govern (05/11/83)
Relay-Version:version B 3/9/83; site alice.UUCP Message-ID:<307@houxf.UUCP> Date:Wed, 11-May-83 13:28:10 EDT It really surprises me that people who don't want the "Godless Communists" in our school systems teaching their kids about sex and evolution are willing to trust them to teach their kids about God. (A note about my biases: if you want a label, I'm an evangelical, which means my theology is fairly conservative-protestant, but I'm not into Jerry-Fallwellism as either a political nor a social outlook. I also don't have kids, so I probably shouldn't be arguing about this issue anyway, but I'm against the traditional implementations of prayer in schools.) Separation of church and state is one of the traditional Baptist virtues, but it's been rather loosely applied in recent years. Most people I know who want prayer in public schools look at the moment of silence as a temporary substitute until they can get the real thing back. I am opposed to prayer in the schools, both because it imposes the views of the teachers on students who don't share those view, and because it asks teachers to teach things that they themselves don't believe. Teaching kids that religion is a bit of hypocritical ritual to be done after saluting the flag is neither a desirable goal nor a good way to teach religion. Better to teach the kids at home. It would be nice if the schools could take a unbiased view of religion, which in my opinion includes acknowledging the religious (or non-religious) origins of many of the values they teach. (This also affects teaching of evolution, but does not mean "equal time for Creation Science".) Bill Stewart