Freethought Today, November 1999
The story of Cassie Bernall, 17, one of 13 people massacred on April 20 by armed fellow students at Columbine High School, Littleton, Colorado, has been extolled in sermons by ministers and politicians alike. Bernall was hailed as a martyr for being shot dead in the school library allegedly for professing her belief in God.
Her parents even wrote a book, She Said Yes: The Unlikely Martyrdom of Cassie Bernall, published in September. More than 250,000 copies have already sold. The parents have been on "Today," "20/20" and "Larry King Live," with the book used for Christian youth recruitment.
The story as originally reported in media was that one of the teenage gunmen, before shooting Bernall, asked, "Do you believe in God?"
Soon the story snowballed, with TIME in particular adding unattributed details that Bernall said yes, then was shot. Christians and media were not slow to capitalize on the story. The Bernall story was perhaps indirectly responsible for the demagogic June vote of the House of Representatives (thus far not replicated in the U.S. Senate), to place the Ten Commandments in public schools.
The claim immediately raised obvious questions, such as how could such an exchange have been heard in the noise and panic during the rampage?
A spokesman for the sheriff's department admitted, in a Sept. 28 Associated Press report, that it had "conflicting witness statements from several kids who were in the library. But this is not something we're out to prove or disprove. It's not really a part of the investigation we're doing."
On Sept. 24 the Rocky Mountain News printed a story it apparently had suppressed for months, quoting student Emily Wyant, who had told the FBI, the newspaper and Bernall's parents five months before that Cassie never said "yes." Two weeks previously the News had run stories promoting the release of She Said Yes.
The Denver Post ran a story on Sept. 25, and in a followup interviewed Valeen Schnurr, a Columbine student who said she was asked by one of the killers if she believed in GodÑafter she had been shot. Riddled with nearly 3 dozen gunshot wounds, Schnurr, 18, said she had been saying "Oh my god, oh my God, don't let me die." According to Schnurr, one of the teenage assailants then asked if she believed in God and she answered yes. She was able to crawl away as the gunman reloaded, and survived.
Columnist Jon Carroll of the San Francisco Chronicle (Oct. 5, 1999, "She Didn't Say Anything") revealed:
"Cassie Bernall's death was tragic, senseless, terrible. But it had nothing to do with her religious beliefs.
"I know this because of the fine reporting in Salon magazine. What is remarkable is that, pretty soon after the shootings, reporters for all of the local newspapers also knew that the story was false.
"And they didn't say anything. They let it stand. . . .
"Misty Bernall has a book out, and . . . the Christian right is on the rampage again, finding evidence of godlessness (and the consequent need for purification, for conversion, for Coming to Christ) everywhere. So the harmless little fable has real consequences.
"What Cassie Bernall said has become a symbol. It's a symbol based on a lie. There are too many lies already."
"There was no other evidence [than the lie] that the gunmen were specifically anti-Christian." Salon reporter Dave Cullen also disputes the fact that the killers were targeting jocks or minorities. Klebold and Harris' plans were to blow up the cafeteria indiscriminately. Nor does one expect to find jocks in the library at lunchtime, an investigator told the reporter, who said the victims were simply in the wrong place, at the wrong time.
Last spring Freethought Today and some of its readers had requested proof from TIME for its particularly overblown coverage of the alleged Cassie Bernall incident. TIME responded that it stood by its story. Where's your mea culpa, TIME?
A Minneapolis Star Tribune page one headline on October 9 announced that "Ventura is far from alone in his views on religion, poll shows."
Seventeen percent of respondents to an Oct. 1-3 newspaper poll said they agree with the governor's assertion that "religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers."
The newspaper added: "The 17% who agree with 'religion is a sham' translates to about one-sixth of Minnesota's adults."
The newspaper found that those most likely to agree with Gov. Jesse Ventura's views about organized religion were older male political independents who describe themselves as political liberals.
Ventura, in his now notorious Playboy interview (November 1999), said:
"Organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers. It tells people to go out and stick their noses in other people's business. I live by the golden rule: Treat others as you'd want them to treat you. The religious right wants to tell people how to live."
On NBC's "Meet the Press" October 3, Ventura was grilled by reporter Tim Russert about his religious views. Ventura did not volunteer his faith but, under questioning, said he believes in God, and calls himself a Christian. Pressing the point, the interviewer asked Ventura if he accepted Jesus as his savior, and Ventura, with some hemming and hawing, concurred.
The brunt of the criticism was reserved for Ventura's "sham" remarks but he was also criticized for comments about the Tailhook case, involving the groping of female Navy officers by aviators at a 1991 conference.
The national chairman of Ventura's Reform Party asked him to resign because of his remarks on religion. Ventura is still touted as a possible presidential candidate. Ventura said he will resign from the Reform Party if Pat Buchanan becomes the party's presidential candidate.
Ventura refused to issue a "Day of Prayer" proclamation last May, citing the importance of the separation of church and state.
The Star Tribune Minnesota Poll of 624 adults statewide had a margin of sampling error no greater than 3.9%, plus or minus "at a 95% confidence level."
Larry Ashbrook, the gunman who killed seven people and himself at a Baptist church in Fort Worth in September, identified himself three years ago as a member of the "Phineas Priests," the Houston Chronicle revealed.
Phineas Priests is a small violent religious group that advocates killing minorities and Jewish people. Other Phineas Priest members linked to violence include Buford Furrow, arrested for shooting to death an Asian-American postal worker and wounding 5 people at a Jewish center in Los Angeles on Aug. 5.
John Craig, co-author of an academic study of hate groups, said Ashbrook boasted of membership in the priesthood in 1996. Craig told the Houston Chronicle that the Phineas Priests were outraged at Southern Baptists for their efforts to convert Jews. At the time of the church shooting, Baptist churches in Fort Worth were openly praying for Jewish conversions.
"When I heard about the shootings Wednesday night and I heard that the gunman was wearing black and killed himself, I knew it had to be a Phineas Priest," Craig told the Chronicle. His book Soldiers of God, White Supremacists and their Holy War for America, was published in 1998.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 4 rejected two appeals by challengers of a 1997 Arizona law giving preferential tax breaks for donating money for scholarships at religious schools.
The Arizona Supreme Court had voted 3-2 to uphold the tax-credit program. The state provides up to $500 in dollar-for-dollar tax credits for charitable donations to eligible private schools (70% are religious). That gives far more advantage to the parochial school donor than to taxpayers making other charitable donations. The appeal called the program "a thinly disguised use of the tax code as a means of transferring public funds to the coffers of private--mostly sectarian--schools."
The court also refused to hear an appeal by the state of New York, wanting to create a tax-supported Hasidic school district, which it had earlier ruled unconstitutional. It also refused an appeal by Pennsylvania seeking to revive a sales-tax exemption for bibles and "sacred texts." Finally, it repelled a pro-voucher attempt in Maine to subsidize students attending religious high schools.
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously issued a 4-sentence ruling on Sept. 24 upholding a federal judge's decision to throw out a civil rights suit filed by the Rev. Mack Ford.
Ford, who runs the infamous New Bethany school, Arcadia, Louisiana, contends state officials want to shut it down because they oppose his fundamentalism. From 1988-1995 state social workers found 4 child abuse complaints valid, and were trying to investigate 5 more abuse allegations when Ford filed suit in 1996. Students are allowed only one monitored phone call to parents per month. The school's high fences are topped by razor wire, and students are struck with wooden paddles as discipline.
The Supreme Court in December will hear arguments in the Louisiana dispute over use of taxpayer money to supply computers and other instructional materials for parochial schools. A lower court ruled the parochial aid unconstitutional in this much-watched case.
A lawsuit was filed in federal court on Sept. 24 against the Tangipahoa Parish School Board, Louisiana, for allowing a pizza ministry to be conducted during lunch hours in several schools.
Steve Farmer of Face It Ministries holds regular luncheon meetings with students, handing out free pizza and pushing fundamentalism, according to Joe Cook of the ACLU of New Orleans: "The Equal Access Act clearly prohibits outsiders from coming onto the campus during the school day, under whatever pretense, to promote religion and proselytize students. They make children feel they must participate or face the disdain of their peers. They make children whose religious beliefs are different from the majority feel like outsiders in their own schools."
At one school, students attending a meeting were even locked in.
Physician Michael Newdow of Broward County, Florida, has appealed the dismissal of his 1998 lawsuit seeking to remove "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance and restore its original language dating to 1892. The part-time resident of Fort Lauderdale is suing on behalf of his daughter, 5.
U.S. District Judge Ursula Ungaro-Benages dismissed the case because his daughter wasn't yet school-age. Newdow argues that permitting his daughter to sit out the pledge, as provided for by a 1940's Supreme Court case, still subjects her to outsider status and religious dogma in school. The court has not considered the pledge since it was amended to include "under God" in 1948, although it recently let stand a federal court ruling dismissing a similar challenge out of Chicago. The U.S. House didn't open each daily session with the pledge until 1988, and the U.S. Senate didn't follow suit until June 24 this year.
Mayor Cynthia Dunham of Gilbert, Arizona, announced in October that she plans to once again proclaim Nov. 21-28 "Bible Week," although she will likely be the only mayor in the state to do so.
In early October U.S. District Judge Roslyn Silver dismissed the ACLU's 1998 lawsuit against Gilbert, saying plaintiffs--Jewish survivors of the Holocaust--didn't prove they were damaged. Silver had enjoined Dunham from issuing a proclamation in 1998. Gov. Jane Hull rescinded a state Bible Week proclamation last year.
The New York-based National Bible Association promotes Bible Week proclamations by mayors and governors coinciding with Thanksgiving every year.
The word "evolution" has been deleted from Kentucky's guidelines on what students should be taught, two months after the furor over the decision by the Kansas Board of Education to delete evolution from its curriculum.
The Kentucky Education Department in October replaced "evolution" with the phrase "change over time."
Ken Rosenbaum, director of the Kentucky Science Teachers Association, wondered whether "photosynthesis" will now go by the term "plant food making"?
Meanwhile, adding to the shock of the Kansas decision, is the realization that the Kansas Board concurrently decided to delete the Big Bang!
"It's the denial of what understanding we have of the origin of the universe in terms of modern science," commented Jerome Friedman, a physicist at MIT who was awarded a Nobel Prize in 1990 for co-discovery of quarks.
The deletions, if unchallenged, will impair the educational opportunities of future students, because most college entrance exams such as the SAT have questions about evolution and the big bang.
Teacher Rodney LeVake, a creationist seeking to teach "scientific evidence against evolution," filed a civil lawsuit in October against his school district in Faribault, Minnesota, for reassigning him to a 9th grade science class where evolution is not taught. The case is being brought by Pat Robertson's "American Center for Law and Justice."
The New Mexico Board of Education voted 14-1 on Oct. 8 to limit statewide science curriculum to the teaching of evolution, making it the first state in recent years to take a firm stand against creationism.
The supervisors of San Francisco called upon the IRS in October to investigate whether Mormons are breaking federal law prohibiting certain political activities. The Mormons' fundraising drive has helped give a 4-1 cash advantage to a ballot initiative prohibiting gay marriages in California.
IRS rules prohibit religious groups from engaging in "substantial" political activity.
"We need to have a fair and honest debate," said Supervisor Mark Leno. "We can't do that if large sums of tax deductible dollars . . . have involved themselves in a political campaign and completely overrun the entire ballot process."
The Michigan Department of Education announced in October that taxpayers will subsidize the administration of Michigan Educational Assessment Program tests for religious schools. Although all public school students take the test, private schools won't give the tests. When legislation passed this year awarding $2,500 scholarships for high-scoring students, parochial school students began demanding to take the tests, too.
After school districts announced parents would have to cover the costs ($125-$250) for administering tests that are not offered by private schools, there was an outcry. State officials intervened, ordering that the families may not be charged. Districts must hire and train staff and rent classroom space to give tests to parochial school students.
Talk About Punishment: The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service has detained 88 asylum-seekers from China in a locked jail in Ullin, Illinois, where evangelist Jonathan Gericke was allowed to pass out Mandarin Bibles and hold bible study. "Hell does exist," writes Foundation member Paul Mueller, who sent in the clipping. "And this is it: getting bible lectures in prison where you cannot escape them!" Source: Rockford Register Star, 9/19/99
Madison Would Be Insulted. Texas Gov. George W. Bush told a group of conservative leaders known as the Madison project, that he would not "knowingly" appoint a gay man to his administration. Source: The Advocate Online, Oct. 9-11, 1999, quoting Cal Thomas
Manna Their God. Minnesota loggers filed suit in October claiming the U.S. Forest Service is being unfairly influenced by the "religion" of two environmental groups trying to stop commercial logging in state forests. Source: St. Paul Pioneer Press, 10/5/99
Scalia Needs Lots of "Courage." Chief Justice William Rehnquist and 5 of the 8 associate justices, as well as Attorney General Janet Reno and Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala, attended the Catholic Red Mass in Washington on Oct. 1 held every Sunday before the new Supreme Court session.
"We must have courage to suffer the contempt of the sophisticated world," devout Catholic Associate Justice Antonin Scalia told participants in a Red Mass in Portland, Maine in September. Source: Scripps Howard News Service, 10/4/99
Doesn't Bless Elephant Dung. Cardinal John O'Connor sided with Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who has pledged to withhold $7 million in city funds from the Brooklyn Museum of Art for exhibiting a painting of "The Holy Virgin Mary," depicting her breast with a shellacked clump of elephant dung. Many of artist Chris Ofili's other paintings likewise use elephant dung as a medium. Source: Associated Press, 10/27/99
Unreal Estate. Community of Faith Church, Houston, has announced plans to build its own subdivision for church members, Dominion Estates, starting with 39 homes and townhouses and growing to 700 homes in over a decade. Source: Houston Chronicle, 9/19/99
They Never Give Up. Four Chicago-area Baptist churches in August distributed 8,000 glossy, wraparound book covers bearing the Ten Commandments as a stealth campaign to put the decalog into public schools.
Join The Crowd. Democratic presidential contender Bill Bradley proposed that part of a $2.6 billion yearly package to help families would create and fund community boards, including churches, to deliver preschool services. His proposal would also offer tax-free stipends of $200 a month to senior citizens who volunteer 15 hours a week at nonprofits, including "faith-based mentoring."
Church Bribes Pregnant Child. The Roman Catholic Church in Scotland in October bribed a poor, pregnant 12-year-old English girl to continue her pregnancy, undermining a new $96 million campaign by the British government to reduce the teenage pregnancy rate, which is the highest in Western Europe.
Page maintained by Dan Barker and hosted by the Internet Infidels.