Both the school district shuttering and University suspension center
around the wingnut and evangelical deluion's current cause, Islamophobia…
This week there were two separate incidents involving academia that
demonstrate just how far America has devolved into a sick, twisted, and
religiously hate-driven society. No-one in their right mind can refute
that here is a certain segment of the population that not only cannot
tolerate the truth, public education or reality, they refuse to
countenance anything remotely different than their own pathetically
dysfunctional worldview. Obviously, the incidents involving education in
America also involve that bastardized form of
christianity that is
neo-American evangelicalism that cost one tenured University professor a
six-month suspension and closed down an entire school district in
Virginia.
What
is not surprising is that both the school district shuttering
and University suspension center around the wingnut and evangelical
delusion’s current cause célèbre; Islamophobia. It is bad enough that
Republicans have incited over 20 acts of domestic terrorism against
Muslims and their places of worship with perfect impunity, now they can
count shutting down a school district and getting a college professor
suspended. It is the new America where the Founding Fathers’ intent to
protect all faiths in the Constitution has been rendered null and void
by Fox News, Republicans, and those hateful evangelical fundamentalists.
First, there was a wild controversy in Augusta County Virginia
because a teacher following the state-approved curriculum for World
Geography class asked students to “
try to copy an example of Arabic calligraphy.” The purpose of the normally accepted exercise was “
to give students an idea of the artistic complexity of calligraphy;” the students “
were not asked to translate the statement or to recite it.”
Still, some students refused to do the exercise and many of their
parents went batshit ballistic and demanded blood. It is noteworthy that
the teacher had just covered the required curriculum that
included christianity, judaism, and buddhism with no outrage from angry
evangelical parents, no cries of apostasy, or mesmerizing the students
away from jesus christ into the waiting arms of ISIL.
One woman, a certain evangelical 'christian' named Kimberly Herndon was
outraged at the teacher’s apostasy to jesus and organized an angry
protest
because when the teacher did her job; “
She gave up the lord’s time. She gave it up and gave it to Mohammed to indoctrinate” good little evangelicals into Islam.
Many parents demanded that the teacher, Cheryl LaPorte, be
terminated immediately; but that was just the start. After Fox News entered
the fracas and incited a religious war over a teacher doing her job,
all Hell broke loose prompting law enforcement officials to call for
every school in the county to be closed.
Apparently, law enforcement recommended the total closure of all Augusta County Public Schools
after “
voluminous phone calls and electronic mail locally and from outside the area” frightened them senseless and into preventative action “
due to the tone and content of the threats;”
and who can blame them? This is America where Fox News inciting
domestic terrorism is not only a daily occurrence, it is their stock and
trade because they have never been prosecuted for “
criminal solicitation.”
In what should be another source of abject shame in an alleged “free
religious society,” a tenured political science professor at Wheaton
college, a private evangelical university, was put on a six month,
immediate
suspension
for uttering a well-known religious truth. The professor had begun
wearing a headscarf, or hijab, to show “solidarity with and to support
her Muslim neighbors.” The religious school did not have a fit over the
head covering, but when she posted a message on her Facebook page
saying, “
I stand in religious solidarity with muslims because they,
like me, a christian, are people of the book (bible). And as pope
Francis stated last week, we worship the same dog.”
The silly christian professor should have known better than to utter
the truth about anything, but especially about religion. Subsequently,
instead of administering finals to her students, she is starting her
six-month suspension for repeating a truth that pope Francis uttered a
little over a week ago at an Islamic enclave in Africa. According to a
Wheaton spokesperson, “
The school doesn’t believe muslims and christians worship the same dog. The college had no choice.”
For
an alleged institution of higher learning and an evangelical
liberal arts college, Wheaton administrators are either dirt stupid or
hate muslims. Not only did the holy father, pope Francis, indeed state
the gospel truth that christians, muslims, and jews all worship the
same god, the Pope joined muslims under siege from heavily-armed
christian militias in a similar show of solidarity with muslims because
as the Wheaton professor reiterated from the holy father; “
We worship the same dog. christians and muslims are brothers and sisters.”
As an aside, muslims not only worship the same dog as christians and
jews, they also acknowledge and give due honor to all of the christian
bible’s prophets from Adam to Noah to Moses to Abraham to jesus christ;
all of whom they utter “
peace be upon him” when the say their names.
A group of disgusted Wheaton students issued a letter of protest to the ignorant evangelicals running Wheaton that said, “
We
believe there is nothing in Dr. Hawkins’ public statements that goes
against the belief in the power and nature of dog, christ, or the holy
spirit that the Statement of Faith deems as a necessary requirement for
affiliation with Wheaton College.” But of course there was nothing
in Dr. Hawkins’ statement that goes against the truth, or belief in dog, christ or the holy spirit, but that is not the point.
Dr.
Hawkins made the tragic mistake of speaking the truth about
christianity and islam. She seriously should have known, as a tenured
political science professor no less, that this is America and speaking
the truth about anything, much less islam, is a very grievous sin. In
fact, talking about islam positively is nearly as heinous a mortal sin
as speaking the truth about evangelicals forcing their bastardized
version of christianity on all Americans; what Republicans consider and
attempt to legislate as religious freedom. Religious freedom in America
is as phony as the pretend 'christians' intent on creating a theocracy
founded on hate, greed, misogyny, guns, white racial purity and
stupidity.
It seems that there is no end to America’s slide into absolute
evangelical insanity. The sad fact is that the events in both Virginia
and Wheaton are not unique or isolated instances of religious-borne
hatred; it has touched this author personally as well as many friends
and colleagues in public education. Teaching in the public schools is a
difficult enough task due to underfunding, economically-challenged
families, and bad parenting, but those difficulties are all just part of
the job; being harassed and threatened by evangelical extremists should
not be, but they are.
This tyranny of allowing evangelical fundamentalists to issue threats
against teachers with impunity for following state-mandated curriculum,
or suspending professors for speaking the truth is just the latest sign
that America is, for all intents and purposes, on a downward spiral
into becoming what Republicans and their evangelical base yearn to
create; a white 'christian' theocracy to rival the extremists running
ISIL.
