No Welfare for Religion!

The Oklahoma House of Representatives and the Oklahoma Senate have both passed their respective versions of bills to create standards for teaching the Bible. When first introduced, these bills were represented as being a non-sectarian way for Oklahoma students to learn about the Bible's impact on literature and history - something many schools already do, by the way, and have done for years.

Unfortunately, the bills' authors and supporters have since made it clear that their intention all along has been to use the power of government to promote a very specific interpretation of Christianity.

According to an editorial in the Tulsa World, the Senate version of the bill, SB1338, has been amended to authorize course materials that teach a narrow view of the Bible that includes the teaching of events such as the flood as historic fact. The constitutionality of these materials have been called into question in more than one court case.

According to a story in The Oklahoman, Rep. Todd Russ, the author of the House version of the bill, HB 2321, said that "the classes are needed to preserve America’s Christian heritage instead of allowing other countries’ religious beliefs to take over."

Rep. Russ, why are you afraid of other countries' religious beliefs? If Christianity is so good, what's there to worry about? Don't you think Christianity could hold its own in a free and open market of religions?

Now, if it was other moralities you were worried about, I'd say you have good cause to be worried. Because there is a morality that is better than Christianity and in a free and open market of moralities it will win out given time.

Because this morality teaches human beings not only that they have a right to live for their own sakes but that it is possible to live as a human being in reality. Or as Ayn Rand would put it: in this life on this earth. And to do it without sacrificing anyone to anyone.

Because the human mind works.

It's called Objectivism and the only way to stop it is by giving Christianity the power of government force. And that is exactly what people like Todd Russ and his cohorts are after.