{"id":1926,"date":"2004-06-10T13:08:01","date_gmt":"2004-06-10T18:08:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/1926.html"},"modified":"2004-06-10T13:08:01","modified_gmt":"2004-06-10T18:08:01","slug":"putting-the-rights-love-of-religion-in-public-schools-to-the-test","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/putting-the-rights-love-of-religion-in-public-schools-to-the-test\/","title":{"rendered":"Putting the right’s love of religion in public schools to the test"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Baptist friend of mine once told me that he thought any Southern Baptist who opposed church-state separation should try living in Utah for one year. The point of the phrase is not to pick on Utahans; it’s to point out how easy it is to demand and expect state support for religion when you’re in the overwhelming majority. When you’re part of a small minority, your perspective changes.<\/p>\n

I kept thinking of this when I saw an interesting article<\/a> in the San Francisco Chronicle yesterday about local public schools using materials from the Church of Scientology to teach kids to avoid drugs.<\/p>\n

A popular anti-drug program provided free to schools in San Francisco and elsewhere teaches concepts straight out of the Church of Scientology, including medical theories that some addiction experts described as “irresponsible” and “pseudoscience.” <\/p>\n

As a result, students are being introduced to some beliefs and methods of Scientology without their knowledge. <\/p>\n

Anyone listening to a classroom talk by Narconon Drug Prevention & Education is unlikely to recognize the connection with Scientology; the lessons sound nothing like theology. Instruction is delivered in language purged of most church parlance, but includes “all the Scientology and Dianetics Handbook basics,” according to Scientology correspondence obtained by The Chronicle. <\/p>\n

Narconon’s anti-drug instruction rests on these key church concepts: that the body stores all kinds of toxins indefinitely in fat, where they wreak havoc on the mind until “sweated” out. Those ideas are rejected by the five medical experts contacted by The Chronicle, who say there is no evidence to support them. <\/p>\n

Narconon was created by L. Ron Hubbard, the late science-fiction writer who founded Scientology, a religion that claims to improve the well-being of followers through courses aimed at self-improvement and global serenity. Narconon operates a global network of drug treatment centers, as well as education programs for elementary, middle and high school students.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So all of those evangelicals who are outraged by America’s secular public school system, and all the Christian fundamentalists who insist that what young people need today is more religion in public schools, will just love this program, right?<\/p>\n

Of course not.
\n
\nWhen Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, James Dobson, et al, talk about more religion in the public schools, they’re talking about their<\/i> religion. I suspect if given a choice, they’d prefer a secular school program to one infused with Scientology.<\/p>\n

But the Chronicle article just appeared yesterday, so let’s give the religious right a chance. School districts are reviewing their policies to see if Narconon needs to be removed from classrooms right now. Let’s watch to see if a single religious right group and\/or leader jumps into this controversy to defend the Scientologists.<\/p>\n

I’m not holding my breath.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Baptist friend of mine once told me that he thought any Southern Baptist who opposed church-state separation should try living in Utah for one year. The point of the phrase is not to pick on Utahans; it’s to point out how easy it is to demand and expect state support for religion when you’re […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1926\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}