is due to the fact that he coined the term “separation of church and state.”
David Bradley (Board Member) was quoted saying:
“I reject the notion by the left of a constitutional separation of church and state.”
This isn’t about teaching children; This is about Christian indoctrination.
“They claim The State Board of Education members have no teaching experience.”
Not a claim made by me. However, I wouldn’t consider any of them to be scholars in American History.
“They claim that teachers and professors were kept out of the process.”
Again, never claimed that.
“They claim that that the term slavery was taken out of the standards.”
Again. Not in this article. However, they did attempt to recoin the slave trade as the “Atlantic Triangular Trade.” Do I even need to comment further on that???
The rest of your points were not mentioned in this article or touched on at all, so I’ll stop here.
I urge you to actually read someone’s article before criticizing it. If you did, you would see that it is really about the Christian Conservative’s intention to rebrand America as a Christian Nation by attempting to discredit the notion of “Separation of Church and State” — which could ironically result in churches being taxed. Basically, I’m just making poking fun at their incredible stupidity.
Was America founded on Christian principles?
If you don’t know where you’ve come from, it’s pretty hard to determine where you’re going.
The history of America is an awesome drama. Our nation is no accident. For hundreds of years, the dream of liberty was carried across European history to be birthed on these shores, and biblical truth, biblical thinking, played a pivotal role in the birthing of America.
But was America founded on Christian principles? Just read the first words of the Declaration of Independence:
We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
From the beginning, America’s founders accepted the reality that basic rights were inseparable from human beings and they recognized that those inalienable rights were not given by government nor acquired by force, but that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are the gifts of the Creator.
In 1844, the Court said, “Christianity is part of our common law.”
In 1892, the Supreme Court said this: “No purpose of action against religion can be imputed to any legislation, state or national because this is a religious people. This is historically true.”
In 1930, the U.S. Supreme Court said this: “We are a Christian people, according to our motto.”
In 1952, the U.S. Supreme Court said, “We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being.
The question isn’t – Was America founded on Christian principles? The question is – what world view has given birth to and sustained America? The answer to that question is simple: Christianity.
http://www.aproundtable.org/issues.cfm?issuecode=history
The problem that I have is that liberals want to deny that America was molded by a Christian worldview and remove anything that reflects that.
You’re right. It’s not a question, because America was not founded exclusively on Christian Principles. I’m not sure why you are so upset about this. The Constitution protects your right to believe in anything you want.
There are certainly Christian influences (although, I’d argue that many Christian principles are also shared by other religions and cultures and are not exclusively Christian). However, you are forgetting the powerful secular philosophies and classical influences that set the formation of America apart from the rest of the Western world.
Just look at our system of government. Our Founders created a Republic. What’s Christian about a republic? As I recall pre-Christian civilizations such as the Greeks and Romans formed Republics. At the time, Christian Europe was ruled by monarchies.
Are we to worship Zeus and the rest of the Olympians, then?
The Declaration of Independence was a pre-Government document, since the U.S.A. had not been formed yet.
Jefferson was inspired by English philosopher John Locke — also called the father of liberalism. Locke supported the idea of separation of church and state. Locke also believed that in a natural state all people were equal and independent, and everyone had a natural right to defend his “Life, health, Liberty, or Possessions”, basis for the phrase in America; “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”
That’s not Christianity. That’s secular humanism.
The Supreme Court is a fluid body of political appointments, so their rulings and statements reflect their political beliefs and the eras they lived in.
If we are to accept everything the Supreme Court has said and has ruled on, then you must also accept it — even if it goes against your religious beliefs.
The Supreme Court has ruled that abortion is legal. So, you must agree with that, right?
The beauty of the Supreme Court is that they are contemporary scholars in place to interpret the Constitution for a contemporary America. These are just interpretations, whether or not I agree with them all. And it’s perfectly fine to disagree with them. In fact, the Founders would encourage it.
About Common Law:
Thomas Jefferson elaborated about the history of common law in his letter to Thomas Cooper on February 10, 1814:
“For we know that the common law is that system of law which was introduced by the Saxons on their settlement in England, and altered from time to time by proper legislative authority from that time to the date of Magna Charta, which terminates the period of the common law. . . This settlement took place about the middle of the fifth century. But Christianity was not introduced till the seventh century; the conversion of the first christian king of the Heptarchy having taken place about the year 598, and that of the last about 686. Here then, was a space of two hundred years, during which the common law was in existence, and Christianity no part of it.”
Again, I don’t think you can ignore the Treaty of Tripoli (signed by George Washington), which explicitly states that the U.S.A. is not a Christian nation.
Just to be fair, I would like to give you a chance to explain what exclusive Christian principles/worldview our nation is built on.
See, when you use the words “Christian Nation,” you are implying that we live in a religious state — whether or not you mean to. See, Iran is a “Islamic Nation,” because they are a Theocracy. Great Britain is a “Protestant Nation” because it has an established state church: The Church of England.
America has none of these things. In fact, the Founders were careful not to mention GOD at all in the Constitution.
As, I see it, our nation was built on a hodgepodge of philosophies (be it secular or religious). And it’s people come from all kinds of cultures and faiths. It just doesn’t belong to one religion or world view.
It belongs to us all.
Texas is not going to make a lick of difference to American Education. At one time, Texas did matter because it was the 3rd largest market for textbooks. California and Florida were up there as well. Now, thanks to Adobe Acrobat being an efficient medium to make changes, individual states are free to create their own version of a text book. The practice is going on right now as many states and school districts have ordered specific iterations of a textbook for their use.
For the record, a print run of 10,000 books has the same per unit cost that a million book print run does, so there is no such thing as a discount for larger print runs.
Sure. But I know plenty of people with kids who live in Texas. What are they supposed to do?
run away from the oily hurricanes that are coming
The reason churches should be taxed is because they are businesses. Your deductions are beautiful but more complicated than need be. Show me a church that is not run like a business and I’ll show you a broke bunch of people gathering at the river; and they don’t need to pay taxes. But the other bastards and their profit-oriented, tax dodging ways…
Oh, Dale! The Brothel is so glad you came to visit. You are a sight for poor my sore myopic eyes. I agree with your point on an emotional level. It’s not fair that churches (which I believe to be no better than pyramid schemes) are tax exempt. But for the purposes of this argument, I say, let them keep their money, if it means they keep their tendrels out of my government. Whatever it takes to convince the radical right to stop assaulting “separation of church and state.” Perhaps I’m taking more of a pragmatic approach to the problem — but hell, William James is just so sexy
How’s Maya?