The Folly of Religious Institutions
By Lady Rhiannon
Recently San Diego mother to be,
Terri James, was fired from the Christian college where she was a financial aid
specialist, because she became pregnant, which was evidence of her premarital
sexual activity. Premarital sex was forbidden by the moral pledge she signed
when she was hired, but the pledge did not specify that she faced termination
if she deviated. Firing her for becoming pregnant is obviously discriminatory
because only women can display the physical evidence of sexual activity, thus
are usually the only ones who are stigmatized for such behavior. It is also
illegal to fire someone for being pregnant under the Pregnancy Discrimination
Act of 1978. The school also offered a job to her boyfriend after making the
decision to fire her, whom they must have assumed was also non-virginal (he
didn’t take it). However, the biggest
problem roots and stems from the very existence of religiously run schools and
their “moral codes” for staff and students.
I will not fault this woman for
taking a job at a Christian school (though I certainly would not) because jobs
are very hard to come by in this economy, but ideally she should not have had
to take a job in a religious setting and submit to a moral clause. First of all,
the expectations within the workplace should remain separate from the privacy
of your home life. Secondly, there should be more than enough schools and
funding for teaching and administrative jobs in this country so this woman
wouldn’t have to take a job at a Christian school. Lastly, my primary point,
that religious institutions should not own and run schools; education should no
longer be the domain of religion. We as a society just accept it, because this
is the way it has always been; we have always had religious educational
institutions. Historically churches have been a primary source for education in
one form or another. Socialized public school is much newer to our society than
religious education, although it is the far more preferable method of
instilling strong minds into our populace.
This is not a plea necessarily to
ban religious organizations from opening a school, but rather a plea to all
people to never send your child to a religious school, and do not work in one.
Also, there should be absolutely no public funding going to these schools, through
voucher, financial aid, or otherwise. Religion’s tax exempt status already
costs us almost 71 billion dollars a year in taxes, which is a tragic waste of
public revenue. Religion really has a perfect business plan going; they sell a
product that is absolutely perfect (but invisible and only speaks through one
book as interpreted by certain special men) and deferring to it, by giving it
money and praise and obedience, is the only way to ease the guilt, shame, and
fear that religion itself imposes on people, and to ensure a secure place in
paradise after death. Religion feeds off of common human insecurities and our
fear of death (being primarily a fear of the unknown), among other things.
Their scheme works best, however,
if they can catch people when they are young, impressionable, and already prone
to irrational fears, guilt, and the belief in imaginary creatures. If children and
young people have no other influences in their life other than religion at their
schools, jobs, hospitals, and at home than they are the unsuspecting victims of
cult indoctrination, and they have very little chance for mental expansion
within such a restrictive and oppressive environment during their formative
years. How can you properly analyze your beliefs or the world around you if you
have had absolutely no exposure to any other way of thinking or living,
particularly during the years your brain is developing? If you have to isolate,
pressure, and consume people into an ideology, than that ideology does not
stand strong enough on its own. Religiously based education most often is
designed to promote an unquestioning adherence to a strict worldview. It is
against the interests of religions to promote free, critical thought; as such
thought inevitably leads to the questioning of one’s own spiritual habits and
beliefs. .jpg)
The
ideology that many religious institutions promote is one that perpetuates a
discriminatory and exclusionary atmosphere within society as a whole. The moral
contract that Teri James had to sign included a section forbidding homosexual
activity as well, thereby excluding homosexuals from employment also, which should
be illegal, but in many places is not. There is virtually no faction exempt
from the reaches of religious judgment, especially to homosexuals, bisexuals,
blacks, atheists, or women who get abortions, use birth control, are single
moms, have sex, or generally reveal any aspect of their sexuality in any way. Often
the students themselves become targets of harassment from students and teachers
if they are believed to be gay, atheist, or some other ungodly deviation from
holiness. Religious schooling also denies children of sexual education, the
truth about evolution, the Big Bang, and anything else that religion deems
“sinful” or “blasphemous”, which is anything that contradicts their collection
of ancient writings of orated tales from an era predating modern science.
Children
and young people need to be handled with care, and their education should be
based on facts and truths about the world and our physical reality. Being
hateful, oppressive, and intolerant is not innate in our character. Bigotry is
propagated into our children and young people by many religious institutions,
and is damaging to the individual as well as society, which must feel the brunt
of that prejudice. It is also psychologically damaging for children and adults to
repress their natural urges from a fear of godly retribution, whether it be
about masturbation or their sexual preferences. Refusing to teach sexual
education as religious schools often do is absolutely dangerous and is the
reason that Mississippi has the highest teen pregnancy rate in the country.
Parents who are insistent on making religion an aspect of their children’s
lives can do so at home or at church. The goal of schools and formal education
should be to nourish the intellect and instruct individuals on the art of how
to think, using critical and analytical skills, not to enforce a certain
religious ideology or moral code upon them. Also, think about it…is firing a
soon to be mother and taking away her livelihood REALLY what you think Jesus
would do?
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