Christian Right School Boards

In response to “School Boards Become the Religious Right’s New Pulpit,” Dec. 10:

Why do your “journalists” always want to pick on the “religious right.” When are you going to publish the facts about the religious and political agenda of the National Education Assn., Planned Parenthood, the radical gay “rights” movement, the religious left, or the ACLU? These anti-Christian bigots have been running “stealth” candidates for decades, but the press hardly ever prints anything negative about these groups.

For years, conservative Christians have been virtually locked out of the decision-making process in our educational institutions, mostly on the grounds of a secular and atheistic interpretation of the phrase “separation of church and state.” The political activity we have been doing since the late 1970s is just a response to what the religious left and the secular humanists have been doing in America since the dark ages of the 1960s. None of us want to cram Christian theology or the five points of Calvinism down anyone’s throat. It would be against biblical principles to do so. We just want to restore some of the moral order and fairness that made this nation great.

“Separation of church and state” was never intended to mean “separation of religion and state” or “separation of morality and state.” Nor does it mean that conservative Christians should be locked out of the political process or locked out of the marketplace of ideas. All it really means is separation of religious organizations and the organization of the state.

The left wing has tried to use the public schools to indoctrinate our children for decades. Now that someone tries to shine the light of truth on their evil deeds, they cry, “Foul!” My, but what childish crybabies and hypocrites they have turned out to be!

TOM SNYDER

Tustin

Finally, you run the “Christian” agenda on the front page! It certainly took you long enough. The religious right has been infiltrating the public school system, via school boards, for quite some time. Your article illuminates the virulence of the debate, yet, it arrives sorely after the fact!

The public at large needs to know, early on, that their taxes are going toward a “religious agenda,” specifically, a Christian and Catholic cabal that is, and will continue to be, financially fueled by the perpetually somnambulant taxpayer.

It is a tragic commentary on our public education system that misguided liberalism has, indeed, spawned a backlash of conservatism, navigated by religious extremists and the power of the papal purse.

CATHERINE FARRELL

Encino

I would like to remind The Times that these “Christian candidates” have been duly elected by members of their own communities--because they represent the views of a majority of the citizens. The Times seems to have a problem with this. And the liberal education Establishment is terrified. Christians and others with traditional values are consistently portrayed as out-of-touch, right-wing extremists with an agenda that is somehow harmful to our society. Perhaps The Times is out of touch with where the majority of Americans line up when it comes to the debate over whose values should be taught in the public schools.

SUE SAILHAMER

Fullerton