A public classroom incident involving the tearing of pages from the Bible is taking on the First Amendment.

Channel 3K in Janesville, Wisconsin, reports that school officials are assessing a situation in which a student at Parker High School felt “threatened” after a fellow classmate stood up in front of the class and began tearing pages from the Bible:

As many Parker High School students get ready for Christmas break, junior Elle Jacobson is at home and will not be returning like her friends.

“I have never felt threatened like that in a classroom before,” said Jacobson.

The 17-year-old is talking about an incident in her English class two weeks ago during a class presentation.

“This boy got up and his visual aid was a Bible and a book. And he got up and started his speech by saying ‘Now, this piece of crap’ and pointed to the Bible.”

Jacobson said that she quickly felt threatened.

“He took the Bible and he said, ‘I’m going to do this because I can. I’m going to do something that your stupid, little minds aren’t going to be able to comprehend and he took the Bible and started ripping out pages.”

Her father isn’t too pleased about it, either:

“The school worries about his right to privacy and to free speech that to teachers’ rights or the students’ right to safety,” said Paul Jacobson, Elle’s father.

He said that he’s pulling his two high school daughters out of Parker High.

“It’s not about free speech. It’s not about necessarily about the Bible although that was disgusting, too. This is about the vicious, vile manner in the way this kid went about this and tried to make some kind of point,” he said.

What does safety have to do with it? I can understand if the student said, “I’m going to kill anyone who believes in the Bible.” But the father doesn’t want to admit that the real “safety” concern is the imagined attack on his Christianity. Merely tearing Bible pages does not constitute a threat. Offensive, certainly. But not a threat. If the student tore pages out of any other ordinary book, I doubt he’d be so concerned.

Though I feel that tearing pages of the Bible is in poor taste and does show disrespect (heck, I’d feel offended if someone tore my favorite book, John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row, in front of me), this student’s actions are protected by the Constitution. What better way to showcase the importance of freedom by using an extreme example? Tearing up a Bible, burning an American flag, criticizing military leadership … all of these elicit extreme emotions and certainly offend a lot of people. But doing these things without fear of punishment–that’s the beauty of freedom in the United States.

Do we need to explain what might happen to you if you tore up the Quran in Saudi Arabia?

If a parishioner confesses to his priest that he committed an unspeakable crime, should that priest inform the police?

Well, thanks to a New Jersey cleric-penitent confidentiality law, if the priest does decide to turn the parishioner in, the criminal’s confession is inadmissible in court.

Here’s the latest on a case developing in New Jersey:

A youth group leader’s alleged confession to his pastor about sexual relations with a Paterson girl is protected by the cleric-penitent privilege and can’t be used by prosecutors against him, a state judge decided Tuesday.

The state had argued that Pastor Milton Mendez of Iglesias Cristiana Ministerios in North Bergen was acting as an investigator–not as a spiritual adviser–when he drew a confession out of 27-year-old Emerzon Gomez about the alleged sexual assault on the 14-year-old girl.

The pastor said he arranged a private meeting with Gomez, a paid employee of the church, after learning a young parishioner told her school principal that she had oral sex with him.

Should conversations between priests and parishioners be protected by the same confidentiality privilege as doctors and patients? One could argue that a priest serves a role similar to a psychologist or a counselor, who is obligated to keep all conversations private. But should we draw the line differently when a confession of child abuse comes into play?

Why aren’t we teaching in our high schools? First, reformers try to slip creationism–in the guise of Intelligent Design–into science classrooms. Instead of teaching science, teachers are supposed to try to show the way to God. As a nation, we’re falling behind in the sciences, but there’s a vocal minority who want to take even more time to focus on things that have nothing to do with science. We’re falling behind in a lot of ways and it just seems to get harder and harder for teachers.

But now, rather than teaching facts and tried and tested theories, teachers are starting to misuse the classroom by pushing there own viewpoints–be it political or religious–on to their students. It seems to have started with Jay Bennishin February of 2006. Bennish was trying to pass off his slant on the world, the US, and his anger at President Bush to his students in Colorado. Then in December of 2006 there was David Paszkiewicz, trying to proselytize in his class in New Jersey. Both teachers were recorded by their students.

Now we have James Corbett, a teacher who was recorded bashing Christians in his class and Michael Nider, showing a video called “A Letter From Hell” to his health students in North Dakota. Parents Steve and Hannah Balaban heard about the video from their daughter and wrote a letter of complaint.

Is it something in the water? Why have these teachers gotten it in their heads that the classroom has become their private soap box, and not a place to educate students? Humanist support education as education, but not as indoctrination in any type of philosophy. I might agree with some of what Corbett said, and to a lesser degree, some of Bennish’s statements. However, they have no place in a high school classroom. It’s time to teach science in the science classes and history in history classes and be done with with proselytizing of all sorts.

I came across the writing of Doug Giles for the first time today, in the form of his article, God and Glocks: Why Churches Should Not be Gun Free Zones. Though I can’t say I agree with much of his assessment throughout the article, I can understand why his frustration would lead him to say,

I think if Jesus were placed in a similar situation as the New Life Church security guard, he would whip out his Glock and double tap the center mass of any wannabe killer who was attempting to put a bullet in one of his defenseless disciples.

I think one of his readers, who goes by “Born to Farm” has the Christian–and I think Humanist–message better. He responds by saying

I just can’t see Christ pulling out his Glock and filling the guy with lead. I could possibly see Christ taking the guy down with a body block while taking a bullet meant for someone else. Kinda like what he did on the cross.

Now I’m not a religious believer, so what would Jesus do isn’t the first thing I think of in my everyday life. But I am a bit curious to know, in Doug Giles’ little world, exactly how and why did Jesus–and the kid who turned into a deranged killer–get the Glocks? What purpose does giving anyone who wants a gun, guns whose sole purpose is killing people? Where are the laws that are supposed to protect the rights of gun owners but not allow this insane sort of tragedy happen?

Slate has a cartoon by Clay Jones showing the NRA view about places you shouldn’t go without a gun. Do we really want a society where everywhere you go, you need a gun? I think as Humanists we have to help draw the line about gun control and not give in to the hate filled message of ‘kill those who would kill you.’ Other countries have found ways to work to end gun violence, why aren’t we?

I didn’t believe this at first because it’s just weird. H. Res. 847: Recognizing the importance of Christmas and the Christian faith. When I read the following, it’s just seems like someone’s either worried about being on Santa’s Naughty list or is just trolling for votes. And, if you can believe it, it passed. 372 to 9, with 10 voting Present and 40 not voting. You owe it to yourself to read the whole thing, but below are some quick highlights. The Resolution…

(1) recognizes the Christian faith as one of the great religions of the world;

(2) expresses continued support for Christians in the United States and worldwide;

(3) acknowledges the international religious and historical importance of Christmas and the Christian faith;

(4) acknowledges and supports the role played by Christians and Christianity in the founding of the United States and in the formation of the western civilization;

(5) rejects bigotry and persecution directed against Christians, both in the United States and worldwide; and

(6) expresses its deepest respect to American Christians and Christians throughout the world.

While I’m not normally heartened by political speeches, the response to Mitt Romney’s speech has given me some reason to be cheered. His omission of people of no faith was noticed. There is even a cartoon in Slate, by Ann Telnaes. In addition, there was “Mitt Romney as national preacher” by Marianne Means of Hearst Newspapers, which I thought was a brilliant response to the speech, as well as “Faith vs. the Faithless” by David Brooks at the New York Times. I especially appreciated his line that

“In arguing that the faithful are brothers in a common struggle, Romney insisted that all religions share an equal devotion to all good things. Really? Then why not choose the one with the prettiest buildings?”

So at least some are hearing the omission in Romney’s speech and are troubled enough by it to speak out for those of us who go by the many varied names such as Humanist, Atheist, Agnostic, Freethinker and Secularist.

As I left the Fox Studio in DC after taping last Friday’s O’Reilly Factor (see here), I felt pretty good about the appearance, but as always, I thought of a couple of additional things I should have said. Then I thought, “Hey, I can continue my answer on the Humanist blog.” During a four minute segment, it’s important to streamline answers and get the message across quickly. Four minutes is also not sufficient to send lots of different messages or to go in-depth on anything complex. Better venues for more in-depth information include half hour radio appearances and podcasts.

So here’s the main piece that really could have used one more line: When Bill O’Reilly asked me if it would have been alright had Mitt Romney, instead of claiming that Americans believe our liberty is a gift from God, had said “most Americans” believe that. I answered that it would have made the statement more accurate. What I should have added was, “…but it would have been just as irrelevant. He didn’t single out any other majority. A candidate doesn’t need to say, ‘most Americans are white.’ A candidate for president ought to agree to represent all Americans, including minorities.” OK, there may not have been enough time to get all of that in, and quite frankly I’m surprised that O’Reilly let me get in as many comments as I did.

Of my four appearances on his show, this was my favorite. And Fox’s hair and makeup people even perked me up after a very bad hair day. And at the end of the day, isn’t that the most important thing?

Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, is investigating six prominent televangelist ministries for possible financial misconduct. According to Grassley’s office, the Iowa Republican is trying to determine whether or not these ministries are improperly using their tax-exempt status as churches to shield lavish lifestyles. Excuse me but, “Duh, we’re just now noticing this?”

Actually the committee was spurred on by a man named Ole Anthony. He operates the Dallas-based Trinity Foundation, a watchdog outfit monitoring religious media, fraud and abuse.

The six ministries identified as being under investigation by the committee are led by: Paula White, Joyce Meyer, Creflo Dollar, Eddie Long, Kenneth Copeland and Benny Hinn. Three of the six –Benny Hinn, Kenneth Copeland and Creflo Dollar– also sit on the board of regents for the Oral Roberts University.

Having read James Randi’s The Faith Healers which also discuss these types of ministries as well as his struggle to bring them to any sort of justice, I can say–for the sake of the religious and nonreligious–it’s long past time someone started taking action. So way to go Ole Anthony and Senator Grassley.

You may have heard about a certain upcoming film, The Golden Compass, a children’s film that will hit theaters this weekend just in time for the holiday season. Not only notable as the answer to the one-dimensionality of Harry Potter, The Golden Compass is making waves as an anti-religious film–a “stealth campaign” to insidiously subvert kids to atheism, according to certain religious groups like the Catholic League.

I had the opportunity to see an advanced screening of the film this weekend, and I’m an avid fan of the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman, the first installment of which is the basis for the film. And I’ve come to the conclusion that the Catholic League is deeply mistaken–a stealth campaign the movie certainly is not. Its freethinking and anti-dogma message is far more overt than that.

Heh. Amen.

The movie does tone down some of the more explicit references to religion that appear in the book–references to ‘the church,’ for example, have been stripped and the movie completely cuts out the last few crucial plot points of the book in which a character recounts the story of Adam and Eve’s fall from Eden. And though the books and movie aren’t really anti-religion per se, you can’t miss the larger and more important message of the film: that blind acceptance of religious authority–or at a greater level, any authority–can spawn some of the greatest human evils, such as fear and subversion of human nature, the suppression of science, and control of free thought.

Pullman, in fact, has made no equivocations about the freethinking message of his series. Pullman is actually an avowed humanist, and will be receiving the International Humanist Award at the AHA 2008 Conference that will be held this June in Washington, D.C. (You can be sure I’ll be there, with all three of my worn copies of His Dark Materials for him to sign.)

I’m curious to see how the movie fares with the general public. This isn’t really a movie for little kids–it’s too violent and most likely too dense for most of the younger ones. But I suspect its message and complexity will appeal to older children and adults, just as the books have. If it does well, it will be interesting to see how the next movies handle some of the more necessarily explicit references to religion in the following two books.

To read more about the controversy and some of the responses to it, visit the following links:

Parents fear where ‘Compass’ points

Jesus Loves ‘His Dark Materials’: Shrill Bible-thumpers boycott ‘The Golden Compass’; world’s children grin devilishly

Humanists to Honor “Golden Compass” Author