Bah!- Another obnoxious forward

I'm back to complaining about the email forwards I often get from people who like to share their views with me, unsolicited. If you have been reading my blog, you will remember that I complained about one recently, in which immigrants were demonized. Here's another one from my inbox today. A "sweet" story about a child and his/her dog:

A dog had followed his owner to school. His owner was a
fourth grader at a public elementary school. However,
when the bell rang, the dog sidled inside the building and
made it all the way to the child's classroom before a
teacher noticed and shoo'ed him outside, closing the
door behind him. The dog sat down, whimpered and
stared at the closed doors. Then God appeared beside
the dog, patted his head, and said, "Don't feel bad fella'....
they won't let ME in either."

Where do people who send these types of messages get the idea that God isn’t allowed in school? I work in a public school where kids openly express their faith and beliefs all the time, posters in the halls announce the activities of Christian youth groups, and there is even “prayer at the pole,” in which a group of very committed Christian students occasionally gather at the flag pole before school to pray. Granted, these expressions and demonstrations are only Christian, but isn’t that, after all, the “God” to which this little story refers? And that’s what bothers me. I know the people who send these kinds of messages believe theirs is the one true religion, but for the 67% of the world’s total population who do not, the least they could do is be honest.

How about substituting the word Christ for God in these emails, and how about admitting that what they want are public schools where Christianity, not God, is “let in”? What kind of outcry would come from the person who sent me the story above if Buddhism, Scientology, or Islam was "let in" in the way she wants Christianity to be "let in" ?

News flash: One of the founding principles of this country is that no specific religion may be sponsored by the state. Why don’t some people get it? There is no prohibition on believers expressing themselves in public, and that includes public schools; a believer from any religion has an equal right to legal forms of expression, but a public school can’t promote Christianity or any other faith. Students can pray all they want, or speak and write about God, but teachers (and others in charge at school) can’t show a preference for a particular belief or make statements to suggest one particular religion is true and the others are false. And that includes Christianity, and I’m fine with that.

To me, sending these veiled pro-Christian messages either shows an ignorance of the law or promotes exactly the kind of rabid, exclusive religiosity that is the source of...terror. You know, Terror, that thing we have all come to fear? If you want your child to be in a “religious” school, fork over the tuition dollars to send him/her there. Cuz this is America. Those who say God is not "let in" at school might want to check into the laws of the land to which they pledge their allegiance, and to use the vernacular of many of those who promote this attitude of exclusivity in America, “Love it or Leave it.”