There is church and then there is state

I’m very much in accord with Forum letter writer Chuck Cassity,

who suggested the other day that we put the whole Wendy Leece

election issue behind us once and for all.

Having said that, I am now going to offer one postscript for two

reasons: first, the flak Newport Harbor history teacher Joe Robinson

has recently attracted in the Pilot; and, second, because the reasons

for the opposition to Leece have not been presented very accurately

by her supporters.

For two years, I had the privilege of serving as a mentor in the

Newport Harbor High School DaVinci Academy, in which junior student

enrollees spend a year meeting with local mentors working in a field

of special interest to the student.

The program is run by a dynamo named Mary Anne Robinson with the

able support and assistance of her husband, Joe. I watched his

rapport with students and heard tales of the time and energy he puts

in going the extra mile to help those students who need and merit it

-- one of them an underachieving student with whom I worked not

nearly as successfully.

In my view, Joe Robinson provides a role model as a dedicated

teacher, and when he wrote a lengthy and spirited reaction to

criticism of the local teachers’ union and an historical overview of

the tragic results of state-sponsored religion for the Pilot Forum

page, I called to thank him. Then followed the flak.

I can’t make his case any better than Robinson did, but I’d like

to add a few footnotes to what he said in the Pilot.

First of all, I’m astonished at the surprise and consternation

being expressed because the teachers’ union got involved in the

recent school board election. In heaven’s name, why shouldn’t they?

The school board sets the policies that govern their workplace. When

those policies create unacceptable working conditions, the result is

chaos.

If you doubt that, just look down the road to the Orange Unified

School District, where school board members made private agendas

their first order of business and drove dozens of their best teachers

out of the district. Order was restored only by a new board, elected

at least partly with the active support of the union.

Like Robinson, I question how potent that support is. Of course it

helps. But in Orange, as well as Newport-Mesa, school board changes

came about because a majority of the electorate wanted them. The

changes didn’t require dishonest brochures or fraudulent phone calls.

Just a clear airing of the issues.

And I strongly suspect that no school board member in human

history ever had her views expressed in print as frequently or in as

much detail as Wendy Leece. She was judged on those views, which is

as it should be in an election. I know of no instance of a personal

attack on Leece. More than any other election I can recall, Leece and

her opponent fought an issue-related contest.

The principal overriding issue was the separation of church and

state. Robinson illustrated quite effectively what has happened

historically when state religions hold power.

I’d like to approach it in a slightly different way. One of the

most often repeated arguments for treating Christianity as a state

religion in the United States is the assertion that the founders of

this nation were models of fundamentalist Christianity. This is

simply not true and badly oversimplifies a wide range of theological

convictions. There are dozens of respected biographies by accredited

historians that explore the complexities of the philosophical and

spiritual thinking of the founding fathers.

Thomas Jefferson, for example, was denounced by his political

opponents as “antichrist,” and one noted churchman declared the issue

in opposing Jefferson’s run for the presidency was “national regard

or disregard to the religion of Jesus Christ,” citing Jefferson’s

“Notes on Virginia” as “ten thousand impieties and mischiefs,

including disbelief in the deluge and the story of Adam and Eve.” And

James Madison once wrote that “religious bondage shackles and

debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise.”

These snippets -- admittedly out of context -- are offered only

because they demonstrate that regardless of the complexities and

differences in their personal religious convictions, these often

deeply spiritual and highly intelligent men agreed without

reservation that there must not be a state religion in this new

nation they were creating; and, further, that the wall between church

and state should not be breached. How else could they think when so

many of the early Americans were fleeing the oppressive power of the

Church of England?

Leece’s supporters argued that her conservative point of view

should be represented on the board. But her opponents saw that point

of view not as conservative but rather as embracing the melding of

church and state that the founders of this country warned against.

Take the posting of the Ten Commandments in our schools, for

example. She argued that this was not a religious but rather a

secular moral issue.

In Will Durant’s massive “Story of Civilization” can be found (in

“Our Oriental Heritage”) a long and detailed account of the history

and original intent of the commandments. Although it is much too long

even to paraphrase here, Durant summed it up succinctly when he wrote

that the Jewish code from which the Ten Commandments were refined

“was the most thoroughgoing attempt in history to use religion as a

basis of statesmanship, and as a regulator of every detail of life

... the tightest garment into which life was ever laced.”

Opposing the posting of the Ten Commandments in our schools in no

way implied an absence of spiritual faith. How much, for example, do

you know about the religious convictions of the other Newport-Mesa

school board members, who don’t introduce a personal religious agenda

into matters of public education?

This was the most important issue in the Leece-Tom Egan contest,

and the decision was clearly in favor of maintaining the separation

between church and state in our school community.

* JOSEPH N. BELL is a resident of Santa Ana Heights. His column

appears Thursdays.