The truth finally gets its boots on...
Dec. 17th, 2004 08:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfs"A lie may run 'round the Earth twice before the truth gets its boots on."
As many of your may recall, there was a story the day before Thanksgiving about a principal in a California school district banning a teacher from distributing copies of The Declaration of Independence to his students. The reason given was that the Declaration contains the phrase "endowed by our Creator," and the principal thought that might be a violation of the separation of church and state.
The timing of the release was perfect. Families would argue about it around the Thanksgiving table. News services, awash in family-togetherness chatter and with most of its investigative journalists sent home, would have neither the time nor the resources to investigate or refute the charges. I guarantee you that at the next election cycle right-wing pundits will bring this story out as an example of the eeeevil secularist culture warriors.
Except it's not true. The teacher, Steve Williams, was already on probation. Consider this class assignment he had handed out. "Read the Easter story it the Bible, interview a family that celebrates Easter, write a paper about what your church will do to celebrate Christ's death and resurrection." I don't know about you, but those don't sound to me like appropriate subjects for a class that may well include children of many different religions.
Other handouts that he has given to his students include the now infamous forgery that Washington once claimed the country could not rightly be governed without the Bible; Washington never said that. Nor did Jefferson ever say "The Bible makes the best people in the world," but Williams told his students that Jefferson had said that.
The headline read, "School bans teaching of Declaration of Independence because it mentions God." And that's the story that we'll be refuting two and four years from now. And it simply didn't happen that way.
[TT] St. Cynic
As many of your may recall, there was a story the day before Thanksgiving about a principal in a California school district banning a teacher from distributing copies of The Declaration of Independence to his students. The reason given was that the Declaration contains the phrase "endowed by our Creator," and the principal thought that might be a violation of the separation of church and state.
The timing of the release was perfect. Families would argue about it around the Thanksgiving table. News services, awash in family-togetherness chatter and with most of its investigative journalists sent home, would have neither the time nor the resources to investigate or refute the charges. I guarantee you that at the next election cycle right-wing pundits will bring this story out as an example of the eeeevil secularist culture warriors.
Except it's not true. The teacher, Steve Williams, was already on probation. Consider this class assignment he had handed out. "Read the Easter story it the Bible, interview a family that celebrates Easter, write a paper about what your church will do to celebrate Christ's death and resurrection." I don't know about you, but those don't sound to me like appropriate subjects for a class that may well include children of many different religions.
Other handouts that he has given to his students include the now infamous forgery that Washington once claimed the country could not rightly be governed without the Bible; Washington never said that. Nor did Jefferson ever say "The Bible makes the best people in the world," but Williams told his students that Jefferson had said that.
The headline read, "School bans teaching of Declaration of Independence because it mentions God." And that's the story that we'll be refuting two and four years from now. And it simply didn't happen that way.
[TT] St. Cynic
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no subject
Date: 2004-12-17 05:39 pm (UTC)There was a pretty good article on NPR about it the other night. Look back a couple of entries in my journal and you'll find a link to the audio, under the title of something like, "Hey, I know him!"
Jefferson quote
Date: 2005-01-04 03:53 am (UTC)Are you sure that Jefferson never said that?
Jefferson quote
Date: 2005-01-04 04:03 am (UTC)Are you sure that Jefferson never said that?
Re: Jefferson quote
Date: 2005-01-04 07:02 pm (UTC)A quote similar to the above does appear in the work of Charles Carroll, another signer of the Declaration of Independence. But attributing the quote to Jefferson is dishonest.