The Friendly Atheist is under attack! Oh noes!
Our neighborhood Friendly Atheist is under attack by a hateful Christian extremist group. Via the Portland Humanist Examiner:
Hemant Mehta, the Friendly Atheist, is under attack by a right wing Christian hate group. The Illinois Family Institute, led by Laurie Higgins, is harassing celebrity atheist Mehta.
According to Mehta, a high school math teacher, Higgins emailed his boss, his high school’s entire administrative staff, and every school board member to inform them about Mehta’s private life as an atheist blogger. The attempt was to smear Mehta, claiming Mehta was unprofessional and unsuitable to be teaching because of his affiliation with atheism.
In Huggins’ disturbing letter, she argues that parents have the right not to have their children taught by those without faith in any god:
Of course, teachers have a First Amendment right to blog or speak publicly about anything they want. And parents have every right not to have their children in the classroom under the tutelage of someone whose publicly articulated views they find fallacious and deeply troubling. Having a First Amendment right to speak freely does not guarantee public approval or public silence. And the public response may be that parents choose not to have their children in the class of those who espouse views that parents find foolish and destructive.
Parents have a justifiable concern that the personal views of teachers may find their way into the classroom, either through curricular choices or classroom commentary. Those parents who want nothing more than that their children will believe in God may find someone whose mission in life is to persuade young people to reject a belief in God to be a poor role model.
That’s what some people just don’t understand (or want to). No one is attempting to persuade anyone what to believe or not to believe. What we mostly would like to do is to encourage others nonbelievers to come out and be comfortable in their own skin. Well, I think it’s fantastic that young people may publicly reject belief in god if that’s how they truly feel. Let your children gather all the pertinent information, come to their own conclusions, and decide for themselves. Besides, simply demanding your child believe in something really isn’t faith at all.
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The fascist nature of fundamentalist Christianity never mellows.
Oh of course. Fundamentalism is never mellow.