“Never do tomorrow…

Cazenovia Curmudgeon

By Donald Krueger

(Cazenovia, NY – Jan. 2013) …what you can put off until the day after tomorrow?” So Mark Twain is supposed to have said. And I keep putting off Procrastinators Anonymous meetings. And that end-of-the-world forecast didn’t pan out. And I’m way behind in the column-writing business.

Age-related lethargy, maybe … or terminal ennui. But now, I don’t want “Chris,” whomever he is, to think I didn’t appreciate his somewhat vitriolic response to my column, “Not on MY Dime, Thank You.”

Sorry, Chris; I don’t do computer, so it is snail’s pace for me.

In that column, I wrote I didn’t think we Cazenovia School taxpayers should be funding – with our scarce dimes – religious instruction, so-called, for our public school students during the school day. Didn’t the Supreme Court say in its 1948 McCollum v. Board of Education decision, “no tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support religious institutions … Neither a state nor the federal government can, openly or secretly, participate in the affairs of any religious organizations or groups or vice versa…”

Never mind the Supreme Court. Our Chris – would that be short for Christian? – proclaims, with the aid of capitalized words, “Parents should have the right and FREEDOM per the exercise clause of the First Amendment to allow their children to be educated about Christianity or any religion they choose off-site at no expense to the taxpayer.”

Yes, Mr. Christian: At no expense to the taxpayer.

Yet, time is money…

Our taxes fund the released time that students spend, even if off-campus, receiving religious instruction – indoctrination – during the school day. You say the Cazenovia School District is offering students “the freedom to learn a different worldview.” You say I want to eliminate that freedom. No, Mr. Christian, I simply do not want to pay taxes for public school students to be exposed to a worldview that has no discernible basis in fact.

Creationism? Virgin birth? Resurrected dead? Bodily ascension into a heaven? Where might that be? Do not forget, Mr. Christian, the First Amendment also establishes freedom FROM religion… and freedom from paying for it as part of tax-supported public school education.

The Supreme Court has said, in McCollum v. Board of Education (1948), “…the Constitution of the United States forbids the comingling of sectarian with secular instruction in the public schools.”

Is that so hard to accept? Seems clear enough. Yes, but not to the politically powerful New York church lobby: our supreme is more supreme than your supreme. If your supreme won’t let us go to your schools, our supreme says send the students to us. But you’ve still got to pay for it. And the church lobby’s tame legislators bowed their heads and said, “Yes, a student MAY [emphasis added] be released during school hours for religious instruction.”

Naturally, the First Amendmenters took to the courts – all the way to the Supreme Court – not the churches, the Constitution’s. they said, in Zorach v. Clauson (1952), “[T]he weight and influence of the school is put behind a program of religious instruction; public school teachers police it, keeping tab on students; the classroom activities come to a halt while the students who are released for religious instruction are on leave; the school is a crutch on which the churches are leaning for support in their religious training; without the cooperation of the schools, this released time program, like the one in the McCollum case, would be futile and ineffective…”

Crutches cost money.

That was in 1952, with the country caught up in another Red Scare. The majority of justices must have thought, like most other Americans, Christianity would save us from atheistic Communism; they ruled for the religionists.

But not without strong opinions from dissenting justices.

Justice Hugo Black: “I see no significant difference between the invalid Illinois system (McCollum) and that of New York here sustained. Except for the use of the school buildings in Illinois, there is no difference between the systems which I consider even worthy of mention … the McCollum decision would have been the same if the religious classes had not been held in the school buildings…”

Justice Felix Frankfurter: “The result in the McCollum case was based on principles that received unanimous acceptance by this Court, barring only a single vote. I agree with Mr. Justice Black that those principles are disregarded in reaching the result in this case. Happily, they are not disavowed by the Court. From this, I draw the hope that in future variations of the problem which are bound to come here, these principles may again be honored in the observance.”

Might the future be now, Mr. Christian? Revisit Zorach v. Clauson? Listen to Justices Black and Frankfurter? We wouldn’t, of course, have to go the route of the courts if Cazenovia’s schoolmasters would do the right thing, as did Canastota’s a few years ago, suffering only a brief outcry from congregants of the local Roman Catholic church; bury released time in history. Promise: no bolts from the blue will smite thee.

Apparently, Caz school officials have been wont to read School Law Section 19:27: “…may be released during school hours…” as MUST be released. You are mistaken in some of your assumptions, Mr. Christian: secular humanism is not a religion; secular humanists do not worship. Secular humanism is a philosophy – one of reason and rational and critical thinking. Read “The affirmations of Humanism: A Statement of Principles” – there’s that word ‘principles’ again – in most any issue of “Free Inquiry: Celebrating Reason & Humanity,” to be found in the Cazenovia Public Library’s periodical section.

And, Mr. Christian, you owe me an apology; I do not despise Christianity. Some of my best friends are Christians, including my older daughter, born again and all. We have agreed to disagree; no preaching from or to either of us. If you’d like to give that a try, I’d welcome a conversation with you some late morning or early afternoon. Coffee at Dave’s Diner?

In the meantime, you and any Caz school officials might give a look at “We the Students: Supreme Court Cases for and About Students,” with McCollum v. Board of Education and Zorach v. Clauson, among others.

And … time does march on. Robert Herrick suggests, “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.”

Donald W. Krueger of Cazenovia is a retired professor and active contrarian. Readers can email him at madnews@m3pmedia.com.