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.
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