Two strikes against forced indoctrination

First, a Chicago dentist violated discrimination laws by forcing employees to submit to indoctrination in the tenets of the Church of Scientology. Because don't you want someone poking around in the most tender and sanguinary parts of your gums with wickedly sharp instruments to believe that there are evil spirits dancing around in there?

But wait, it gets better. Not content at merely forcing probably the world's most vile religion on Earth on people, he also subjected 18 female employees to sexual propositions and fired people who complained about the whole "you have be Scientologists in order to work here" policy.

He, of course, continues to deny all wrongdoing, and settled merely to "to avoid further expense and disruption" of his business. The U.S. district court ruled that he must pay $462,500 and prohibits him from continuing to engage in "any further sexual or religious workplace discrimination". I consider this a win for the Marcab Confederacy.


Second, a public school accused of some very disturbing breaches in church/state separation just lost the case. The U.S. District Court judge ruled that the school should discontinue the following:

• Promoting prayer at school-sponsored events, including graduation.

• Planning or financing religious baccalaureate services.

• Promoting religious beliefs to students in class or during school-sponsored events and activities.
  

• Holding school-sponsored events at churches.

What the-? At churches?! That's crazy. And the summary is quite the understatement: by "promoting religious beliefs to students" we're talking about documents instructing teachers to preach about "judgment day with the Lord" to their students, not as part of any sort of religious curriculum, but just to drop the J-bomb whenever and wherever they feel like it.

The ACLU filed suit about this back in August 2008, and they say that both school board members and the principal had "a repeated pattern" of "promoting and endorsing prayers at graduation ceremonies and other school events, of sponsoring religious ceremonies and holding official school events at churches."

The filthy, Jesus-hating pinkos of the ACLU said that this was wrong because "Parents, not the public schools, should be responsible for deciding whether their children receive religious education," and that "Religious freedom is eroded when the government endorses any particular religious viewpoint."

Needless to say, the Christian sites are shocked, shocked I say, at both the persecution of Christians and the anti-God bias of both the ACLU and the courts (and somehow missed the rationale for the lawsuit), spinning the decision as some sort of Orwellian removal of all religion from schools. Some of the more literacy-impaired ones out there don't seem to understand the difference between state-sanctioned prayer as a part of official school events and unofficial, voluntary prayer, and they're chalking this up as an all-out-attack on the rights of individuals to pray. (which probably isn't the ACLU's actual position given the free exercise clause in the first amendment)

That's why I have a tiny little challenge for any persecuted Christians out there: imagine a public school holding official events at the local mosque and pushing Muhammad during class. You would be screaming your lungs out for religious neutrality, you contemptible hypocrites. You only value the freedoms of secular government when it serves your interests, and attack the very freedoms you claim to hold dear when it's your group doing the evangelizing. That is all.