This Week in God

August 11, 2007

First up from The God Machine this week is an issue that I’ve been following for a while: asking voters to cast ballots in local churches. Frequently, it’s about logistical convenience — in many parts of the country, a local church is the only public facility big enough to accommodate the community’s voters.

But that doesn’t mean it’s free of controversy. A lawsuit was filed recently in Florida challenging the practice, but this week, the case was rejected.

A federal judge in Florida has found that having a polling place at a Catholic church does not violate the First Amendment’s establishment clause.

U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks on July 30 rejected a challenge brought by Delray Beach resident Jerry Rabinowitz against Palm Beach County’s practice of using houses of worship as polling places. Rabinowitz’s lawsuit stated that allowing churches to serve as such was a government endorsement of religion.

Rabinowitz has voted at Emmanuel Catholic Church since March 2001. On Election Day in 2006, he observed a pro-life banner located more than 100 feet from the entrance to the church, and he noticed religious icons, texts and photographs inside the building. Although Rabinowitz said he had not filed an objection previously, he told the court that he felt uncomfortable each time he voted at the church. He said that by using polling places where these items are present, the supervisor of elections endorsed the Catholic faith.

The judge didn’t see it that way, concluding, “Rather than having a religious purpose or effect, the placement of a polling precinct at the Church had the primary effect of facilitating a secular election.”

As we’ve talked about before, Stanford’s business school published a study about a year ago that suggested where you vote has an influence on how you vote, and church voting can have an effect on voting behavior.

Rabinowitz, backed by the American Humanist Association, is considering an appeal. “Such a religiously charged environment can serve to intimidate or unduly influence a person’s vote,” AHA President Mel Lipman said.

Other items from the God Machine this week:

* A big step backwards for modern gender roles and family structure: “The Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary offers coursework in Greek and Hebrew, in archaeology, in the philosophy of religion and — starting this fall — in how to cook and sew. One of the nation’s largest Southern Baptist seminaries, the school is introducing a new, women-only academic program in homemaking — a 23-hour concentration that counts toward a bachelor of arts degree in humanities. The program is aimed at helping establish what Southwestern’s president calls biblical family and gender roles.” The coursework includes three hours on the “biblical model for the home and family.”

* Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) recently named Ron McLeroy as chairman of the State Board of Education. McLeroy has an interesting background when it comes to modern science: “McLeroy told a gathering at Grace Bible Church in Bryan, Texas, of his efforts to expunge evolution from the state’s high school biology textbooks. ‘Back in November 2003, we finished [the]…adoption process for the biology textbooks in Texas…. I want to tell you all the arguments made by all the intelligent-design group, all the creationist intelligent design people, I can guarantee the other side heard exactly nothing,’ he said.”

* Via tAiO, Columbia University Medical Center’s Richard P. Sloan explains the problems with medical professionals substituting their religious beliefs for necessary care: “Recently, the New England Journal of Medicine reported that 14% of U.S. physicians, representing different regions of the country and different medical specialties, believe that their personal religious views rather than the needs of their patients should determine which perfectly legal medical treatments they offer and, more distressing still, that they are under no particular obligation to disclose this bias to their patients or to refer them to other physicians who will offer the treatment.”

* And the NYT has a nice profile today of the Rev. Daniel Schultz, “Pastor Dan” at the Salem United Church of Christ in southeastern Wisconsin, who helps lead Street Prophets, a DailyKos spin-off site devoted to religious issues.

So now you can get a degree in 9th Grade Home Ec?

I’m sure the graduates will soon be working in the Justice Department…..

  • Nice to see that Kandahar Province, er, I mean the State of Texas, is the tight little theocracy all the fundie morons want.

    Thank you my parents for removing me from that fever swamp before whatever it is that is “catching” down there caught me.

  • Boy that article about the Texas Bd of Ed had some other interesting comments:

    So, step one: lie about your motives; step two: change the definition of science; step three: target the most impressionable among you.

    McLeroy’s perspective is incredibly dangerous. His effort to replace science with theology has implications not just for Texas, but for school children nationwide. Texas is a major market for textbook publishers because it has so many children in its public system. Therefore, the textbooks available to school districts around the country tend to reflect Texas school officials’ choices.

    TFN’s press release noted that the 2006 school board elections shifted the balance of power, giving McLeroy and his allies a slim majority. The board is slated to revise science standards this school year.

    Living in California, I hope that our textbooks aren’t “Texas-style” but (not yet there with my kids) something that I plan to look into.

  • For what it’s worth, we vote at the local YMCA in a basketball court. Rather than let the smell of sweat influence our choices, my wife and I sit down with a sample ballot ahead of time, and through often spirited debate, figure out how each of us is going to vote. Once decided, we could cast our votes anywhere and it wouldn’t matter. Just an idea…

  • Here in the state of Washington (except for King County) there are no polling places. It’s all “sit down with an ACTUAL ballot”, makes choices, mail it in. I miss seeing the folks I used to only see at the local elementary school where we voted, but it sure is easier, and there is a paper trail and backup in case of recounts. Since there’s little corporate profit, though, it probably won’t catch on elsewhere.

  • Don’t worry about where you vote. The Republicans will weed out all the “wrong” votes anyway.

    The Iowa Republicans plan to display purple thumbs after voting won’t work out well. Nobody will see them since they’re usuallly sitting on them anyway.

    beep52, do you find yourself dunking your ballot and yelling, “Yeah in your face!” when you vote at the basketball court?

    Dear Mexico, please take Texas back. Forget the Alamo.

    Dear Texas, please take Tom Cleaver back. (Just kidding)

    I doubt too many budding feminists attend The Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary anyway. Sewing might be the only true thing they learn there.

    Ron McLeroym, chairman of the Texas State Board of Education needs to be on the Waterboard of Re-education.

    Re: Deceptive Docotors: What a tangled web we weave when first we Medical Practice to deceive. Metaphysicians heal thyself.

  • About those “14-percent-solution” doctors—any medical professional who would be willing to withhold any factual information from a patient should be denied a license to practice medicine. Let them hang their “shingle” with the letters “D.D.” (for Doctor of Divinity) rather than M.D. (for Doctor of Medicine). Anything less should be construed as fraud, malpractice, and theft-by-deception.

    Further, I’m not at all pleased that my tax-dollars are being invested in grants-in-aid and student-loan subsidies to promote what amounts to a form of proselytizing. Didn’t these “church taxes” go off the books more than a century ago?

    What we need is a coast-to-coast database, listing each and every “professional” who foists this theocratic tripe on the People. Then simply get a few folks together outside the offices of each and every one of these “providers” once a month or so, and hand out text-only flyers informing the People of the shenanigans these impish little twits are up to. After all—if they can use the First Amendment to defend a denial of legal medical services to citizens with legally-defensible medical needs, then why can we not use the First Amendment to deny these purveyors of “Yankee Doodle Talibanism” a paycheck for their “medicinal terrorism?”

  • “do you find yourself dunking your ballot and yelling, “Yeah in your face!” when you vote at the basketball court?” — dale

    No, but only because I never thought of it. Good idea for next time…

  • Voting in a church?
    I’d say it’s deeply wrong simply because state and church should be seperate.
    As for the argument that it influences how people vote…
    Meh.
    If you’re that easily influenced, intimidated and downright flighty (I mean, haven’t you made up your mind how you’re going to vote BEFORE going to the place where you cast it?!?) then… maybe you shouldn’t be voting.

  • Actually, I suspect the biggest risk of influence among those voting in a Catholic Church is not for people like the presumably non-Catholic plaintiff in Florida, but rather for moderate Catholics who, voting in a school gym might vote say, Kerry, but inside a Catholic Church feel watched by their conservative priest and surrounded by reminders of the notion that voting for a pro-choice candidate is a sin against God. And given the high level of well-above-the-radar political advocacy the Catholic Church has engaged in the past several cycles, this strikes me as a very real and very serious problem.

  • Regarding voting in churches … I can see the basis for Rabinowitz’s case there, given that it sounds like they are voting in the actual sanctuary. No one should have to be exposed symbols that make them uncomfortable, however I have a hard time believing that a rational person would have their vote influenced by them. Alas, there does seem to be a dearth of rational voters the past few decades, so perhaps there’s something to that.
    Our precinct votes in the entrance to a Presbyterian church about a block from our house, and I’ve never had a problem with that, because in the area they devote to voting, there are no overt signs of religiosity, just some activities bulletin boards and such. It’s in the wing of the building devoted to fellowship activities and is far removed from the sanctuary. Seems to me the elections board and the poll workers have given some thought to this issue because I don’t even think you see a cross displayed in the area where the voting occurs. I should say, though, that in the past few national elections, I have voted absentee because it’s much easier and more convenient, and provides the necessary paper trail as well. I do vote in local elections and primaries at the church though, and it’s usually a very quick affair.. in and out within 10 minutes. That’s the extent of my church going I must say. I’m an atheist. I’m sure someone thinks that me even entering a church is some kind of abomination, and to them I say “In your face!” (Thanks Dale!)

  • About churches serving as voting places; I see a conflict there, a conflict may might not have thought of. Voting places are required to be accessible to persons with disabilities. Yet places of faith are exempt from the Americans with Disabilities Act; they do not have to meet the accessibility requirements.

    So if you want to fight places of faith being a voting site in your neighborhood, this is a club you can use to beat elected officials over with. Not always a good club, though, as the local governments haven’t always been very proactive in ensuring the accessibility of voting sites.

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