=====[ SUBSCRIBE or REMOVE to gofreemind@aol.com ]=====THE TEXAS ATHEIST
September 24, 1999 # 33
Copyright © 1999 by Howard Thompson
=========[ An independent, free e-mail newsletter ]=========
IN THIS ISSUE
1. Texas Events
2. Confronting religious hate in Copperas Cove
3. Judge lets Santa Fe football prayers proceed
4. Freethinker rock -- Commissioners may act
5. News/Science Briefs
Atheist insensitivity - Texas Freedom Network
Santa Fe prayer demonstration planned
Football prayer movement in Humble
More schools ignore football prayer ban
Punished for not praying in Donna, Texas
Houston ISD funds religious school
Houston church of freethought in planning
6. Letters: "beat me up for my beliefs"
"my children have been harassed"
"murdered all the men of the Freethinker community"
7. Commentary: Football prayers get even more confusing
TEXAS EVENTS
November 5-7, San Antonio - Freedom From Religion Foundation Convention, St. Anthony Hotel. Contact FFRF, 608-256-8900, PO Box 750, Madison, WI 53701.
CONFRONTING RELIGIOUS HATE IN COPPERAS COVE
Labor Day in Copperas Cove was a good day for freedom of conscience and a bad day for religious hatred. The Ft. Hood area Wiccans were the target of a Baptist march on wickedness. The Wiccans confronted religious hatred head-on and won a clear morale victory.
Pastor Jack Harvey of Killeen's Tabernacle Independent Baptist Church herded his flock to a "March Against Wickedness" for the sixth time in the last seven years. About fifty, mostly minors, gathered in the morning at the Killeen Mall. They paraded for three hours with signs against homosexuality, adultery, pornography, abortion and witches.
"We're going to hate what God hates," said Pastor Jack. He claimed that Wiccan witches have babies so they can, "offer up children in sacrifice to the devil." And, that witches, "abort it before it is born and offer it up to the devil." The urban myth of baby-sacrificing "Satanic" cults has never had a shred of evidence for it, but Pastor Jack could care less about facts.
Pastor Jack says he's obeying God's laws by challenging wickedness. He quoted Deuteronomy, "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." When asked if he was advocating death for Wiccans, he responded, "Death lurks at the door of disobedience to God. In a theocracy, we would warn them and follow through on that."
In the evening, the Wickedness March arrived by bus in nearby Copperas Cove at the New Age Connection store, owned by a Wiccan. Among the 150 who had gathered during the day to support the Wiccans were atheists and Christians. The two groups looked very different -- Long skirts and buttoned-down 50's style versus individualistic hair, colorful attire, tatoos and piercings.
Pastor Jack used a megaphone to rebuke the Wiccans. The Wiccans sang songs and chanted "Stop the Hate," "Let's All Get Along," and Goddess slogans. They displayed boisterous good spirits in the face of Christians who would kill them if they could.
As the hour wore on, Pastor Jack's sheep seemed to lose enthusiasm. Baptist mothers were talking to their children, apparently trying to explain what was going on. Four small children who began to play in the caliche rocks by the highway were recalled to sign duty. Other Baptists took over the megaphone from Pastor Jack and tried to shout down the Wiccans with scripture.
The affair ended with the Wiccans chanting "Drive Home Safely" at the departing Baptist bus. One Wiccan mother saw them off with a skirt-twirling display unmarred by panties. Several Wiccans picked up trash where the Baptists had been.
The right of freedom of conscience for one day did very well in Copperas Cove, Texas. It did well because the targets of hate had a sense of and pride in their chosen belief. With less than four days of internet and phone call organizing, they came out in public to confront hate. Because of their respect for their own beliefs and their willingness to act, they disheartened the haters and won a morale victory for their community.
It's something to think about the next time someone tries to convince you that you should be ashamed of your atheism. It's something to think about the next time someone tries to convince you that you shouldn't call yourself an atheist. It's something to think about when friends, co-workers and family let you know that they'd all be more comfortable if you lived out your rejection of magic invisibly silent so as not to attract the anger of Christians.
I envied Wiccan pride this Labor Day. I hope that someday Texas atheists will be proud enough to stand up for themselves with equal energy and pride.
JUDGE LETS SANTA FE FOOTBALL PRAYER PROCEED
[Compiled from several news reports.] U.S. District Judge Sim Lake issued a temporary injunction that barred the Santa Fe school district from punishing a Baptist minister's daughter for delivering prayers before football games. The injunction allows the religious majority in Santa Fe, Texas to force prayer on those attending a football game sponsored by a tax-funded government school district.
Marian Ward, the daughter of a Santa Fe Baptist minister, was the student elected to deliver a message at football games. Only 59 out of 1,208 students at Santa Fe high school participated in a vote last May to have a student deliver a "message" before football games, since prayers were banned. The current controversy is over whether or not a student-led "message" can be a religious message.
Santa Fe schools were under a U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals order to prohibit prayers before football games because the event was not properly "solemn" enough for God worship. Judge Lake's injunction says the school's prohibition against prayer "favors atheism over any religion" and is thus "state-sponsored atheism." The illogical bias for religion in this decision seemingly escapes Judge Lake.
The Santa Fe schools have appealed the 5th Circuit Court's ban on school prayers, but has not appealed the temporary injunction that prevents them from punishing students who violate the 5th Circuit Court decision. To comply with the court order, the Santa Fe school district had developed a new policy to punish students who delivered religious messages at football games.
Local ignorance of state-church separation issues was underlined by Santa Fe school board member Robin Clayton who commented that, "Liberals created that term 50 years ago."
Prejudice against atheists was apparent among forced prayer supporters. Marian Ward's attorney Kelly Coghlan commented that a religious person was less likely than an atheist to walk into a school or shopping mall and start shooting.
FREETHINKER ROCK – COMMISSIONERS MAY ACT
The Freethinker rock still stands in Comfort. The August 31, 1999 proposed deadline for its removal passed with no action by the Kendall County Commissioners Court. They may consider some action at their September 27th meeting.
Reports are that two newly elected Commissioners are pressuring Cenotaph originator Ed Scharf to remove the Freethinker rock from the Comfort park. This is a transparent attempt to get the rock removed without the County or Comfort Chamber of Commerce assuming any liability. Scharf has refused to act as one among many donors who paid for the project.
Some claim the rock is a "safety hazard," that it might be pulled over with a truck or crack and fall because of a poor foundation. The rock sits on a one foot thick concrete base reinforced with 5/8th inch rebar. The four corners have rebar reinforced concrete piers sunk to a four foot depth. The base can sustain 4,000 pounds per square inch of pressure, considerably more than the actual 13 pounds per square inch of pressure from the 32.5 ton rock. The rock on its base is the sturdiest structure in the park.
The Freethinker Cenotaph controversy was not a sudden event entirely triggered by atheist participation in the project. The historical hostility between German freethinkers and later Christian settlers never really ended.
You get the impression that Comfort's evangelicals were happily thinking that remnant freethinker culture was fast fading. They hoped for the day when the irreligiousness of the area's founders could be completely erased from history. Then came the Freethinker Cenotaph to stir things up. Ashamed of their irreligious heritage, local Christians reacted with the petition against a "monument to atheism" and blamed outside atheists.
Local squabbles over freethinker heritage have left the Comfort Historical Society in a shambles. This society was founded in 1933 to preserve German Freethinker heritage. During the 1980s, the presidency of the group fell to Roy O.Perkins, III and membership declined to three. Perkins, you'll recall, was one of the leaders of the atheist-bashing petition drive against honoring Comfort's founding freethinkers. One worries about the safety of freethinker memorabilia entrusted to the Comfort Historical Society over the years under a leadership hostile to the distinguishing irreligiousness of Freethinkers.
What the hill country needs is a Freethought Revival to preserve, publicize and celebrate the freethinking ideals from the Age of Enlightenment that the German Freethinkers brought to Texas. That is a day to hope for.
NEWS/SCIENCE BRIEFS [Send items of interest to gofreemind@aol.com.]
ATHEIST INSENSITIVITY – TEXAS FREEDOM NETWORK
The Texas Freedom Network (TFN) is a "faith-based" response to the religious right that supports separation of state and church. It was founded by former Governor Ann Richard's daughter Cecile.
A recent invitation to a fund-raiser was insensitive towards atheists. The envelope said: "What do Pat Robertson's Christian Coalition and Madalyn Murray O'Hair's American Atheists have in common? Now both their headquarters are in Texas! (Is this a great state or what?!!)" The TFN envelope came across as a cheap-shot that expresses popular Christian bigotry against atheists.
Your editor wrote to TFN about the insensitivity of considering an atheist organization as somehow similar to the Christian Coalition. Despite the problems of Madalyn and her organizations, Madalyn O'Hair and American Atheists, Inc. supported separation of state and church.
SANTA FE PRAYER DEMONSTRATION PLANNED
Some people in the Houston area are considering a demonstration over the football game prayers still occurring in the Santa Fe school district. Those interested can contact <willpe@swbell.net>.
FOOTBALL PRAYER MOVEMENT IN HUMBLE
[From willpe@swbell.net] "KHOU - Houston's CBS affiliate announced on tonight's news that students in the Humble Independent School District [North of Houston] are collecting signatures to petition the City of Humble [that's what was reported - I don't know why the city] to allow school prayer at football games. The ‘campaign' is named ‘Do the Right Thing Campaign' and is being sponsored by the Lakeland Baptist Church - 110 Isaacks Rd., Humble, TX 77338 - telephone: 281-446-2516.
Students are attempting to gather 2,000 signatures to present to the City Council. All council members have already signed the petition!
MORE SCHOOLS IGNORE FOOTBALL PRAYER BAN
North of Dallas, Celina high school football fans prayed before a football game with a Christian school. The apparently coordinated prayer by fans, football players, cheerleaders, and band members violates the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ban on school football prayers because football is not properly solemn enough for God.
Rev. John Mark Arrington, pastor at Lighthouse Full Gospel Church in Garland distributed 250 T-shirts with the slogan, "Celina Bobcats Pray Before They Play." Arrington want students to obey "God's law," which justifies the growing rebellion of evangelicals against the U.S. Constitution.
In Stephenville, students brought their own sound system to football games and delivered a religious message using the equipment. There was no report that school officials took any action to prevent it.
In Midland, student-led prayers at football games still happen. School officials said the prayers would continue until someone filed a lawsuit to make them stop.
PUNISHED FOR NOT PRAYING IN DONNA, TEXAS
We have a report that a student at A.P. Solis Middle School in Donna, Texas was punished for refusing to pray during the school day prayer. He was sent to an "alternative" class as punishment. The report also mentions a half dozen atheist students who have banded together and given themselves a "deprecatory" name. TTA is pursuing this story and will let readers know more in the next issue.
HOUSTON ISD FUNDS RELIGIOUS SCHOOL
[From: <jdaly@pfaw.org> Jamie Daly, Southern Coordinator for People for the American Way.] "Another local case we're monitoring is the Houston ISD contract with a private religious school that was just approved by the ISD board. If implemented, local tax dollars earmarked for the ISD public schools would go to this school to take in students that failed to meet last year's promotion standards. We are anxiously awaiting a copy of this contract. Worse case: could lead other TX ISDs to similar action, causing several local school-voucher battles instead of one big statewide one."
Jamie is apparently referring to the "Charter Schools" program created a few years back by the Texas legislature. The danger that the program might be a back-door funnel for tax dollars to religious schools is now real.
HOUSTON CHURCH OF FREETHOUGHT IN PLANNING
Arthur Fay <afay@worldnet.att.net> and other Houstonians are working to establish a Freethought Church. Their effort is the second attempt to emulate the North Texas Church of Freethought's successful format of a church model organization for unbelievers. For those bothered by the "c" word, the effort is utterly godless.
The effort has eleven participants and hopes to have their first "service" in the year 2000. You can find out more by contacting Arthur Fay or by joining their e-mail group at HCOF@onelist.com.
GROUPS & TELEVISION
Agnostic & Atheist Student Group of Texas A&M. Wednesdays 8:00 PM. Check http://atheist.tamu.edu/~aasg/ for changing room locations.
American Humanist Association. Houston, Dallas. <frankprahl@earthlink.net>.
Atheist Community of Austin. Weekly meetings, monthly speaker, TV show. <kellenvh@earthink.net> www.atheist-community.org.
Corpus Christi Atheists & Agnostics. Contact Brian Meyer <bmmagic@earthlink.net>.
Ethical Culture Fellowship of Austin. 10:00 AM, 1st & 3rd Sunday, Austin Senior Activity Center near 28th and Lamar. 512-306-1111 <ecfa@usa.net> http://www.main.org/ec.
Freethinkers Assoc. of Central Texas. Weekly meetings. http://atheistalliance.org/fact Don Lawrence <lawdon99@earthlink.net> or Julie Fisher <txfreethinker@geocities.com>.
Freethinkers Union - U of Houston. New unbeliever student group. Stacy Irwin <stirwin@Jetson.uh.edu>. http://get.to/freethinkers.
Houston Church of Freethought. Contact <afay@worldnet.att.net>.
Houstonians for Secular Humanism. Monthly meetings, <dts2000@flash.net>.
Humanist of Ft. Worth. 1st Wed monthly, 7:00 PM, Russell Elleven
<R.elleven@tcu.edu>, http://webalias.com/humanism. North Texas Church of Freethought. First Sunday, 10:30 AM at Wilson World Hotel, Irving. Singles group & social events. <church@freethought.org> http://church.freethought.org.
Oklahoma Atheists. Monthly & online meetings. Kim Schultz- Kimmysai@aol.com, www.geocities.com/~ok_atheist.html, http://clubs.yahoo.com/clubs/oklahomaatheists.
San Antonio College. New group. Don Lawrence <lawdon99@earthlink.net>.
Texas Hill Country Freethinkers. Monthly luncheons and dinners. Julie Fisher at 210-354-3311 <txfreethinker@geocities.com>.
University Skeptics Society. UT Austin. <www.utexas.edu/students/skeptics>.
The Atheist Experience: 9:00 AM call-in show. Sunday on Austin public access TV.
Freethought Forum: 6:30 PM Thursday on San Antonio public access TV.
LETTERS
[Address withheld] I read your E-mail...Thanks! It is so hard to be an atheist in Texas...especially in a relatively small town, like mine. I am enrolled in the local public school, and this year in Science, we are discussing the creation of the earth. Although this was the top class in the school, I seemed to be the only atheist or agnostic there...everyone else was a Christian! I'm just counting down the days until my classmates beat me up for my beliefs and lack thereof.
[Address withheld] I grew up in Santa Fe, Texas and what I'm reading is no shock to my system.
To give you a brief background the area is HEAVILY controlled by religious groups, mostly Baptist or Christian. The town (at the time I was there), was heavily racist as well, we had to have armed escorts to play football w/the next door city (Hitchcock), b/c they where black, and we where all white.
Anyway, not to blather on and on, I find what that school is doing of NO SHOCK, I find that the student body, not caring on this issue, again NO SHOCK.
What I DO find shocking is that they CONTINUED even though a court order stated otherwise..very funny of them to do that.
[Address withheld] Although I'm not an atheist, I wholeheartedly respect any individual's right to choose whether or not to believe or not believe. My family has spent the last several years fighting the so-called "Christians" in Santa Fe. My children have been harassed and ostracized relentlessly over the years since we began speaking out against our school districts overwhelming desire to "christianize" all our students and the entire community.
Because we openly disagree with their tactics, they assume we are: devil worshippers, atheists, Satanists, etc. Little do they know my family is very much involved in the religious education of our children. We just don't happen to be the local version of "Baptist." We were taught at a very young age that a person's choice of religion (or no religion) is a personal choice.
We were taught that we should not seek others to convert....they will come to you if they are interested.
My family and I firmly suppor those who seek "freedom from religion" as well as those who seek "freedom of religion." My family and I very much appreciate the efforts of your organization to preserve our rights to religious freedom. We feel we must offer any help in this seemingly never-ending battle. Please add me to your list of subscribers and keep me informed of any activities we may participate.
[From <jgibson204@compuserve.com>] he brouhaha over the Cenotaph in Comfort is appalling to me, and not because the reactionaries are screaming against a piece of rock that marks an absence of superstition at one time in one place. Although I was surprised at the Baptist-style censorship of "The Texas Atheist," the hysteria of the superstitious Hill Country loonies is to be expected.
No, what disconcerts me is that in the debate out in Comfort, it seems the partisans of the free thinkers are on the defensive, instead of vigorously attacking the bigots who persecuted the German Freethinkers and now want to remove their memory from history. The fact is that the German Freethinkers have a noble history, but their superstitious neighbors should be confronted with their own ignominy every time there is a mention of the Cenotaph.
Shortly before the United States Civil War, a group of runaway slaves took shelter in one of the Hill Country Freethinker communities somewhere near Fredericksburg. The good Christians from around Llano rode out in a posse to the community and murdered all the men of the Freethinker community and all of the slaves. That is to me the most compelling reason why the memory of the Freethinkers deserves AT LEAST a cenotaph in the park, and why the superstitious yahoos who oppose the memorial should NEVER be allowed to open their mouths in public without being reminded of the heroism of the Freethinkers, and the murderous brutality of their own historical predecessors, the Christians.
COMMENTARY: Football prayers get even more confusing
Evangelical foolishness knows no bounds. Bible-thumpers are puffed up with indignation over the football prayer ban. How silly. If evangelicals really understood the U.S. 5th Circuit Court decision, they might gladly sacrifice football prayers.
The 5th Circuit's football prayer ban actually advances religion. It blitzes a huge section of the "wall of separation" between state and church. This stunning decision gives judges the power to protect god from improperly "solemn" worship. It embraces state theocracy within civil government, a 350 year backward leap in time.
New England's Puritans seamlessly integrated state and religion. Courts upheld biblical laws, everyone had to pay for churches and clergy, and all but Puritan religious activities were prohibited. It was a golden age of government expressing, protecting, and promoting the majority religious belief.
If evangelicals really understood, they'd pull their puppet strings on Gov. Bush and get him to back off; they'd move mountains to stop states from appealing the 5th Circuit Court's decision. They'd let the football prayer ban undermine state-church separation.
Of course, there is a danger in the football prayer ban, a danger evangelicals think won't ever threaten them. This danger is among the reasons why our founders wrote a godless Constitution separating religion from government.
The prayer ban attacks the "wall of separation" by giving government authority over religious issues. Judges, not the clergy, then decide what is proper for god.
Evangelicals think the majority will believe as they do. They hope to use the power of government to force their beliefs on everyone. They never think that the "wall of separation" may protect them from some other religious majority. They forget that the Puritans banished Baptist and killed Quakers along with witches.
Unfortunately, the "wall of separation" battle is even more confusing.
U.S. District Court Judge Sim Lake's injunction prohibiting punishment for a Baptist pastor's daughter praying at Santa Fe high school football games attempts to demolish the "wall of separation" in favor of religion.
Judge Lake says that excluding religion from government is "atheism." He thinks not forcing prayers on a captive audience is "atheism" that discriminates against religion. Forced prayer is legal. Lack of forced prayer discriminates against religion.
This whole controversy was avoidable. The U.S. Supreme Court has 60 years of progress in banning religious rituals at government events. Their decisions accurately express our founder's Constitutional intent. If lower courts respected Supreme Court precedence, the U.S. 5th Circuit would never have favored religion.
The 5th Circuit began the controversy by authorizing majority vote, student-led prayers at graduation ceremonies. Their flawed legal logic apparently rests on a bizarre interpretation of the Supreme Court's three-pronged "Lemon" test for violations of state-church separation.
The first prong of the Lemon test says that government activities must have a secular purpose. The 5th Circuit says that so long as there is one "secular" purpose in a governent activity, any number of other religious purposes are permissible. This irrational interpretation guts the clear intent of the Lemon test to limit government to secular activities, with only issues of incidental religious effects to decide.
The 5th Circuit's student-led prayer decision is a startling rejection of Supreme Court decisions that prohibit government from favoring or disfavoring religion in its action. The student-led prayer decision lets the majority force their beliefs on the minority. One wonders how those judges decided that a student vote could violate minority civil rights. Our nation is now paying the price for Reagan and Bush appointing fanatic evangelicals to federal courts.
The threat to Constitutional rights will not go away. Evangelicals have been brain-washed into believing the Constitution is based on Christian principles and our founders established a "Christian" nation. While these myths are easily refuted, evangelicals are protected from ever hearing the truth. So long as evangelicals believe these lies, they can be tricked into destroying our Constitutional freedoms.
Our founders created a "wall of separation between Church and State" to protect our nation from religious tyranny. If evangelicals destroy that separation, we will again experience the horrors of religious hatred and persecution. When you see all those angry evangelical faces and voices on TV, you might think the horrors were already upon us.