Steve Nelson, the retired headmaster of the Calhoun School in New York City, has spotted the ironies and hypocrisies in the GOP pandering to the “parent rights” movement.
Read the Bible and gasp at the references to incest and licentiousness.
Nelson writes:
There is a certain hypocritical Victorian flavor to the GOP these days, as they are turgid with moral rectitude when considering – gasp – transgender folks, same sex marriage or pre-marital sex, while embracing the multifaceted lecher who remains their president-in-exile. But back to children . . .
The GOP assault on CRT or any education related to race, gender or sex is partnered with the campaign for parental rights in education. Parental rights in education is further paired with the systematic and relentless attacks on public education. The logic is unassailable; if your schools insist on teaching CRT or mentioning sex despite your parental rights, then you should be empowered to send your child to a good Christian school, where they can learn about these things:
“If two men, a man and his countryman, are struggling together, and the wife of one comes near to deliver her husband from the hand of the one who is striking him, and puts out her hand and seizes his genitals, then you shall cut off her hand; you shall not show pity.” (Deuteronomy 25:11-12)
“When she carried on her whoring so openly and flaunted her nakedness, I turned in disgust from her, as I had turned in disgust from her sister. Yet she increased her whoring, remembering the days of her youth, when she played the whore in the land of Egypt and lusted after her lovers there, whose members were like those of donkeys, and whose issue was like that of horses. Thus you longed for the lewdness of your youth, when the Egyptians handled your bosom and pressed your young breasts.” (Ezekiel 23:18-21)
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Steve is talking about regressive reich wing snowflakes, eh! They might melt. . . we could only hope.
The Reich Wing. LOL. That’s just perfect, Señor Swacker!
Agree.
Agreed, totally. Posturing themselves as steeled and independently self-sufficient a la Fox News, a lot of der rechtsvolk von schneeflocke live off government assistance and swirl around in victimhood, completely unaware the theology of Murdoch and his three apostles (Carlson, Hannity and Ingraham) convinces them to accept their subservience to the very system that seeks to keep them impoverished in many of its ways.
Exactly. This is proof the majority of these people have never read any version of the Bible. Including those who have attended or worked in Christian schools. Growing up, I attended three different Christian schools in grades 5-12. I’ve had more “Bible” classes where a Bible was never used. All teachers know we are always just one fart away from chaos in our classroom. Gym teachers and any teacher who has ever had recess duty learns real quick to be strategic when referring to “balls.” There is no way a junior high/hs school theology teacher would ever introduce these passages to their class.
“All teachers know we are always just one fart away from chaos in our classroom.”
I’m in my 16th year of teaching and of all the quotes of wisdom to be had in this profession, this ranks up there as one of the best 😀
Ha! There are also passages in the Bible that make it sound like it is okay for parents to eat their children during a siege so the parents might live to have more children later.
yes, imagine demanding that any Bible “school” be expected to go through some of those most amazing verses…
Oh, come on, Lloyd. You’ve never done this?
“But these education warriors seek to create a generation of Biblical literalists, flat Earthers, closeted and miserable gay kids, Creationists, and citizens who believe slavery was not so bad and that science is radical socialist propaganda.” Great paragraph!
When the right started its book banning campaign, my husband commented that if they want to eliminate salacious books, one of the first to go should be The Bible. Those on the right believe that ignoring and suppressing problems are the same as addressing them. They wear their hypocrisy on their sleeves, as though to say if we cannot read or talk about bias and discrimination, it must not be real. The right suffers from extreme “ostrich syndrome.”
Well stated!
It just seems incredibly cynical to me. Public schools were struggling dealing with the pandemic and lo and behold this “grass roots” movement springs up which is vehemently anti-public school and enthusiastically endorsing the same old privatization goals they’ve been pushing for 20 years.
It’s not even coherent. They’re putting in reams of new mandates and requirements for public schools WHILE pushing completely unregulated vouchers for private schools with none of these requrements.
What’s different about this ed reform political campaign from all the ed reform political campaigns that preceded it? It’s anti-public school, has as its end goal more privatization and does not provide any benefit to public school students. It’s not about public school students. It’s about some ideological vision of privatized systems- the same one they always push.
I just with they wouldn’t involve public schools and public school students in their political campaigns against public schools. It’s really unfair to our students.
Here’s ed reform’s Big Idea to benefit public school students past-pandemic:
https://edreformnow.org/policy-briefs/the-essential-assessment-toolkit/
More standardized tests. The single contribution of this “movement” to public schools and public school students is standardized tests. They contribute nothing else to our students and schools.
Surely public schools can do better than this. This cannot be the best group of “experts” we rely on.
I guess in honor of my post I’ll give the comments a rousing “Amen.”
Good stuff, Steve. But the Bible does have some very beautiful passages.
And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. . . . There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.
or, in the King Bob translation: And it came to pass that the Sons of God said, “Wow. Those Earth women are hot.”
And then there is this:
As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat beneath his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.
Which is, to my knowledge, the only reference to this activity in the Bible, alas, for it is of surpassing beauty.
The right wing seems to think that all of us on the left of the political spectrum are godless, but I am an existence proof that this is not so.
Atheists, agnostics, theists—these get lots and lots of press, and I get it. I really do. I’ve even come up with a pretty darned good argument for Atheism, the Ontological Proof of the Nonexistence of God, by Jean-Paul-Shepherd, also known as The Argument from Wayne (my brother). Wayne is such a virulent atheist that if there were a God, he, she, or it would have long since smitten him. That’s the argument.
However, I have a different solution to this vexing question which has caused so much strife over the centuries—hypertheism, or belief in ALL the gods—Thor, Bastet, Tiamat, Marduk, Sol Invictus, the Cherokee Corn Goddess, the Papuan Pig Goddess, etc., etc. So, right wingers, there. I believe in a LOT more gods than you do–thousands and thousands of them. This makes me, obviously, holier than thou.
Now, you may think that this is a cop-out, that it’s too easy, but bear in mind that there are SO MANY gods and so little time. Ars longa, vita brevis. As a practical matter, I’ve made it a habit lately to believe in six different gods every morning before breakfast.
If you have a god that you would like for me to believe in for a few minutes tomorrow morning, just let me know!
I was very fortunate to have as spiritual mentor a Bombay-raised Jesuit– asst parish priest during my hisch/ college yrs, who was also a microbiologist working on his PhD at our local Ivy (where I was a student). And doubly blessed that the leader of our local Ivy’s religious center was a nationally known anti-VNW activist. The former (also a close family friend) had a very nuanced understanding of how a rational being might devote himself to the RC Church, and the intersection of science with spirituality; in later years he published books on the subject. The latter taught me that political position had moral content, and demonstrated in his leadership of a religious center that encompassed various Christian denominations plus Buddhism and Islam that personal political position did not negate other beliefs, or divide— he focused on the tenets we all shared.
Alas, no one seems to think that my “hypertheism” piece is as funny as I think it is. I, too, have known people whose good political and social work was founded in their religious beliefs, but on the whole, I don’t think superstition a force for good in the world. I loved the Sisters of Charity I taught among years ago–generous, kind, loving, dedicated women, and I have a deeply religious ex-missionary friend who has done more good in the world than legions of others. But still, . . . look at America today. Or any other place at any time. So much ugliness, and often, rivers of blood, in the name of this nonsense founded upon nothing but wishful thinking about fundamental matters and tending toward the worst excesses of tribalism.
I have always wondered how one of these people can possibly think that he or she happened to be born among the followers of the one true religion when he or she knows d—-d well that had he or she been born among believers in any other religion at any other time, then he or she would have been a true believer in THAT completely incompatible one. Religions make claims about thinks that simply aren’t supportable. that are fantasies and, obviously, extremely obviously, wish fulfillment. It’s time, I think, finally to throw over these fairy tales from the infancy of our species, even was we remember them for various reasons, as we do other mythological systems that we’ve grown out of.
Here’s the best line, I think, that I ever wrote:
The gods are dreams of what we might be.
But to get there, we must put them away.
“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” 1 Cor. 13:11
I hasten to add, Ginny, that I also disdain simple-minded, absolutist, deterministic, materialist scientism, which is not in the spirit of science, which is questing and questioning. Among the many things I detest about religions, even as I am fascinated by them as mythologies and social systems, is that they are, in Blake’s words, “mind-forged manacles” placing unwarranted prior restraint on thinking, including thinking about ethical matters.
I will die having never gotten over my astonishment that in the 21st century, there are still educated people (decreasing in number, fortunately) who persist in these childish, primitive superstitions. And that’s a tragedy, not only because of the strife they create among factions and the authoritarianism of so many practitioners, but because these superstitions nip in the bud the flowers of speculation about a great many matters, including the great questions of metaphysics.
I said, “nip in the bud . . .” but what I should have said is “presuppose (and force) settled answers to the great metaphysical questions.”
If people put their religious notions about ultimate matters forward as more-or-less wild speculations, that would be one thing, but to assert them as revealed truth, well, that’s quite another.
There’s a fundamental dishonesty in that that shows in people’s defensiveness about their religious beliefs. That defensiveness and anger is the refuge of people who don’t have evidence and reasonable arguments. What’s the difference between saying, “I know that x” and “I believe that x”? This should be telling to “believers.” This isn’t SOMETHING YOU KNOW. It’s something you would like to be the case. And so, there’s this dishonesty and contradiction at the heart of the profession of “belief” in religious “truths.”
Religion and scientism and political and economic extremism–all ideologies–relieve people of having to think because the thinking has been done for them. That’s tragic.
If the current Fascist instantiation of the Repugnican Party wins both the House and Senate in the midterms and the presidency in 2024 in the person of one of the various smarter but equally amoral and authoritarian Trump Mini-Mes, look out. There’s going to be a lot of smiting going on.
We are Germany in 1932.
If a single Supreme Court vote did not go the way of the Repugnican Reich Wing, they would doubtless, having a majority in both the House and Senate, vote to expand the Supreme Court because it is TOO PROGRESSIVE, thus turning it into an Extreme Court that will happily pass our version of the Enabling Act of 1933–one that will vastly restrict voting rights and expand presidential powers and blur the lines of church and state and enable the creation of a nationalist curriculum and a ban on gay marriage and abortion and legalize armed citizens’ militias and enable the use of the military to quell dissent and so on. It can happen here, folks. It is happening. Right now. This is all prelude.
This can happen with a simple majority vote, btw.
Polls have the The Idiot trumping Biden in a hypothetical 2024 race: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2024/president/us/general-election-trump-vs-biden-7383.html
Almost half of American voters voted for the guy who said we should consider injecting disinfectant.
But, ofc, the smarter Pugs know that they would likely lose again with Trump, despite the 2024 poll numbers, so they are going to go with someone REALLY SCARY–Trump with brains but the same extreme nationalist/fascist amorality.
And note that the most popular commentator on Fox News right now is Putin fan boy Tucker (spell that with an F) Carlson, who just did another piece about how great Putin is and how nationalist extremist Nigel Farage “gets it” about Putin, who is Carlson’s kinda guy: a nationalist, imperialist, fascist, racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, sexist strongman who also at least pretends to be a religious fanatic.
I suspect that if the GOP sweep all three branches of govt. they have no interest or intention in giving up power.
This is their one shot. They’ve lost the young people. The demographics of the country are against them. They have to seize power and restrict voting rights severely now. Otherwise, poof. They disappear.
In other news:
At a time of unprecedented income and wealth inequality in the United States, here is the Republican plan for Americans: Mitch McConnell wants to “scale back entitlements” like Medicare and Social Security. Rick Scott wants to sunset Medicare and Social Security every five years so that they have to be renegotiated, and he wants all people, even the poorest of the poor and the sickest and most disabled of the sick and disabled, to pay some tax. Yup, he wants to increase taxes on the poorest people and cut taxes for the richest. And Mitt Romney wants to cut future Medicare and Social Security benefits for young people. And they all oppose Biden’s proposal to require billionaires to pay a little more in tax from their vast wealth.
In other words, screw you, ordinary working person; we work for the wealthy. The American oligarchs.
But working-class people in this country will continue going to the polls to vote for these creeps. They will continue to vote against themselves. Why? Because the creeps fear monger and stir up nonsense about evil Socialist Democrats who support gays and oppose guns and God. The three G’s of The Greying Old Party, the GOP.
Which is more important: taking a stand against crt and trans athletes or losing your Medicare and Social Security?
Perfectly said, Diane!!!
Both of those things are the Rethugs goals.
The Groveling Old Penumbras!!
HAAAA!!!!
The Dems need to hammer on GOP plans to gut social programs every day in every way. Make sure working people know it.
YES!!!!
And Putin is ramping up for a second wave of dead Russian conscripts and murdered Ukrainian children.
“The GOP assault against CRT”- (1) 1776 PAC founder, Ryan Girdusky who has a must-read interview posted at Pat Buchanan’s site.
(2) “The assault against gender and sex”- “The new official contents of sex education in Mexico: laicism in the crosshairs”
(3) Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society
(4) Koch’s Paul Weyrich
The four above share the common thread which neither public school defenders nor media will identify. Almost everyone chooses exclusively the Christian evangelical as target. Protection is given to the more politically powerful religion. Perceptions from the past when things were different, savvy church PR and, the skew of exposure to the sect regionally (especially the Northeast) are causal factors for the protection. The cloaking aids destruction of both the common good and a liberal agenda.
According to leaders and experts in the liberal wing of that religion, there is no plan to slow the advance of the politicized conservatism/authoritarianism in their religion.
I think you are making headway on this, Linda. In the last few days I have read at least two comments on political opinion articles by totally ordinary people that couple rw Catholics with Prot Evangelists in political influence. Perhaps MSM is getting a clue.
One can hope.
For those who separate abortion from religion and from control of women, an article at Huffpo (4-1-2022) about Tim Reichert’s run for Congress in Colorado will counter their wrongheadedness.
Neil Steinberg, a brilliant columnist at the Chicago ☀️-Times, wrote a great page 2 column in today’s paper, “Why Haven’t Schools Banned the Bible?” Well-worth reading.