Truth and the Devil

Every once in awhile I will post some articles that were lost when our old site, Structured Thought, was taken down. This is one posted back on July 16, 2006.

There seems to be another world outside of mine that I do not understand. I was raised in the belief that no matter what you look like, who you love, or what you believe, above all else, we are all human beings and deserve to be treated with respect and dignity. However, there seems to exist a rather large portion of the population that discards your common humanity in favor of which superstitious belief system to which you subscribe. Where your value and dignity as a human being is based upon your opinion of thousand-year-old books.

Recently in Delaware, a family was actually driven out of town because of the over-bearing religious indoctrination going on at a public school.

• Praying specifically for a jewish student at graduation
• Bible clubs led by teachers, club members go to go to the head of the lunch line
• Distributing Bibles to classes
• optional Bible classes in lieu of the teaching of evolution

After these several violations of separation of church and state at the school the parents of these students went to the school board meeting to protest, but were met with such intimidation that they asked a state trooper to escort them.

The complaint recounts that the raucous crowd applauded the board’s opening prayer and then, when sixth-grader Alexander Dobrich stood up to read a statement, yelled at him: “take your yarmulke off!” His statement, read by Samantha, confided “I feel bad when kids in my class call me Jew boy.”

A state representative spoke in support of prayer and warned board members that “the people” would replace them if they faltered on the issue. Other representatives spoke against separating “god and state.”

A former board member suggested that Mona Dobrich might “disappear” like Madalyn Murray O’Hair, the atheist whose Supreme Court case resulted in ending organized school prayer. O’Hair disappeared in 1995 and her dismembered body was found six years later.

The crowd booed an ACLU speaker and told her to “go back up north.”
In the days after the meeting the community poured venom on the Dobriches. Callers to the local radio station said the family they should convert or leave the area. Someone called them and said the Ku Klux Klan was nearby.

I don’t believe I need to elaborate on the utter hatefulness of these actions by the community, but Christians need to know how poorly this reflects on their religion.

Classmates accused Alex Dobrich of “killing Christ” and he became fearful about wearing his yarmulke, the complaint recounts. He took it off whenever he saw a police officer, fearing that the officer might see it and pull over his mother’s car. When the family went grocery shopping, the complaint says, “Alexander would remove the pin holding his yarmulke on his head for fear that someone would grab it and rip out some of his hair.”

The satirist Jesus’ General ran with the story in a letter to the Stop the ACLU Coalition, Nedd Kareiva. Kareiva apparently missed the satire and responded. You can read the account here.

In a related case in Hardesty, Oklahoma, an atheist girl’s lack of belief was exposed when she refused to join in reciting the Lord’s Prayer. This resulted in lies being promulgated about her in an attempt to get her removed from the basketball team. When her father, Chuck Smalkowski, learned about this, he went to the principle’s house to discuss the matter where the principle then punched him. Here is a first-hand account from the girl’s father:

Hardesty has labeled us as devil worshippers. I assure you if we do not believe in bearded white men flying in the heavens with wings we surely do not believe in a black man in the ground with horns and a pointed tail.

The country leads by example said Judge Bridice. We now have a country that shouts if ‘You are not with us you are against us!’ Is it any wonder that with this manipulative rhetoric that teachers with students present told my daughter Nicole this is a Christian country and if you don’t like it get out! These teachers have since left Hardesty. Teachers watched as students said she was gay because she voted for Kerry, only homosexuals vote for Kerry, we are Christian we vote for Bush. They persecuted my daughter. They called her a half-breed. Made fun of northerners and Yankees. Teachers said they hated her. Having other students follow her around to catch her on the littlest infraction. No teacher ever tried to enlighten these misguided children.

Instead the school encouraged more of the same. So those paid to educate our children instead used their position to persecute my daughter. Do you really think the other children benefited being use by teachers in this way? Taught to prejudge and single out those that are different. Hardesty School should be proud. It has never stopped to this day. The school board believes it can do anything. I think not.

…

A year ago they remove my daughter from the basketball team because she refused to paticipate in ending cerimonies which was to recite the lords prayer (this is a fact and confirmed by their lawyers own printed statements). This was a publc school! When I found out the real reasons I relised the principle and outher school employes had lied to my wife and I. So I had a talk with the principle on a saturday night leting him know I was going to sue the school. A fight ensued and I was charged with assault.
I never started a fight in my life and I have had many. I’ve seen them all, bullies, bigots, young bucks and just plane-bored idiots.

But a year ago today, I had a fight out in the street with the pronciple who lied to my family and intentionally harmed my child. he was 350lbs, an ex-Marine.

I weighed 170. It is simple just do the math. Believe what you want or what you need to believe.

I turned myself in within 2 hours of an arrest warrant. Bail was set high at $5000 for a misdemeanor. When I paid it, it was switched to $15,000. A man that turns himself in and owns land is not a flight risk.

…

This trial is not about a fight it never has been but of a place called Hardesty and a school board with the help of the Sheriffs dept of Texas County that is trying to run a family out of town. The D.A. was willing to drop the charges if I left the county. The charges were switched from a misdemeanor to a felony when I refused. My local lawyer from Guymon was more than compromised and the DA knew it, yet she allowed him to continue until I found out and dropped him. He admitted it himself. As to my new lawyer, time will tell. But I trust no one out here. The control of the church even has lawyers scared to help me.

The law enforcement in this town apparently harassed this man’s family at every turn. Pulling over his wife, giving them bogus tickets, etc.

PZ Myers has a post-trial write-up from Smalkowski.

The loving Christians brought their children to hear the verdict. They brought the town. They brought ministers. I even saw another Judge in the back of the room. The Judge who in an earlier hearing while slapping an inch thick stack of papers on his bench saying with a list of witnesses this big you had better be a good boy. It was lies then, it was lies now and the DA knew it! (She was later forced to hand over a written statement she denied for over a year existed!)

People prayed openly for a conviction. Many holding their bibles. During the trial the Prosecutions side of the courtroom was packed. Only my son and Edwin Kagin’s wife, Helen sat behind me, but now there was not enough room in the whole courtroom.

Smalkowski was found not-guilty on all charges, but only after going through several lawyers and the ACLU refusing to help him. Only American Atheists was willing. Why?

I’m ashamed that this type of thing still happens in the United States, a country born of the enlightenment, without a single mention of a deity in our Constitution. This is too similar to the man who converted to Christianity in Afghanistan and was almost killed for it. Is this the type of nation we want to be? Our freedoms of speech and religion are what gives America its great diversity. Our country specifically protects the minority from the tyranny of the majority, and in order for that to continue, Christians should be the first to defend the rights of Atheists and Jews and any other minority in this country. You may disagree with their beliefs, just as I disagree with Christianity, but they still have a right to believe, just as you do.