I don't know if any of you heard the radio spots put out not long ago by the Christian Coalition. Prompted primarily by the Littleton shootings, the Coalition was urging (what else?) that America must put "God back in our schools and parents back in our homes.''

Now, I certainly won't argue that parents need to spend more time with their kids. But as for putting God back in the schools, I don't understand what this would accomplish. He's already omniscient; what else can he learn?

In all seriousness, though, this is the kind of rubbish the ads featured: "It's time for Congress to lift the ban on the expression of faith in our classrooms. Give our kids the opportunity to pray, and our teachers the freedom to discuss morality and decency.''

On the surface, this might sound nice to many people, and I'm sure that's what the CC is counting on. But let's look at it. First of all, there isn't any "ban on the expression of faith in our classrooms." Kids can pray in school any time they want, and not just before tests. But what cannot be done in schools is for students or teachers to subject others to their "expression of faith." A prayer cannot be spoken aloud to a classroom. Proselytizing cannot take place. These are violations of the civil rights of any who don't wish to hear such things. But any and all are free to silently pray any time they want to. What the Christian Coalition is really after is coerced prayer, not voluntary.

As for discussions of "morality and decency," just how does one do that? Whose concepts of morality will be discussed? Oh, right… The Coalition's, of course. Well, thank you very much, but I would never in a million years want my offspring to be taught a morality that says homosexuals are sick abominations, that pre-marital sex is a sin, that only a belief in the Christian god is the right belief to have, and so on and so forth.

As I stated quite plainly in "Evil and Morality," a morality imposed by anything other than oneself is doomed to failure. Even if the CC's idea of morality was a lot better than it is, it would still be wrong to inflict it upon others.

At the risk of sounding like a recording, I cannot say with enough emphasis that freethinkers must point out the idiocy of statements like those made by the CC. No, I don't expect everyone to write letters to the Coalition. It wouldn't do any good, anyway. But whenever you hear someone espousing such drivel, calmly point out to them the errors of such beliefs.

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