Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
Newsweek and HuffPo report that this was the the U.S. Department of State’s homepage yesterday:
I checked a few minutes ago, and the homepage entry has been changed to this:
HuffPo reports this:
The U.S. State Department’s main homepage was updated on Monday to show a photo of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo with the headline: “Being A Christian Leader.”
The phrase refers to a speech he gave in Nashville last week:
“As believers, we draw on the wisdom of God to help us get it right, to be a force for good in the life of human beings,” Pompeo said in the speech, according to the rest of the remarks on the State Department website. “I know some people in the media will break out the pitchforks when they hear that I ask God for direction in my work.”
The headline on the State Department homepage was changed later in the day to read: “Secretary Pompeo at the America Association of Christian Counselors.” By nighttime, the page was changed completely to a report about sanctions against Turkey.
Americans United for Separation of Church and State slammed the speech and the government website makeover.
Titled “Being a Christian Leader” and promoted in his official government capacity on the homepage for the State Department, religious and civil liberties organizations have decried it as a potential violation of the U.S. Constitution’s intended separation of church and state.
“I keep a Bible open on my desk, and I try every morning to try and get in a little bit of time with the Book,” Pompeo said, describing how the texts sacred to Christians influences his disposition, engagement with others and decisions. “We should all remember that we are imperfect servants serving a perfect God who constantly forgives us each and every day.”
This was clearly a violation of the First Amendment: you don’t get to tout the Secretary of State as espousing Christian values on a State Department homepage. A Muslim politician from Virginia got it right:
A news release from the Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF) tells us that while this FFRF commercial featuring John F. Kennedy was played three years ago on the ABC television network, it was rejected by ABC for airing during the Democratic debates in Houston tomorrow. This was after ABC refused a much more provocative ad, one featuring Ron Reagan, the former President’s son (see it here).
From the FFRF:
“Every year we ask the major networks to reconsider and run our commercial,” explains FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “We were disappointed, but not surprised, when ABC once again refused to run the Reagan endorsement spot.”
But, Gaylor says, she was shocked that ABC next rejected a commercial largely featuring a video excerpt of a famous speech by John F. Kennedy. As a presidential candidate, JFK gave a talk to a gathering of Protestant ministers in Houston in 1960, intending to allay their fears that as a Catholic he would be beholden to the Vatican rather than to the Constitution.
In his strong remarks in favor of secular government, JFK said: “I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute.” FFRF’s commercial leads with footage from his speech, then states: “Let’s restore respect for America’s secular roots. Help the Freedom From Religion Foundation defend the wall of separation between state and church. Join us at FFRF.ORG. Freedom depends on freethinkers.”
The ad concludes with the strains of “Let freedom ring,” as FFRF’s emblematic image appears of a Lincoln penny with the words “In Reason We Trust” instead of “In God We Trust.”
FFRF produced this commercial, which first aired on “CBS This Morning” and the “Monday CBS Evening News” in 2012, in response to a remark by then-presidential candidate Rick Santorum, after he said JFK’s remark “makes me want to throw up.”
Ironically, FFRF had no trouble placing the JFK spot nationally on “ABC World News Tonight” on Sept. 24, 2016, to protest Pope Francis’ joint address to Congress.
Note that this ad is quite unprovocative. All it does is show a former President affirming the church/state separation principle of the First Amendment. Apparently the networks are so sensitive about Militant Atheism that they won’t even air an innocuous ad like this:
We all know that “In God We Trust” is the U.S. national motto, though the unofficial motto—a much better one—is E pluribus unum (“Out of many, one”). The former is divisive, the latter unifying. The change in mottos was made in 1956, during the Cold War, and was largely a response to “godless Communism”: an American affirmation of “See, we’re better than you are!” The motto bill was passed by both houses of Congress and signed into law on the same day by President Eisenhower.
Of course this motto violates the First Amendment, as it’s a government endorsement of religion over nonreligion, but, as Andrew Seidel recounts in his book The Founding Myth, the courts have been weaselly about this, interpreting this kind of breach as “not religious” and “part of tradition”. But I have little doubt that founders like Madison and Jefferson would never have approved of such a motto.
I’m not sure exactly why the forces of Christianity are trying to push this kind of stuff on us more than ever. Perhaps it’s a desperate response to the increasing secularization of America. And so “In God We Trust” bills are passing in various states. The latest is in South Dakota, where, according to multiple sources (e.g., CNN and ThinkProgress), students returning to public schools this year will be greeted by the results of a new law: a required public display of “In God We Trust”. And it has to be “prominent”, like this stencil on a wall at South Park Elementary in Rapid, City, South Dakota (photograph from 6 days ago). I find this dictatorial and ridiculous: something out of Nineteen Eighty-Four (just substitute “Big Brother” for “God”).
Photo: Adam Fondren/Rapid City Journal via AP
The law takes effect this month. As CNN notes:
A bill signed by Gov. Kristi Noem mandates that the words be on display for students to see beginning in the 2019-2020 school year.
The display can be on anything the principal feels is appropriate for their school, like a plaque or student artwork.
But there are requirements. The display must be at least 12 inches square and must be in a prominent location.
“A prominent location is a school entryway, cafeteria, or other common area where students are most likely to see the national motto display,” the bill said.
Here’s most of the bill; note that, anticipating lawsuits, display of the bill will be defended by the state at no charge to the school or school district, though it’s not clear where the money will come from. (Click on the screenshot to get a pdf of the full bill).
There are some savvy students there, though their attempt to modify the bill failed miserably (from CNN):
Lawmakers have heard concerns that displaying the motto may alienate students of non-Christian backgrounds.
A group of Stevens High School students in Rapid City spoke to their school board to propose a modification to the sign that would include mention of science, Allah, Yahweh, the Spirits, Buddah, Brahman and “ourselves” in addition to God, according to CNN affiliate KOTA TV.
“I think that’s a really foundational element of American society is that we are a cultural melting pot and it is really important that we make all people who come to America to feel welcome and to be more in accordance with the First Amendment since we all have the freedom of religion,” student Abigail Ryan told KOTA TV.
The board heard the opinion but took no action, the station said.
ThinkProgress adds a bit more information (my emphasis):
Only one Democratic state senator voted in favor of the bill.
During the 2019-2020 school year, all South Dakota public schools will have to display the “In God We trust” in a “prominent location” and the words “may be no smaller than twelve inches wide by twelve inches wide.” Prominent location is defined as a school cafeteria, school entryway, or other common area. The law also requires that the attorney general provides legal representation at no cost to the district, employee, school board, or member of the school board and that the state will financial responsibility for any monetary damages, attorney’s fees, and other costs.
This bill is part of a national movement, too:
South Dakota is not alone in its decision to require public schools to display the motto. According to The Washington Post, at least six states passed these kinds of laws in 2018 and another 10 have introduced or passed them this year. Kentucky schools are also getting ready to display the motto prominently in public schools this year.
This will clearly go to the Supreme Court, and it’s pretty certain they will declare it constitutional. After all, if every $1 bill the kids have carries “In God We Trust” on it, and that’s legal, why not in the schools? But we can be sure that there will be challenges. The Freedom from Religion Foundation, for instance, has correctly deemed the law “exclusionary”, and adds this in a bulletin (my emphasis):
“The Freedom From Religion Foundation, based in Madison, Wis., which has legally challenged the motto’s inclusion on U.S. currency, alerted its South Dakota members to contact their legislators to express opposition to the law,” AP reports. [JAC: this bulletin was issued four days ago, though the law passed in March.]
FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor told AP: “Our position is that it’s a terrible violation of freedom of conscience to inflict a godly message on a captive audience of schoolchildren.”
“In God We Trust” was belatedly adopted as a motto when President Eisenhower signed legislation at the behest of the Knights of Columbus and other religious entities, which undertook a national lobbying campaign during the height of 1950s zealotry. The original inclusionary U.S. motto, chosen by a distinguished committee of Jefferson, Franklin and Adams, is the Latin E Pluribus Unum (From Many, [Come] One). As FFRF principal founder Anne Gaylor always pointed out, the religious motto isn’t even correct: “To be accurate it would have to read ‘In God Some of Us Trust,’ and wouldn’t that be silly?”
Anne Gaylor’s remark is more apt now than ever. The nonreligious segment of the U.S. population is currently the largest “denomination,” surpassing Roman Catholics at almost 24 percent of the populace. One-third of Millennials are “Nones,” and one-fifth of Gen Z explicitly identifies as atheist or agnostic. A large portion of the schoolchildren in South Dakota belong to Gen Z — and with the required display of an explicitly religious motto, religion is being imposed on the freethinkers among them.
It really is a violation of the First Amendment to force American kids to confront a motto that many of them don’t accept. If the courts let this stand, it will represent a further erosion of the wall between church and state. These laws are travesties, but show the desperation of the faithful who, in a climate of increasing secularism, need to force their own religion down the throats of children—in schools that are an arm of the U.S. government.
I know we have readers in South Dakota, so weigh in below. Are you people doing anything about this?
As I wrote a while back, in June I had a 45-minute public discussion with Andrew Seidel, a constitutional attorney for the Freedom from Religion Foundation and its Director of Strategic Response. The topic was Andrew’s new book, The Founding Myth: Why Christian Nationalism Is Un-American. It took place at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Hemant Mehta (“the Friendly Atheist”) was the moderator.
As always, I can’t bear to listen to myself talk, so I didn’t go through this. But I recall that Andrew was very eloquent and enlightening (as interlocutor, my role was just to ask questions, so the floor was his). I think you’ll learn a lot about Andrew’s twin theses: the U.S. was not founded as a Christian nation, nor was it founded on Christian principles. (Also, as you probably already know the founders weren’t very religious. In fact, some of them were quite randy and, by evangelical Christian lights, immoral!)
I did listen near the end just so I can tell you that the audience questions begin about 48½ minutes in. And I can assure you that you will enjoy Andrew’s conversational style and will learn a lot, including what a liberal constitutional lawyer thinks of today’s Supreme Court, and where the law is heading.
Diana MacPherson called my attention to this new post by Twitter on conduct that they’re going to block. And they’re starting with religion. Click on the screenshot to read:
Here’s what Twitter says:
We create our rules to keep people safe on Twitter, and they continuously evolve to reflect the realities of the world we operate within. Our primary focus is on addressing the risks of offline harm, and research* [JAC: they give two studies in the article’s footnotes] shows that dehumanizing language increases that risk. As a result, after months of conversations and feedback from the public, external experts and our own teams, we’re expanding our rules against hateful conduct to include language that dehumanizes others on the basis of religion.
Starting today, we will require Tweets like these to be removed from Twitter when they’re reported to us:
Twitter notes that if you’ve already put one of these up, it will be removed but your account won’t be blocked. But after the rule was set (July 9, 2019), accounts may be deleted if they start posting stuff like the above. (But how would you know? Who reads Twitter-policy updates? Shouldn’t you at least get a warning?)
But note that they’re starting not with ethnicity, race, or other common subjects said to attract “hate speech.” They’re starting with religion. Why? Here’s what they say:
Why start with religious groups?
Last year, we asked for feedback to ensure we considered a wide range of perspectives and to hear directly from the different communities and cultures who use Twitter around the globe. In two weeks, we received more than 8,000 responses from people located in more than 30 countries.
Some of the most consistent feedback we received included:
Clearer language — Across languages, people believed the proposed change could be improved by providing more details, examples of violations, and explanations for when and how context is considered. We incorporated this feedback when refining this rule, and also made sure that we provided additional detail and clarity across all our rules.
Narrow down what’s considered — Respondents said that “identifiable groups” was too broad, and they should be allowed to engage with political groups, hate groups, and other non-marginalized groups with this type of language. Many people wanted to “call out hate groups in any way, any time, without fear.” In other instances, people wanted to be able to refer to fans, friends and followers in endearing terms, such as “kittens” and “monsters.”
Consistent enforcement — Many people raised concerns about our ability to enforce our rules fairly and consistently, so we developed a longer, more in-depth training process with our teams to make sure they were better informed when reviewing reports. For this update it was especially important to spend time reviewing examples of what could potentially go against this rule, due to the shift we outlined earlier.
But this doesn’t at all explain why they started with religion. The next bit is said to help explain “why religion first?”, but it doesn’t seem to, either:
Through this feedback, and our discussions with outside experts, we also confirmed that there are additional factors we need to better understand and be able to address before we expand this rule to address language directed at other protected groups, including:
How do we protect conversations people have within marginalized groups, including those using reclaimed terminology?
How do we ensure that our range of enforcement actions take context fully into account, reflect the severity of violations, and are necessary and proportionate?
How can – or should – we factor in considerations as to whether a given protected group has been historically marginalized and/or is currently being targeted into our evaluation of severity of harm?
Well, you could say that delineating “hate tweets” and enforcing rules consistently is easier with religion than, say, gender or race, but I don’t think so. In both cases you have to separate hatred for people with dislike of policy (e.g. “Deport all Muslims” vs. “Islamic doctrine is often oppressive”; or “Send blacks back to Africa” vs. “Affirmative action is wrong”). Note that both examples, which involve religion and race, show the potential blurring of lines, for sentiments against affirmative action or against Islamic doctrine can be and have been deemed “hate speech”.
This blurring is why I object to Twitter doing this kind of policing, as drawing lines will be arbitrary. But if they feel they have to draw lines, then the tweets above, which are bigoted against people, are clearly reprehensible. And since Twitter is a private company, they can do what they like. But I want them to hew to the First Amendment as closely as possible, and the tweets above don’t violate that.
Diana felt more strongly than I, and told me this (quoted with permission):
It sounds like a bad idea all around to me. How many times have religious groups had atheists banned from social media just for being atheists? So now if someone criticizes a religion, is that going to be counted as violating their rules? And why religious groups that get special protection? Twitter calls them marginalized – really? Christians are marginalized? It just seems like really faulty thinking all around.
I’ve seen reasonable speech characterized as hate speech too often to immediately get on board with Twitter’s rules. Yes, the examples above are beyond the pale—if you must police speech on a social-media platform. But there will be many other examples where criticism of religion might be either chilled or censored. To many, completely innocent pictures in my tweets—like animal pictures that come from my websites—are labeled by Twitter as “sensitive material” that you have to click to see. I think that’s because I tweet Jesus and Mo cartoons, which got me censored in this way.
Although Twitter still allows us to Post Jesus and Mo strips, it also acts as an informant when somebody else objects to “sensitive” material, as when Maajid Nawaz tweeted Jesus and Mo as well:
Twitter’s formally informed me Pakistani authorities notified them that the above violates Pakistan’s blasphemy law. Punishment for this in Pakistan is death. I’m Pakistani origin & visit family there. Twitter has a moral duty to tell me who precisely is trying to have me killed pic.twitter.com/OiyZh2hQy4
Does Twitter need to inform Nawaz that his content violates Pakistani law? Shouldn’t Twitter just tell Pakistan to “bugger off”?
Well, at least Twitter doesn’t ban the cartoons in the way that WordPress does to help out the Pakistani government when it accuses me of “Jesus and Mo”-related blasphemy.
The more I ponder this, the more I’m coming around to Diana’s point of view, and thinking that so long as social media doesn’t violate the First Amendment principles of free speech as interpreted by the courts, it should allow everything to be posted.
Do the rules above seem reasonable, or do you, like me, see a slippery slope?
Yesterday, incensed by the presence of a pair of proselytizing Jehovah’s Witnesses in a lovely little National Park, Pu’uhonua O Honaunau National Historical Park, I wrote a post wondering whether this kind of leaflet-mongering was legal, or somehow violated the First Amendment.
According to reader Jenny Haniver’s comment on that post, my suspicions that this flouted the First Amendment was wrong. The Supreme Court and other courts have ruled that not only is religious activity permitted in national parks, but you don’t even need a permit to proselytize.
Looking back, I should have realized this. After all, religious speech is just a form of speech, and if free speech is permitted in National Parks, which it is on many government properties (sometimes you have to get a permit), then religious speech should be as well.
So perhaps I overreacted. I guess the sight of a pair of Jehovah’s Witnesses seeking to spread their odious doctrine in a National Park was more than I could take, and I had to find out if it was legal. Apparently it was. My apologies for raising a fuss, but I, for one, have learned something.
That said, I still think groups should be required to get a permit to demonstrate or pass out literature in national parks, and I’m still offended that the Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t even have the decency to leave us alone to enjoy nature. It’s bad enough that they knock on our doors to ask us if we have a minute to hear the Good News.
Here I am enjoying the beautiful lava beach behind the main part of the park.
And here’s my message to all you godless heathens:
The historical park preserves the site where, up until the early 19th century, Hawaiians who broke a kapu (one of the ancient laws) could avoid certain death by fleeing to this place of refuge or puʻuhonua. The offender would be absolved by a priest and freed to leave. Defeated warriors and non-combatants could also find refuge here during times of battle. The grounds just outside the Great Wall that encloses the puʻuhonua were home to several generations of powerful chiefs.
It was quite intriguing, and among the smallest of America’s national parks. As I was driving away, however, I noticed this in the parking lot within the Park boundaries:
Yes, you got it: two Jehovah’s Witnesses in full proselytizing mode, complete with help-yourself leaflets.
I couldn’t help myself: I went up to the two men in the photo and asked them if they had permission to set up shop within a National Park. They said “yes”, and when I asked them who gave them permission, they replied, “the park rangers” and pointed to the ranger station just across the road.
I could not do otherwise: I went into the ranger station to try to verify what the Witnesses had told me. I encountered two young rangers and asked them if the proselytizers did indeed have permission to set up religious shop within park boundaries. They were a bit confused, but said that there was some “First Amendment” rule that parks could indeed set aside space for this.
That confused me even more, for although it’s possible that one could demonstrate within Park boundaries and express free speech, the First Amendment also prohibits government entanglement with religion. And if anything represents government entanglement with religion, the JW literature stand does. But the two young rangers said they’d get someone higher up to answer my question.
An older woman ranger, whose name I can’t recall, came out to answer my question. When I told her what I wanted, she said that I should step outside the station and she would answer me. I found that very odd: why couldn’t she answer my question inside the ranger station, and in the presence of her subordinates? Not only that, but she then locked the station from the outside with a key.
She then explained to me what the younger rangers had told me: that there was a provision, determined by each park separately, to set aside part of National Park space for people to exercise their First Amendment rights. When I explained to her that the First Amendment prohibited entanglement of religion and government, and that the JW stand sure looked like such entanglement, she just repeated herself. (This ranger, for purposes of identification, was on duty at about 11:30 a.m on July 3.)
I asked if any religion other than Jehovah’s Witnesses had ever had a station for proselytizing in this park. She said that, as far as she could remember, no.
She told me that she would email me the information about why proselytizing was allowed on Park property, and so I gave her my name and email address. I also told her I was on the Honorary Board of Directors of the Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF), and didn’t think what was happening was constitutional.
Of course it may be legal, and I await the material the ranger promised send me. But even if it is legal, it’s still palpably unconstitutional. No religion should have the right to set up shop in a National Park and distribute its literature to the visitors. That is clearly excessive involvement of government (which runs the National Parks system) with religion.
Stay tuned. I have of course reported this to the FFRF and await the ranger’s email. But I sure didn’t think I’d get involved in a First Amendment kerfuffle on my vacation!
