====================================================================== MITAAH News -- Volume #2 / Issue #5 -- November 14, 1997 (sent sporadically to mitaah@mit.edu mailing list) Pseudo-random samplings of information that may relate to atheism, agnosticism, humanism, freethought, or church-state separation issues. Please send any promising material to reagan@mit.edu. http://www.mit.edu/~mitaah/ ====================================================================== In this issue: * General Meeting * AAH-News * Retreat Wrap-Up * Mailing lists: a reminder * News and views * Oddities ====================================================================== *** GENERAL MEETING *** Thursday, November 20 -- 7:30pm -- room TBA on mitaah@MIT ====================================================================== MITAAH News and Upcoming Events ------------------------------- * General meeting, 11/20, 7:30pm, room TBA. Everyone can get re-acquainted (it's been a long semester!), we can show pictures from the retreat, and finish up with a study and discussion of the Humanist Manifestos. Also on the agenda: IAP projects, December event planning, and t-shirt sales. * Next meeting: Tuesday, December 2: Wrap up the semester and plan for IAP! * MITAAH-GCF Forums: Thursday 11/20 and Thursday 12/4, in PDR #3 on the third floor of W20. Any ideas for topics? * South Park Marathon! Eight episodes of South Park, back-to-back! How does Saturday, November 22, sound to everyone? Does it have anything to do with freethought? Maybe not, but it's cool. * Vermont-based author John Chypre has sent us a dozen complementary copies of his book "Gotta Go." He plans to be in Boston later this month and would like to meet with us to talk about forming freethought groups up in Northern N.E. His book is, well, interesting. Pick up a copy and decide for yourself! * We have moved our lobby 10 booth reservation to November 25-26 (right before Thanksgiving). We'll need volunteers to staff the booth. Any takers? * End of the term celebration! Wednesday, December 10. * The folks from the Council for Secular Humanism will be in town again December 11-14 and would like our input into the proposed Boston Center for Inquiry. Dates/times will be posted when we have specific meeting plans ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Retreat Wrap-Up --------------- The first annual (yep, we really must do this again) MITAAH retreat came off as quite a success, despite the threat of a massive coastal storm. Ten AAH members spent Saturday and Sunday sightseeing around Northern NH and hanging around the Intervale cabin. Activities included some interesting games (thanks to Matthew Gray), plenty of food, a nice warm campfire, plenty of discussion, and an intense late-night game of "Robo Rally." Sunday was partly a wash, but we did get to have lunch in North Conway and look at skis... Next up? A possible Spring retreat and maybe an AAH ski trip... Anyone who has pictures from the event should bring a set to the next meeting. I would like to digitize a few on the good ones for inclusion on the home page! ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mailing Lists ------------- Remember to be careful--the mitaah list is an annoucement list only. Discussion needs to stay on the discussion lists, and specific requests should go to the officers or planning lists. Once again, we have the following lists for your reading pleasure: mitaah Official announcements mitaah-discussion Free-form discussion mitaah-gcf-forum AAH-Graduate Christian Fellowship discussion forum To add/remove yourself from any of the lists, use the following command from your athena% prompt: 'blanche $USER' Switches are '-a' to add, '-d' to remove. Your request will not be processed until 2am the next morning, so there may be up to a 26 hour wait for changes to take effect. *Please do not send requests to the list itself*, and remember that you are responsible for your own list maintenance. Other AAH lists include: mitaah-officers Feedback to the officers mitaah-planning Feedback to the planning board -------------------------------------------------------------------------- News and Views Excerpts from mailing lists and news sources -------------------------------------------- It's been a few weeks since we published, so here are short clips from the latest activist bulletins concerning church-state and freethought issues. from AANEWS #347 (10/31/97): DISTRICT JUDGE STRIKES DOWN PRAYER, BIBLE READING IN ALABAMA Score another victory for state-church separation, thanks to a federal judge's ruling yesterday which barred Alabama public schools from allowing prayer or organized Bible reading on school property. Judge Ira DeMent extended his previous orders striking down the state's 1993 school prayer law, and rejected arguments by Alabama Governor Fob James which claimed that individual states can establish their own laws on religious conduct free of interference from federal courts or even guidelines found in the U.S. Constitution. DeMent upheld a considerable body of legal decisions in his ruling, such as MURRAY v. CURLETT (which struck prayer and Bible recitation in public schools) and ENGEL v. VITALE (banned state-composed prayer in public school classrooms.) An attorney for the Alabama school boards told reporters that the ruling provides clear and concise guidelines which administrators and other public officials may follow in an area which had been "confusingly complex." Part of DeMent's ruling focused on the action of Madison County, Alabama officials who had permitted -- and some say even encouraged -- so-called "voluntary, student-led" prayer at graduation ceremonies. That policy ended last May, however, when county schools were told to end the prayer because of DeMent's earlier ruling against the 1993 law. But despite the order from both DeMent and county school officials, some students at Sparkman High School initiated a graduation prayer anyway. . . . Judge DeMent did affirm the constitutionality of using religious texts in an academic context, and the display of religious symbols or clothing which had religious messages. And while it bans orchestrated prayer an commencement gatherings, his order allows students to individually "give thanks" to the deity of their choice. The ruling prohibits any devotional messages or scripture readings over school public address systems; it does permit "non curricular religious clubs," however, to announce their meetings or related activities. ----- In Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, a 16-year old atheist student at Coconut Creek High school has filed suit against a teacher charging that he was the target of ostracism and humiliation when he refused to recite portions of the Junior ROTC creed which made references to a god. The student -- identified only as Richard Roe -- would not recite the end of the Reserve Officers Training Corps oath which ends with the phrase: "May God grant me the strength to live by this creed." According to attorney Steven Wisotcky, law professor at Nova Southeastern University, the paramilitary instructor -- Sgt. Randolph Smith -- "raised his voice while stating that (the) Plaintiff would receive an F for each day that he refused to recite the creed." "Roe" was then "stripped of his rank as a master sergeant," notes the lawsuit. Documents also charged that Sgt. Smith "frequently isolated (the)plaintiff for negative treatment, including lowered grades, and made the plaintiff feel unwelcome and an outcast." ---------- from AANEWS #349 (11/5/97): DEFIANCE TO MEET ALABAMA PRAYER RULING? State-Church Separation, Non Believer Rights In Jeopardy... Resistance is building to last week's decision by a federal judge in Alabama striking down the state's controversial 1993 school prayer law. Law Thursday, Judge Ira DeMent ruled that the Establishment Clause prohibits vocal prayers and officially encouraged religious activity in public schools. DeMent's order barred prayers at sporting events, graduation ceremonies and other official activities; the judge also warned that violations will be subject to contempt proceedings. . . . Stirred on by official defiance of DeMent's order defending state-church separation, more than 400 students at Boaz High School congregated for group prayer; at Sardis High school, an estimated 60 students walked out of classes earlier this week. One student told reporters, "We don't want to have to pray under our breath." Meanwhile, Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor announced on Monday that he will fight Judge DeMent's order, and criticized the ruling as "overly broad." Gov. James, speaking on his weekly radio program, added that DeMent, "has made a grievous error. It is so grievous that there is not enough time on this station to explain it." He added that the injunction "was one of the worst cases of judicial usurpation of the rights of the people I have ever seen." ---------- from AANEWS #352 (11/12/97): RELIGIOUS COMMEMORATIONS Groups Seek Gov't Sanction for Bible, "Christian Heritage" Weeks Two week-long events take place later this month, which supporters hope will garner official support for religious recongition; critics worry, though, that government proclamations supporting "America's Christian Heritage Week" and "National Bible Week" are an insult to millions of nonbelievers, and threaten state-church separation. The "Christian Heritage" and Bible weeks are both scheduled for November 23-29, 1997, although the latter includes November 30. Both represent somewhat different agenda, with "America's Christian Heritage Week" involving religious right groups such as the Christian Coalition, American Family Association, Concerned Women for America, Focus on the Family, Family Research Council and WallBuilders. The objective here is to have governors, mayors, other public officials and even the President issue proclamations which commemorate the alleged "Christian heritage" or origins of the United States. According to the American Family Association, the event "is designed to remind people of the real roots of this country and help America return to her spiritual foundation." In 1996, Governors in Arizona, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New York, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin signed proclamations which were approved by Christian Week promoters. . . . Much of the material included in both the proclamations and resources available through ACHW come from the controversial WallBuilders organization headed by "Christian revisionist" historian David Barton. The proclamation issued by New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson in September, 1996 which recognized "Christian Heritage Week," noted that "...the Christian heritage of our nation is recognized in the accomplishments of such renowned individuals as Christopher Columbus, William Bradford, George Washington, John Hancock, Abigail Adams, Noah Webster, Abraham Lincoln and Woodrow Wilson." It also acknowledge "The rights (of) citizens to be fully educated as to the Christian heritage of our nation and New Mexico is recognized by the United States and New Mexico as a voluntary exercise of the freedom of educational choice..." . . . Barton and his supporters claim that the wall (of separation) is "one directional," supposedly established to prevent the government from interfering in the affairs of religious groups but designed to do nothing concerning entanglement of churches with the state. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Oddities and Potshots --------------------- We've seen this before: A outburst of religious xenophobia took place earlier this month in Cairo, Egypt where the newspaper Al-Ahrar ran the headline, "Atheism in a soda pop bottle," and informed readers that the graphics on the Arabic logo of Fanta soda looked like a select portion of the Muslim oath of faith that begins with the words, "There are no gods." Left out were the rest of the words, "...but God (Allah), and Mohammed is God's prophet." Al-Ahrar quoted local academics who expressed outrage with the design, and suggested that the Coca-Cola company which distributes the softdrink was attempting to promote atheism in Egypt.. The Houston Chronicle quoted Hassan Kahlifa, Coke's regional manager, who said, "We are surprised that this misunderstanding has taken place now since Fanta has been available in Egypt for so many years." (if they added "We think..." would that help?) ---------- Concerning the Alabama prayer controversy: Other snippets to report ... newspapers are claiming that 77% of Alabamians support prayer in schools . . . There was wide support for prayer in other venues, too, with over 75% supporting daily prayer led by students, prayer led by teachers, prayer being broadcast over a PA system during school athletic events, prayer among coaches and players (before, during and after games), and finally, prayer at graduation exercises. Were Alabama schools permitted such latitude, and were there a deity listening and responding, one could only expect these same schools to be grinding out a steady supply of college-bound valedictorians and future Rhodes scholars, along with a line-up of NBA/NFL superstars and trophy-winning coaches. ------------------------------------------------------------------------