Ron DeSantis has signed an absolute whirlwind of psychotic bills into law this month, from 30-year prison sentences for shoplifting to barring cities from requiring businesses to give their employees water and access to shade on extremely hot days. Because how do you even know that you’re doing capitalism right if no one dies of heat stroke?
Several of these laws affect public schools — including a bill to require students to learn about “the history of communism and why it is bad” starting in kindergarten and another to allow religious chaplains in schools for “soul craft,” which I assume is like Minecraft in that I don’t know what the hell that is, either.
“It’s totally voluntary for a parent or a student to participate. No one’s being forced to do anything. But to exclude religious groups from campus, that is discrimination. You’re basically saying that God has no place. That’s wrong. That’s not what our Founding Fathers intended,” DeSantis said.
Our Founding Fathers also intended for us all to own slaves and for women to not be allowed to vote, and while surely both of those things would be fabulously enjoyable for Ron DeSantis and those like him, times change! One of the things that changed is that, starting with Engel v. Vitale in 1962, the Supreme Court has determined that prayer in schools violates the Establishment clause. The one in the Constitution.
Now, as we’ve seen, every time Republicans try to force religion into public schools, helpful Satanists come round and ruin it for them. Want to have After School Christian Clubs? Fine, but you also have to have After School Satan Clubs. But this time, DeSantis says it will be different!
LIKE SO!
“Some have said that if you do a school chaplain program that, somehow, you’re going to have satanists running around in all our schools. We’re not playing those games in Florida. That is not a religion. That is not qualified to be able to participate in this. So, we’re going to be using common sense when it comes to this. You don’t have to worry about it.”
Except it is a religion. It is legally a religion, according to the IRS, which is literally the only arbiter in this country of what is and is not a religion.
In fact, lots of groups are religions, regardless of whether Ron DeSantis personally considers them to be or not. So, hypothetically, some Heaven’s Gate leftovers (they exist) could send a “chaplain” to Florida schools and that would be perfectly legal under these rules. If DeSantis’s issue with this is “discrimination” (which it’s not), then he certainly cannot discriminate, can he?
“I think there is a 100 percent chance you see satanic chaplains, and also of course other religious minorities that the majority-Christian population might not be a fan of,” Ryan Jayne, the senior policy counsel for the Freedom From Religion Foundation Action Fund, told the Tennessee Democrat. “The Satanic Temple is a church, whether people like it or not. And the idea that you can just exclude a disfavored minority religion from a bill, it just runs straight into the First Amendment.”
It’s not just religious establishment that is an issue. Perhaps the biggest issue with this program is that the “chaplains” don’t have to be trained or licensed in any particular way. This is a problem when one of the issues they are meant to deal with is mental health.
“We as a state Legislature are embracing and endorsing that an unlicensed person can deal with our most vulnerable children,” said Rep. Robin Bartleman, D-Weston. “By putting people in a room with a child who do not have a skill set to deal with serious mental health issues, link them to services, get them to a crisis response team, this is a very dangerous precedent.”
A non-religious group called the Central Florida Freethought Community, a chapter of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, says that they intend to participate in the chaplain program as well.
“We will definitely be pursuing opportunities to be involved in this program if this bill passes,” said David Williamson, the president of the group, prior to DeSantis signing the bill. “These forums need to be tested to make sure they’re equal, and nonreligious students need support because they are growing fast, and that is probably scaring the Christians.”
Once again, I have serious doubts that any of this is for Christian students, whom I imagine have their own religious advisors to speak to outside of school. This is, once again, because Christians are afraid they are losing cultural dominance and they want to either evangelize to non-Christian students or drill it into their heads that they are second-class citizens in this country, thereby making it easier for those like DeSantis to force their religion on them in other ways.
The Establishment clause means that the government cannot show preference to any religion, even if they really, really want to. This benefits us all. It means that the government cannot take my money and use it to convert me or my imaginary children to Christianity, and it means that the government cannot take Ron DeSantis’s money and use it to build a giant statue of Baphomet. That is what’s fair.
If God really wanted to be in Florida schools so badly, surely he would just artificially inseminate himself into a Tampa virgin and attend one like any other child. That he has not done this is either proof that either he doesn’t want this or that he doesn’t exist.
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