Dads Against the Divorce IndustryDA*DI is devoted to reinstating the societal valuation of Marriage and the traditional, nuclear American Family, with particular emphasis on the essential role of FATHERS. DA*DI offers contemporary reports and commentary on culture; its aberrations and its heroes. |
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Court Bans Bizarre Curriculum in New York Schools
June 30,
1999
Parents have won another
remarkable victory over the psychological abuse of children that
takes place in public school classrooms. It isn't the court decision
that's so remarkable; it's the evidence of what was actually going
on inside the schools.
A federal district judge in White Plains, NY, ruled last month
that the Bedford Central School District must stop requiring
schoolchildren to create paper images of a Hindu god, to make
toothpick and yarn "worry dolls" to ward off anxiety, and to take
part in Earth Day worship services. Third graders had been required
to make clay and construction paper cutouts of the elephant-headed
Hindu god, Ganesha.
Judge Charles Brieant ordered the school district to (1) "prevent
school sponsorship of worship of the Earth" and North American
Indian animism or nature worship, (2) "remove the worry dolls from
the school system" and "refrain from suggesting that (such)
tangibles have supernatural powers," (3) prohibit "any direction to
a student to make a likeness or graven image of a god or religious
symbol," and (4) "direct the adoption of a published policy
containing clear instructions (about religion) to teachers and
others."
The school was engaging in what the judge called "truly bizarre"
Earth Day celebrations. He said that these events "take on (many) of
the attributes of the ceremonies of worship by organized religions."
According to the parents who filed the lawsuit, "student and
senior citizens, who have also become part of earth worship
services, sit in concentric circles around a giant inflated globe
placed atop a bamboo tripod. The elderly people form the inside
circle, symbolizing that they are closer to the earth and will
return to it to nourish it."
A chorus of tom-tom drums plays throughout the ceremony, while
teachers and school officials read speeches. The ceremony pretends
that the earth is deified, and students are urged to "do something
to make Mother Earth smile."
Evidence submitted in this case included an audiotape (Exhibit
62) entitled "Listening to Nature," which intersperses prayers and
invocations sonorously uttered along with background sounds of
forest and ocean. The plaintiff parents particularly objected to the
fact that the tape, which they characterized as "nature worship and
guided imagery," was played in science classes.
The accompanying book contains this creed: "This is what we
believe. The Mother of us all is the Earth. The Father is the Sun.
The Grandfather is the Creator who bathed us with his mind and gave
life to all things. The Brother is the beasts and trees. The Sister
is that with wings."
(The school must have failed to clear this gender stereotyping
with the feminist in charge of political correctness.)
During one Earth Day ceremony, a school official told the
assembly that there are "too many people on the earth and we need to
do something about it." Another Earth Day activity involved having
the children mark tombstones with the names of extinct birds and
animals.
Page 65 of the book instructs children that, when they need to
cut down a tree or remove a plant from their garden, they should
pray to Mother Earth. The children are supposed to "ask your
permission, your consent for this killing."
The attorney representing the school district complained that
"the judge went further than any court in the country in directing
the behavior of an individual school district." It surely sounds as
though this school district does need some adult supervision.
The school district is expected to appeal the decision in this
case, Altman et al. v. Bedford Central School District. If it does,
the parents should appeal the failure of the court to throw out the
offensive classroom activities involved in the use of the card game
called "Magic: The Gathering."
It was this card game that alerted the plaintiffs to contest the
peculiar classroom activities. They objected to the "Magic" card
game because it is steeped in satanic imagery, signs, and rituals
such as human sacrifice and the casting of spells.
The object of the game is to accumulate "mana," which is "power
that comes from the earth." The plaintiffs contend that the card
game "initiates children into satanism using perversion of actual
Bible verses."
One card, depicting a man about to be sacrificed with a knife
about to plunge into his heart, carries this strange message:
"Sacrifice one of your creatures to add to your mana pool a number
of black mana equal to that creature's casting cost." Another card
shows a terrified woman with a hand holding her head down and a huge
knife at her throat.
The parents charged that the card game is part of a New Age
curriculum that includes yoga lessons, cult worship, and religious
activities. "The cards represent a billion dollar industry,"
attorney Mary Ann DiBari said, "and our children are paying the
price with indoctrination in the occult."
Where are the ACLU and the separation-of-church-and-state
activists when we need them? Even as we speak, People for the
American Way is probably writing up this case for its annual survey
of alleged "censorship" and "book burning" by "narrow-minded,
right-wing fundamentalist" parents.
Dads Against the Divorce Industry
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