Look, people, this whole PC thing has completely gotten out of hand. The school wants to offer an ELECTIVE course on the Bible. If you are not a Christian or you don't like the idea of taking a class on the Bible, don't take it. But it's not a bad thing to have under one's belt in one's education. Most of the literature and the art of the world from the Middle Ages on has some reference to something in the Bible. Without a working knowledge of the Bible, one may not catch references made in modern literature and art.
It's not like the class is going to teach Christianity, as in, "Here! Now BE a Christian!" That sort of schooling is best left to the religious schools. I took several classes on Christianity and other religions in college, and none of them taught Christian doctrine. They exposed me to things about Christianity and the Bible I wouldn't otherwise know, like why Paul wrote specifically to this town or that in the early years of the Christian church. I even took a comparative religion class in high school, where I learned about Zoroastrianism and Buddhism and Islam, as well as Christianity and Judaism. I dearly wanted to take a class in college called Literature and the Bible (what this high school class in Texas seems to be), but that was more because of the professors that were teaching it. Alas, my schedule didn't allow for it. I had to take a required computer science course instead so I could actually graduate.
The article states that now some folks are worried about a Constitutional fight because of this new class. How does an elective class violate someone's civil rights? Does teaching Spanish as an elective in high school violate a native Italian speaker's rights if Italian isn't offered as a foreign language?? If you think the Bible is a bunch of hogwash, simply don't take the class. It's that easy. But I feel that we as a nation are now a group of people that don't want to make choices, that we want all of our choices to be made for us, and we don't want others to make choices different from the ones we'd make for ourselves and our children. Now we want the choices that WE approve of made into law so no one else can make another choice. I suppose it's getting too hard to make educated decisions, and so we want to have our choices made for us so we don't have to think.
I think we as a nation have much more to worry about than whether one school system wants to offer a class on the Bible. Let's worry about our math and English scores. Let's worry about the fact that I cannot go a day without seeing some gross grammar or spelling error on a sign or in a flyer, and even in the newspaper. Let's worry about the fact that my brother is getting very little education even at his demanding high school, without having any kind of consequences through the school aside from bad grades. Let's worry about the fact that kids are being taught in the school that bad grades and bad behavior aren't their fault; instead they are being doped up until they're so loopy they can't misbehave. (I do realize some kids need medication, but I know many, my own brother included, that are medicated because it makes it easier on the parents and teachers to have them doped up than to require them to behave.)
I'm only 26 years old, but I shudder sometimes to see the way the world is going.
In other news.
Kurt leaves. In two days. For six months. Yes, I am incredibly sad about the whole thing. Tonight is the last night I will have him snuggle with me as we sleep; he has to be on the ship tomorrow night so he doesn't miss ship's movement.
That said, I am not as concerned about this deployment as I was about the one that I survived when we first moved here, when he was gone for seven months. I definitely have lots of reasons to go out and keep myself busy; well, one major reason whose name is Grace. At the very least, we can go to a local park and play in the sun -- after being well slathered with sunscreen, of course. :o) There are local beaches we can explore and find pretty stones and shells. I have good friends here that will love to have me visit them. I just hope my one friend HC will take a few weeks off between graduating college and finding a job so we can get together a little more often. I miss her, dangit!
But it will be quite sad to only be able to communicate with Kurt through email and a few expensive overseas calls home. He's my best friend and my other half; I won't have him to cuddle me when I'm sad or rejoice with me when I am happy.
At least it's only six short months, instead of an Army deployment to Iraq for 12-18 months. And at least he's not going anywhere near Iraq either. At least I know my husband will be coming home to me in the fall.