The Washington Post reported on a ‘secret’ conservative think-tank that has for years wanted to eliminate the US Department of Education and force the Christian religion into the public schools. The report uncovered by the Post and the fact that many members of the group are involved in the present Trump administration should give us supporters of secular education some pause.
It doesn’t take much research or ‘soul searching’ to know that any Supreme Court nominee by President Trump would NOT be friendly to issues of concern to secular people. You don’t even need to do any Internet searching because the major freethought groups already have the goods on Neil Gorsuch. Obviously, any ‘little Scalia’ is no friend of ours.
Every Holiday season is the same thing. We are told by conservatives that there is a ‘war on Christmas’ where saying ‘Merry Christmas’ isn’t allowed and public schools aren’t allowed to sing religious Christmas songs and how this will destroy our world… yadda yadda. The ‘war’ is poppycock but why is it that atheist or freethought holiday displays seem to be the only ones vandalized during the season? If there is a ‘war’, it is on inclusion not Christmas.
Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump, even using causal values, is a terrible person. He has been accused of groping women, admitted to being a pervert, has been married several times, and has some nasty views about women and minorities. Why then is he still getting support from the paladins of virtue – the evangelical Christian community? It really isn’t that hard to see why.
I’m not going to detail on how terrible a human being Trump is, you can search the Internet for details on those points but he has been accused of groping women without consent, admitted to being a pervert by walking into a beauty pageant dressing room without permission, he has been married at three times having started two of those relationships while still married to another wife, and has expressed some vulgar views of women and minorities during campaign stops and on twitter. Yet some evangelicals and their leaders still support Trump.
If you are in the least bit interested in a secular government that doesn’t cheerlead for any religion, that upholds the 1st amendment, and acknowledges that nonbelievers are citizens too, then you might be slightly upset that in yet another election cycle the candidates are pandering to the religious. Being upset is fine but seculars also should know we aren’t a majority yet. We can only keep demanding better from our candidates and elected officials.
The pandering of course comes from the right:
Religious conservative and FOX news contributor Todd Starnes wrote on June 29th that the recently released US House Republican’s Benghazi report noted that members of President Obama’s administration bullied a Christian pastor about a film he promoted that insulted Islam. Starnes claims that breeched the church and state wall. For a ‘reporter’ with a history of ethics problems, Starnes unsurprisingly gets this so-called ‘violation’ wrong.
Starnes writes on his FOX news website column: