Victors in Textbook Trial Look to Alabama Case for Another Triumph

Conservative Christian groups pleased over a judge’s ruling in Tennessee on textbooks are now hoping that a decision pending in another federal court, this one in Mobile, Ala., will establish fundamentalist claims that too many reading materials used by public schools are hostile toward Christianity and promote instead an irreligious humanism.

“The Alabama case has much broader ramifications,” said one of the attorneys, Robert Skolrood, executive director of the National Legal Foundation, founded by evangelist Pat Robertson in Virginia Beach, Va.

In Mobile, U.S. District Judge W. Brevard Hand heard testimony last month on a question he posed: “What is secular humanism? Is it a religion and is it being taught in the schools?” About 600 parents, teachers, ministers and others are claiming that 46 out of 4,000 textbooks used in Alabama schools not only omit Christian contributions to U.S. history and culture but also promote an atheistic philosophy devoid of absolute moral values.

“We say humanism is a religion, of which secular humanism is a subset,” Skolrood said in a telephone interview. The attorney said he believes that this can be proved in court, despite humanists’ lack of belief in the supernatural and despite the low membership figures of humanist organizations. Written briefs have yet to be submitted in the non-jury trial, and Skolrood said he does not expect a ruling until February.

National Attention

Both the Alabama and Tennessee trials have drawn national attention and pit the religious right against church-state separation groups.

People For the American Way, founded by television producer Norman Lear to take issue with the religious right, has joined with the American Civil Liberties Union to provide legal counsel and funding for 12 parents who have entered the Alabama case as “intervenors” for the defendant, the state board of education.

People For the American Way also supplied a lawyer and financial support for a rural Tennessee school board that seven Christian families alleged violated their religious rights by forcing their children to use textbooks offensive to their religious upbringing.

On Oct. 24 in Greeneville, Tenn., U.S. District Judge Thomas Hull ruled in favor of the families, saying that there was “considerable evidence” that no reading series on the state-approved list would be acceptable to the parents. Hull did not require the school to provide new books, but said that a home-reading schedule be permitted.

Appeal Expected

The school board said it would file an appeal, and both sides have declared that they would take the case as far as the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Tennessee decision was called “a victory for all religions” by the Concerned Women for America, a 540,000-member organization that supplied legal counsel for the parents.

The ruling is “extremely significant . . . a landmark for parents’ rights,” said Beverly LaHaye , founder-president of Concerned Women. She and her husband, the Rev. Tim LaHaye, moved from the San Diego area to Washington two years ago to facilitate his work as head of the American Coalition for Traditional Values, an umbrella organization for the religious right.

Beverly LaHaye’s pleasure over the ruling was mitigated somewhat by her contention that some news media are not reporting accurately what the parents in the Tennessee case find offensive in the reading materials.

Objections to Books

Some news accounts said parents objected in testimony to selections from “Cinderella,” “Macbeth” and a Hans Christian Andersen tale because of their mentions of magic, witchcraft or fortunetelling. “The Wizard of Oz,” by L. Frank Baum, reportedly was objectionable because it portrays a witch as good and because it says courage, compassion and other traits are personally developed rather than God-given. A passage in “The Diary of Anne Frank” was said to be objectionable because the young Jewish writer recommended belief in some religion--”It doesn’t matter what.”

However, LaHaye contended in an interview during a visit to Los Angeles that in many cases it was not the stories themselves that were offensive but instead the way certain reading selections were used for discussion purposes.

“The parents are not opposed to ‘Cinderella’ and ‘Macbeth,”’ LaHaye said, “but the way the teacher’s manual would interpret them.”

Nevertheless, one of the principal parents in the suit, Vicki Frost, said in testimony, “My children have to be taught from a Christian perspective.” Frost said she did not mind “mere exposure” of her children to other beliefs, but could not accept the schools giving credence to “alien philosophies that cause them to be confused.” Her testimony at times indicated dissatisfaction with the content of the stories themselves.

‘Dumbing-Down’

Holt, Rinehart & Winston, publisher of the reading series criticized by the Tennessee parents, will not change the textbooks because of the case, a spokesman said.

In criticizing the decision, People For the American Way said the ruling, if sustained in higher courts, would contribute to a “dumbing-down” of schoolbooks in order to avoid controversy.

But in California, an influential state in textbook content because of its large purchase orders, Bill Honig, state superintendent of public instruction, said, “We’re going in the opposite direction. We want interesting books rather than bland books.”

Honig said he thinks the decision will be overturned. He criticized the ruling as “judicial activism at its worst” in trying to make the protection of sectarian viewpoints a constitutional issue.

‘Pluralistic Society’

Public schools, in contrast to private schools, are designed to broaden the perspectives of the pupils, Honig said in an interview. “Public schools are always going to go against what some families believe because we have a pluralistic society. You don’t denigrate a family’s beliefs, but you should put before the child the breadth of the world,” he said.

In the Mobile, Ala., case, Honig said he disagreed with the charge that textbooks are rife with secular humanism. “What they are really talking about is rampant individualism and ethical relativism--that there are no standards and no broader purpose,” Honig said. Honig said that he sees relativism as an intellectual fad that has hindered the teaching of ethical values to schoolchildren.

Honig concurred with both People For the American Way and the religious right on the one point in the Alabama case that both sides seem to agree upon--that history textbooks are deficient in describing the role that ministers, religious revivals and organized religion have had in U.S. history.

Anthony Podesta, president of People For the American Way, said, “We presented the first public statement on that issue last year.” The panel of historians and educators concluded that religious contributions to American history were not cited in proportion to their impact, Podesta said. “Our study was introduced as evidence in the Mobile case,” Podesta added.

‘Present Both Sides’

Spokesmen for the religious right have frequently said that their main purpose in challenging textbooks is to achieve a “balance” in viewpoints presented in the books and not to censor ideas that conflict with a strict version of Christianity.

“You can teach any subject as long as you present both sides,” said Robert L. Simonds of Costa Mesa. Simonds is president of Citizens for Excellence in Education/National Assn. of Christian Educators, a group that People For the American Way said accounted for 43% of the most recent challenges to curricula and textbooks.

Simonds, contacted while he was in Indiana on a speaking tour, said his organization is aiding “a revolution taking place across America--parents rebelling against harmful and immoral materials being taught to children.” The group is also urging conservative Christians to run for school board election.

Though he conceded that America is religiously diverse, Simonds indicated that he saw the struggle in terms of atheists versus God-fearing Christians.

The question, he said, is, “Whose god is greater, the Living God or the humanist god? Whoever wins will be those who believe the most,” he said.