Declaration of Independence Banned!
That's not a misprint. A fifth-grade teacher, Stephen Williams, in a San Francisco Bay-area school has been prohibited by his principal from using original source documents to supplement the history textbook used in his class. (The civil rights complaint filed by the teacher can be read here.) Among the supplemental documents Williams used in his class were excerpts from George Washington's journal, John Adams' diary, "The Rights of the Colonists" by Samuel Adams, the "Frame of Government of Pennsylvania" by William Penn, "The Principles of Natural Law" by Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui, various state constitutions, and yes, the Declaration of Independence. The principal's reason for banning the use of the documents? They contain religious content.
Regardless of your position on whether the United States is a Christian nation, it is undeniable that Judeo-Christian principles heavily influenced the Founders of the United States. If a person chooses to believe there is no God, that does not change the historical fact that the Founders believed that our inalienable rights were given to us by our Creator, the Supreme Judge of the world, and relied on the protection of divine Providence in proclaiming their independence,and wrote those beliefs into not only the Declaration, but numerous other works as well. They did not believe that faith was something that was not to be used to inform the rest of your life's decisions.
The principal has yet to comment, so one can only speculate as to her motives. One possibility is that the principal is simply hostile to Christianity and is engaged in a one-person crusade to expunge religious references from the foundational documents of the United States, or at least make sure that the students in her school are not exposed to their "corrupting" influences. A second explanation is that this is the absurdly logical extension of Supreme Court decisions that have banned prayer from schools and football games and, as Chief Justice Rehnquist noted, exhibit a jurisprudence that "bristles with hostility to all things religious in public life." Hostility to faith (and in this case, a willful ignorance of history) appear to be guiding the decision no matter how it is viewed. But it is a sad commentary on the Supreme Court's influence that its opinions may lead to the banishment of the Declaration of Independence -- America's founding document -- from public schools.
Regardless of your position on whether the United States is a Christian nation, it is undeniable that Judeo-Christian principles heavily influenced the Founders of the United States. If a person chooses to believe there is no God, that does not change the historical fact that the Founders believed that our inalienable rights were given to us by our Creator, the Supreme Judge of the world, and relied on the protection of divine Providence in proclaiming their independence,and wrote those beliefs into not only the Declaration, but numerous other works as well. They did not believe that faith was something that was not to be used to inform the rest of your life's decisions.
The principal has yet to comment, so one can only speculate as to her motives. One possibility is that the principal is simply hostile to Christianity and is engaged in a one-person crusade to expunge religious references from the foundational documents of the United States, or at least make sure that the students in her school are not exposed to their "corrupting" influences. A second explanation is that this is the absurdly logical extension of Supreme Court decisions that have banned prayer from schools and football games and, as Chief Justice Rehnquist noted, exhibit a jurisprudence that "bristles with hostility to all things religious in public life." Hostility to faith (and in this case, a willful ignorance of history) appear to be guiding the decision no matter how it is viewed. But it is a sad commentary on the Supreme Court's influence that its opinions may lead to the banishment of the Declaration of Independence -- America's founding document -- from public schools.
posted by Hal | 9:17 PM
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