From: hulsey@dbsun.uucp (hulsey)
Subject: Re: A few quotes from a few years ago
Organization: BioMerieux-Vitek, St. Louis Mo.
Distribution: usa
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 17:56:10 GMT

In article <mykes.0dmj@amiga0.SF-Bay.ORG>
   mykes@amiga0.SF-Bay.ORG (Mike Schwartz) writes:
>In article <1992Sep8.175217.4585@dbsun.uucp>
    hulsey@dbsun.uucp (hulsey) writes:
>>
>> The parents should mandate, to a point.  Once again, if a large group
>> of Muslims should move into your school district, do you want them
>> mandating required courses in Islamic history?  Do you want passages
>> from the Koran posted on the school walls, because they have mandated
>> this?  Do you want "voluntary" prayers to Mecca led by the teacher?

>Listen well.  I have ZERO problems with my local public school teaching
>courses in ANY of the above.  Voluntary prayers?  No problem, in my book.
>However, there IS such a thing as electives for these kinds of things.
>At my high school, I took a course that taught the New Testament as
>literature.  The school was non-sectarian.  I am Jewish.  My teacher
>was the best teacher for english/literature I ever had.  And he was
>an ordained minister.  And he left the school during my senior year
>and went back to the church.  I CHOSE to take that course.  And I do
>NOT regret it.  In fact, I feel better rounded as a person for having
>taken it and having known the man.

Good for you.  I agree that this type of course can be taught as an elective.
However, you missed my point of *mandated* classes.  What if you and all your
classmates had been *required* to take that class in order to graduate?

>The bulk of tax dollars used for education are STATE tax dollars, not federal.
>The recent California State budget called for a $Billion in education funding -
>that's $3K for every person in the state - and I am not counting just the
>children.

But they still accept federal money.

>> I just do not want to see my tax dollars go to support your religious
>> beliefs.

>My religious beliefs?  I have been in a church about 3 times in the last
>10 years - for weddings of friends.  I haven't been in a synagogue in
>21 years.  My religious beliefs are irrelevant.

Plural your, not singular. (Why doesn't English have a second-person 
plural pronoun?)

>It is a very very very liberal (small L) interpretation that funding a
>school that has 5 minutes of prayer per week is promoting any particular
> [whoops!  Sorry, deleted the rest.]

But it does.  The prayer at the start of a day is a very powerful message.
Even if it only one minute long, it is the first organized thing done.
Students are paying attention.

>And lastly, have you ever watched congress on C-SPAN?

I don't choose to give my money to the monopolistic cable companies.

                                                        Every morning,
>the house of representatives begins its day with a blessing by a minister.
>If that's not tax dollars and public land used to promote religion...
>And they do it on TV.

I'm not thrilled with it, but your not forced to be a Congressman.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
hulsey%dbsun.uucp@wupost.wustl.edu (Jim Hulsey)   TBDBITL '84 ('85 Rose Bowl)
An Ohioan living in Misery (Missouri, same difference)

Watch what you say!                Won't you sign up your name
They'll be calling you a radical   So you can be their dependable
A liberal, fanatical criminal      Respectable, presentable vegetable
--  Supertramp "The Logical Song"
Newsgroups: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh