In Jackson County, Alabama, the local elementary school actually allows a guy who goes by the name Bible Man to hold assemblies every month to tell stories from the Bible to the students. And now the school board, after meeting with their attorney, has decided to allow him to keep doing despite threats of a lawsuit.
A parent’s complaint about religious assemblies during the school day brought more than 100 people supporting the assemblies to a called meeting of the Jackson County school board Monday night (Jan. 30, 2012).
Board members retired with their attorney into closed executive session to consider the five-page complaint sent last month by the Freedom from Religion Foundation on behalf of the parents. After an hour’s deliberations, board members returned to the room to announce, to applause, that they would not be banning the Bible Man from schools, despite the complaint about his monthly meetings with county elementary children.
I’d love to know what their attorney told them. If he or she told them anything other than “you’re out of your mind if you think you can win in court,” they should be fired and sued for malpractice. But he seems to be going along with it:
“The courts have told us what we can and cannot do pretty explicitly,” said John Porter III, attorney for the Jackson County school system, speaking from his office Wednesday. “What we are trying to do is to work out a legal way for Mr. Turner to continue to come to the schools.”
There isn’t one. He can rent school facilities after school on the same basis with anyone else in the community and invite anyone he wants to listen to him. But he cannot go into a public school during school hours and speak to students required by law to be there. This isn’t even remotely an open legal question, it’s absolutely clear. And of course, the wingnuts are out in force:
Any parent who objects to the Bible Man should consider homeschooling, says Alabama Sen. Shadrack McGill (R) of the state’s Eighth District, whose children have been educated both through homeschooling and in the Jackson County schools.
“We were established to be a godly nation, a Christian nation,” McGill said Wednesday. “We need God in government. We need God in the public school. The more we trend away from God, the more we suffer – morally and spiritually.”
Not one person showed up at the school board meeting to speak against Bible man. You can hardly blame them. They would almost certainly be the target of threats and violence if they did.
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fifthdentist
February 6, 2012 at 1:08 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
For some reason I heard banjo music while reading that.
As a Georgian, I used to appreciate Alabama as a giant buffer between me and Mississippi. I’m beginning to rethink that position.
Chiroptera
February 6, 2012 at 1:18 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Any place else, I’d lament the waste of tax payer money that will go to defending against this lawsuit in court rather than educating kids.
But I suspect that the community has already tied the hands of the teachers to the point where very little education actually happens.
Maybe the parents really should consider home schooling just to make sure their kids learn something more than Jesus wrote the US Constitution in 1776 and that adding fractions is near impossible for mortal humans.
fifthdentist
February 6, 2012 at 1:23 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Chiroptera, I was out working last week and found myself in someone’s office and saw on his wall one of those paintings where the founding fathers are standing around watching Jesus hold the Constitution.
Weapons-grade stupid.
Tualha
February 6, 2012 at 1:41 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Maybe Sad-Sack McGill advised the school board to hire a lawyer willing to work for peanuts. That would explain a lot.
holytape
February 6, 2012 at 2:01 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Not one person showed up at the school board meeting to speak against Bible man. –
Biology Woman and Chemistry Dude sat in the corner and quietly wept.
The Mormonmammoth showed up to the meeting but was not allowed inside.
DianeticsMan and his sidekick Tom Cruise could not be reached for comments as they were both trapped in a closet.
Alareth
February 6, 2012 at 2:01 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
How many times does one have to smash their head against a wall to realize it isn’t getting any softer?
Midnight Rambler
February 6, 2012 at 2:02 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
fifthdentist, you need to put up this pic instead.
Bronze Dog
February 6, 2012 at 2:04 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
It really disturbs me how much more blatant fundies are getting in their defiance of the law. It’s getting harder to dismiss it as desperation of a shrinking fringe group.
Tualha
February 6, 2012 at 2:13 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@7: I’d love to see Boykin in that scene, talking about how his god is the only real one. I’m sure Cthulhu would think up an appropriate punishment for him :)
Zinc Avenger
February 6, 2012 at 2:15 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@Bronze Dog, #8:
I agree. This is a full-blown assault. If they get their way the Christian Taliban will build a Christian
JerusalemAfghanistan in the ashes of the United States.John Hinkle
February 6, 2012 at 2:20 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Wow, there’s a real Bible Man out there!
The Lorax
February 6, 2012 at 2:21 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Man… I can’t even comment on that. After a 16 year old girl gets threats of violence, rape, and death by hundreds, if not thousands, of loving Christians and their children because they were all following a prayer which told them to be good people, they think that this is going to be different?
There is not enough palm, nor enough face, to bring together.
tricycle
February 6, 2012 at 2:21 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@8: This is an act of desperation. There is a strong tendency to undertake increasingly desperate actions when one’s belief system is crumbling.
Just calling out the fundalegicals for their antidemocratic and insular stance is having a corrosive effect. The bolts holding it all together are rusting away. I expect to see many more acts borne of a desperation to hold that outdated worldview in place.
notanothergradstudent
February 6, 2012 at 2:25 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
McGill is the same idiot who contends that raising teacher pay is unbiblical. http://times-journal.com/news/article_16355b2a-4c64-11e1-a0b1-001871e3ce6c.html
MikeMa
February 6, 2012 at 2:28 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
After Georgia made the illegals who pick their crops extremely unwelcome, Alabama decided they’d pick up the slack by providing poorly educated morons to replace them. Starting with the the Alabama elected officials.
Hercules Grytpype-Thynne
February 6, 2012 at 2:43 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I was thinking that maybe Bible Man would be okay if he just told Bible stories in a “Bible as literature” sort of way. Then you could balance him with Shakespeare Man, Sophocles Man, Norse Saga Man and so on. Sadly that fond illusion was blasted to smithereens by the some idiot auditioning to be Bill Buckingham Man:
“We were established to be a godly nation, a Christian nation,” McGill said Wednesday. “We need God in government. We need God in the public school. The more we trend away from God, the more we suffer – morally and spiritually.”
Hercules Grytpype-Thynne
February 6, 2012 at 2:44 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
frog
February 6, 2012 at 3:06 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I’m sure their lawyer told them they didn’t stand a chance of winning, and they all cheered and high-fived. By standing firm on their so-called principles, they will be admired by their fellow idiots even when they lose in court. The loss will, to them, be a clarion call for other brave fungedelicals to stand up to secularism.
You can’t be a martyr if you run away from the folks with the crosses and torches.
That they’re constructing their own crosses and climbing up on them and saying, “Hey, hand me a nail, would you?” is beyond their understanding.
Daniel Kolle
February 6, 2012 at 3:49 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I live just outside Jackson County. Its claims to fame are the original Unclaimed Baggage Center in Scottsboro, copious amounts of methamphetamine in the higher elevations, strong, violent tornadoes, and crippling poverty. Seriously. There ain’t much going for it, and there will be even less after it gets fucking reamed in a lawsuit for allowing this shit to go down.
Jackson County is also mistaken if it thinks big-time donors will cover the costs of the judgement. A bankrupt county of wholesome, God-fearin’ Christfolk is just about the best thing for the theocons to get the faithful’s donations. I can almost see the flyers now…
Tualha
February 6, 2012 at 3:50 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
True. Let’s hope it costs them a whole lot of money. Probably the only thing that will get the idiot voters’ attention.
eric
February 6, 2012 at 3:51 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Thank you Senator McGill, for a providing a legal ‘own goal’ with your public statement.
Chris A
February 6, 2012 at 3:55 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@ Hercules Grytpype-Thynne #17
Never mind theory of mind, existence of souls or any of those other issues, that must be one of the deepest existential issues I have ever pondered.
Didaktylos
February 6, 2012 at 4:10 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Maybe their legal eagle couched his advice in suitably delphic terms: “If you fight this in the courts you will earn great esteem among your fellow true believers.”
Kevin
February 6, 2012 at 4:16 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Thing is, it shouldn’t cost the school board much of anything in the way of legal fees.
A second-year law student working from his dorm on a rented computer using recycled paper could do the filing for JREF. Cost of the filing fee could be waved by the court.
The school board’s attorney could spend about — oh — 15 minutes on the reply. “We know we’re going to creamed by the court, but the board wanted to do this anyway.”
The court will then issue an injunction. Simple. Easy. Cheap.
And once the school board loses, it can file a complaint against the school board’s attorney with the bar association. If ever there was a gross negligence claim against the attorney, here it is. Make him pay for his own time for failing to provide adequate counsel in the first place.
timberwoof
February 6, 2012 at 4:21 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I think their legal eagle knows that their action will get overruled and knows how much it will cost his clients for him to defend their ill-fated effort. I think he will be hailed a hero to the good Christians, and they will be glad to pay him all that money to defend Jesus. He gets to righteously fleece them out of their money and their praise.
peterh
February 6, 2012 at 4:42 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Remember that self-inflicted victimhood is all the rage these days. The school board is even now deciding whether the thornier portion of the hoped-for crown should cause blood to ooze over the left eye or the right. (Puns welcomed.)
eric
February 6, 2012 at 4:46 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I’m highly doubtful this is what’s going on. IIRC, in Dover the State-employed attorney who made the initial evaluation couldn’t legally defend the Dover SBOE once they decided to reject his advice. That is why the board went to TMLC – because they couldn’t use the state attorney.
I think it goes like this: the state provides paid representation to state boards when they are following the law or acting in good faith. But if a board consciously chooses to do something that the state’s lawyer has told them is against the law, they have to find their own attorney to represent them.
amenhotepstein
February 6, 2012 at 4:46 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I think we need to insist that the Jackson County schools – in the interests of fairness – allow Bible Man’s arch nemesis Koran Man to proselytize to children as well.
We all know how THAT would end up…
eric
February 6, 2012 at 4:51 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
We all know how THAT would end up…
If we are lucky, cage match with folding chairs. If we are unlucky, dueling banjos. If we are REALLY unlucky, they spout scripture at each other for two hours non-stop.
whheydt
February 6, 2012 at 5:17 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
These guys are playing with a lot more fire than just what Ed cited. From this site–http://www.al.com/living/index.ssf/2012/02/bible_man_okd_by_jackson_count.html–one finds the following:
–W. H. Heydt
Old Used Programmer
doolittle
February 6, 2012 at 5:47 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I grew up in east central Mississippi (right on the Alabama border). I can remember several mandatory assemblies in junior high and high school that were solely for the purpose of proselytizing. Of course, they didn’t bother me back then because I was a fundamentalist myself. Although that was 10-15 years ago, I wouldn’t be surprised if my school and many others in the area were doing this same thing now.
Ace of Sevens
February 6, 2012 at 5:48 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
In addition to the establishment problems, this looks like trademark infringement.
doolittle
February 6, 2012 at 5:54 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@fifthdentist #1
I am offended that you thought this way. I’m not offended by your reservations about Mississippi. I just don’t understand why you thought more highly of Alabama.
D. C. Sessions
February 6, 2012 at 6:04 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Anyone notice he didn’t say “educationally” or “intellectually” or “economically?”
coragyps
February 6, 2012 at 6:12 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Who the fuck let Shadrack out of the Firey Furnace(TM), anyway? Are Meshach and Abednego with him, pandering to the fundies? Handling serpents?
Modusoperandi
February 6, 2012 at 6:26 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I think this is terrible. Just terrible! I mean, what kind of a country is it where Bible Man doesn’t even have some sort of tax-reduced or tax-free building of his very own, complete with bells to notify those nearby that his doors are open, where he can tell people of this miraculous book?
D. C. Sessions “Anyone notice he didn’t say ‘educationally’” or ‘intellectually’” or ‘“economically?’”
Those things are hard. God is easy. Besides, when you’re in charge of those things you mentioned and you fail, it’s your fault. When God fails to leap in, it’s the fault of all the groups you don’t like. True story.
jonrowe
February 6, 2012 at 6:29 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Is Bible Man still Willie Aames?
starskeptic
February 6, 2012 at 7:16 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I dunno Ed, I just read The Good News Club by Katherine Stewart – Xians are getting more traction on this tact than most people think; they don’t care about what’s legal – only what they think glorifies their god, either way these cases go it’s a win for them.
jaycee
February 6, 2012 at 7:33 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
reason #13,472 not to ever live in Alabama
frankb
February 6, 2012 at 8:19 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
#6
But their heads are getting softer, and it is scrambling what’s inside.
dan4
February 6, 2012 at 9:02 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
@14″…raising teacher pay is unbiblical.”
(Responds in the context that McGill is actually correct about this, which I doubt.): Which just goes to show you that being “unbiblical” is not always a bad thing.
Modusoperandi
February 6, 2012 at 9:56 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
dan4, I’ve thought about it for a while, but I still can’t figure out what teacher’s pay and the cord that connects baby and mother have to do with each other.
exdrone
February 6, 2012 at 10:19 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
I think Bible Man is just trying to create a media buzz in order to get in on The Avengers movie.
“Other superheroes can save your life; Bible Man will save your soul.”
Modusoperandi
February 6, 2012 at 10:36 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
exdrone “‘Other superheroes can save your life; Bible Man will save your soul.’”
In 1971 mild-mannered theologist Fruce Fanner got a paper cut from a radioactive Bible. For four decades he’s been a man haunted, of two minds (one human, one Apostle), on the run from the law. He even has to stay away from those who were closest to him, as any religious argument could set him off, releasing his…holy side.
dingojack
February 6, 2012 at 10:40 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Maybe we can have the kiddies wacth a cage match beeteen Bibleman and Duffman!
:) Dingo
brianthomas
February 7, 2012 at 5:41 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
They want Bible Man?
I will give them Bible man!
I’ll show up to tell the kiddies some really good Bible stories.
Hey kids! Today were gonna see how god ordered the massacre of every last Canaanite man, woman and child!
And tomorrow we will see how god ordered the extermination of all first born Egyptian babies! (What…you dumb ass pro-lifers are shocked to hear this!?)
And the next day….
Yeah, let’s show these idiots all the “good stuff” that their silly bible contains.
scaryduck
February 7, 2012 at 5:47 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Is this the same Bible Man of the low-rent TV series that airs on those dreadful religious TV channels that you only watch when you’re bored? If so: Those poor, poor kids
robb
February 7, 2012 at 2:13 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
you know what would be cool? what if there were a 16 year old high school student named Jessica Ahlquist that could provide inspiration for someone to sue the crap out of the school district and uphold the constitution that our nation was *actually* founded on.
dan4
February 9, 2012 at 2:03 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
“…required by law to be there.”
I saw a news report that attendance by students at these “Bible Man” assemblies was actually voluntary.
dontpanic
February 9, 2012 at 5:39 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
dan4,
Was it during school hours? If so then an “opt out” for attendance isn’t really, ah, optional except in a weasly legalistic literal sense. Sure, some kids might be willing to identify themselves for the bullies to ostracize at a later date. But realistically that’s weak sauce.
But this seems to imply that it wasn’t so optional:
[...]
The “could” seems to me to imply that doing so would be a modification of past behaviour, i.e. that other alternative activities weren’t offered in the past. I’m still not convinced it would be legal if they did so. But then the obvious challenge would be to have WiccanWoman and QuranMan ask for equal time on an “open forum” basis.