As it always is, this is a tacit admission of just how weak the Christian message is that they feel driven to get to children before they've reached the age of reason. There is something very sick about a country that puts religious indoctrination ahead of actual education. This country is falling behind the rest of the developed world when it comes to public education, thanks to the religious right and their enablers holding public office.
Well educated kids with some instruction in critical thinking make poor prospects for adopting their 'deeply held religious beliefs'. Critical thinking is to them pure anathema. Can's have any of that. They will do whatever they can get away with to degrade public education to achieve their goal of a totally dumbed-down populace.
Well, he would, wouldn't he. Prager also has a indoctrination machine masquerading as a university, no genuine university would ever recognize credits from.
Indoctrination and profit. That's all the NSGOP wants. Even the few non-religious among them want this. Profit and indoctrination. The two tho is they need to satisfy their lust for power and their raw, naked greed. Why does the indoctrination take the form of conservative Christianity?
This is why. Their power base is only those religious extremists. It makes them resort to cheating to get their way. And with Christian Fucking Privilege being what it is in this country, even some of those who should be opposed are blind to the consequences.
Gee whiz, this Narcan bill is so good, let's hang something COMPLETELY UNRELATED onto it! That's what that rider on House Bill 57 amounts to: yet more religious bullshit that Republicans attached for no other reason than because they could.
And here I am, longing for the days when Dick Celeste was governor. Bloody hell.
Religious programs have the freedom to offer these services anytime, nights or weekends or school inservice/holidays, and yet they intentionally choose to offer them in the middle of the day when the children are required to attend schools. This right here proves that the religious programs do not value education and are intentionally trying to interfere with it. This also leads one to think that the legislators writing laws to insert these opportunities into school have the same motivations.
LifeWise should not have programming scheduled during school days. Full stop. The local sports club has teams and coaching and lessons, their school day offerings are designed only for preschoolers and the school aged programming is scheduled around the public school schedules. This is how you market to school aged children. They’re not trying to remove children from their education.
It is par for the course for republicans to leach onto useful legislation to pass unwanted laws. This is why line-item vetoes became a thing and were so controversial. Let’s stop the pork already.
Your example of sports clubs introduces what I think is a related factor. Lifeway doesn’t want to compete against sports in the after school time slots. They know sports is more important to kids than religion.
That may well be a factor, but LifeWise has other clear motivations that seem to be focused on interfering in school. Schools are a requirement legally, it makes no sense to try to compete with that over competing with sportsball. One may be more desirable, but the other is not optional.
AFAIK line-item vetoes have never become a thing. At least not at the federal level, I have no idea about Ohio.
And you really shouldn't want that anyway. Ohio's governor is Mike DeWine, a Republican. If you gave him a line-item veto he might happily retain this bit of religion-promotion while lining out the Narcan availability.
When crafting your governmental authority, never assume the 'good king' scenario. You're better off assuming a 'bad king' scenario and limiting government authority to fit.
As I recall, Ohio Republicans tried to stop a statewide referendum on abortion rights and when they didn’t like the outcome, tried to undermine it. May have been an amendment to the state constitution. They really aren’t interested in playing by the rules, are they?
“And it sends an unintended message about what matters in a school day—that electives like art, music and physical education are expendable, the periods worth skipping, when they’re often the classes that keep students most engaged in school and well-rounded in life.”
Thank you! These classes are often dismissed as unimportant because they aren’t the three Rs. But they are imperative in actually educating children. How do we first begin to teach the three Rs? Through pictures. How can we get children to be able to write? Allow them to draw. What allows children to understand basic math concepts? Imagery. Art is an integral part of learning all three important subjects. Music is practically just math, through sound, it also is important to critical thinking as it teaches pattern recognition, same as art. Art, music and physical education all teach concepts that scaffold problem solving, critical thinking, interpersonal skills, communication, and all kinds of well rounded skills. Students might not be interested in these subjects for their future careers, or even advanced study, but exposing them to these subjects gives them tools to succeed in the three Rs, and in being good employees and neighbors.
These subjects have benefits that religion can’t possibly replicate. So taking children away from them to push your religion is detrimental to all of society.
The idea that these subjects also motivate students in school is palpable. Removing children from the school obviously messes up any motivation to engage. Just being away from the building is clear. But also, as mentioned in the article, it messes up the rhythms of learning for everyone, which mentally removes students from engagement.
To be fair, PE 𝘪𝘴 pretty skippable. I can't recall a single thing I learned in PE that I've ever had a use for in 20 years, and I can't imagine that ever changing. It was all how to play sportsball (insert flavor here) and once a year having to do X number of Y to meet an arbitrary one-size-meets-all fitness standard. Not once in 13 years of it was I ever taught, for example, any useful daily workout routines to stay in shape with, or anything else that might've actually been worth an hour of my day. As currently taught, it's a waste of students' time unless they're into sports, because it boils down to a "how to be an athlete" class, and not practical instruction for one's day-to-day life.
That's not to say it isn't possible to come up with a good curriculum for a PE class, of course- health and fitness 𝘢𝘳𝘦 important- just that, in 13 years, I never experienced one, even when the teachers 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘯'𝘵 overbearing sportsball coaches who thought that their preferred shape and size of rubber toy was the greatest thing since the invention of toilet paper. Which is far more a condemnation of yet another aspect of our shitty education system than it is of PE as a 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘱𝘵.
Plus, locker rooms are the Seventh Circle of Dante's Hell, and I think I 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 actually have chosen going to church over having to ever visit one again, had it been an option, as long as I got to pick the church (one of the quieter ones, perhaps, where I could get a decent nap in).
My kid just finished first HS PE credit this last summer. He got CPR training (thumbs up) basic nutrition information (thumbs down, too simple), had to design his own daily exercise routine (meh), and then a required project where they research the exercise they chose and talk to the class about what muscles and cardio it involves, where it helps, how to do it right, etc. (meh bordering on thumbs up).
Overall, I was not super impressed. But not a complete waste of time. CPR, always good. Daily exercise of your choice, good. The idea of making the kids do a research project where they have to describe to the class how to do their exercise correctly and what it actually exercises was an interesting idea. The main problem is that it was done at the end of the class after they'd already been exercising for weeks, rather than at the beginning when they could've used what they learned to exercise more correctly.
I don’t have too much on this. Yes absolutely it’s about giving religion privilege that any other activity would be denied. But it also seems to me that this is about keeping kids minimally educated so that they will make better workers and not want too much for their lives. Rich kids will get the privileges, and kids without as much money available will get church.
Except that they won’t make better workers, they’ll make better servants. And it will give conservative religion one more handle on controlling society. Because without the assistance of the law and public policy, the weakness of the Christian message, the weakness of Christian theology, would be revealed to everyone. And nothing is more important than control of that religious message.
Honestly I think art in particular, but also music and PE, makes for better workers. Both in the "hard" sense of making their on-the-job products superior (for example, art -> data presentation), and in the "soft" sense that a worker with a happy home life and positive hobbies is more likely to work hard and not be a jerk to coworkers. The teacher with the weekend garage band is >> the lonely teacher with no friends and nothing to do off-hours but think about how much they hate work.
Mostly they're scared shitless that they're losing ground to secularity, and they're hoping that Trump and his pretend-Christianity will bring them back to the foreground.
What they've forgotten is that the Freedom From Religion Foundation is still out there, along with Americans United, American Atheists, the American Humanist Association...
Don't worry they're trying to pass a Gilead bill criminalizing miscarriage right now.
"A pair of reproductive-related bills have been filed in the Florida Legislature in advance of the 2026 legislative session that starts Jan. 13.
One proposal, filed by Vero Beach Republican Sen. Erin Grall, would let parents file wrongful-death lawsuits for the death of a fetus at any stage of development."
That's the idea. People who can't afford to travel hours to see a doctor, or can't afford to live near a medical facility don't deserve care. If they do, God will heal them. If they don't, too bad. And if they die, that's gravy. One less parasite on Christian Nationalist society.
The second bill in the link is intriguing. Filed by a Democrat to defund crisis pregnancy centers:
“ Skidmore argues that the program is no longer needed because of the state’s six-week abortion ban which, for the most part, bans terminations before many patients know they are pregnant.
“When we live in a state that has a six-week ban, how many crisis pregnancies do you think there are that we still need to fund $29.5 million for these centers?” Skidmore asked. “What crisis pregnancies are they helping with? There aren’t any, because there are no options for pregnant women. So, this is just false. All of it is false and a misuse of taxpayer dollars.”
Definitely not. If that swaggering, overbearing, tin-plated dictator with delusions of godhood got wind of that, he would jump up and down in his little white thug boots and rant-whine about it the live-long day.
Because he's an attention whore who doesn't know when to STFU and leave well enough alone.
If the xtian cult had any value or merit, they would not need to be groomers, trying to corrupt young minds lacking developed critical thinking skills, into accepting fairy tale nonsense and gibberish.
It would seem from the endless stream of child rape by christians that their cult ONLY exists to rape and abuse minors.
One that is the fatal to a polite society. Like any other drug, some can take it in moderation, a keep it to just personal use, some just ride it into grift city, and try to force it on the unwilling.
Anything, anything, anything to sabotage even the smallest effort to help people.
You don't need medicine to counteract overdoses; if you take drugs, you deserve to die. You don't need comprehensive sex ed; if you have sex, you deserve to die (especially if you enjoy it). You don't need affordable healthcare; if you deserved to live, you'd already be rich.
The in-group among the ruler class is all that matters. Everyone else is expendable, and they should fucking well be grateful we deigned to gaze upon them in their squalor! Here, have some religion and shut up about your problems; we don't want to hear it. There's money to be made, and your whining is annoying your betters.
The elite members of the Christian Nationalist moment have the same attitude that the medieval nobles had toward the peasantry. The elite members of the Christian Nationalists movement should remember that you can only oppress the peasantry so far. If the peasantry feel that they have nothing left to lose, the peasantry will lash out in violence to try to even the socioeconomic (I doubt the MAGA base could even pronounce the word, much less understand what it means) playing field.
The mother who said that children wouldn't be allowed to skip school to hike in the wood is partially wrong. The parents can always say they are dryads worshippers.
My kid would need to already be extremely well positioned for college entry before I did that.
Otherwise, analogous to "living well is the best revenge," here it's "taking a college-worthy elective (while you go to midweek Sunday School) is the best revenge."
An excellent strategy. I'm surprised it's held up. I could definitely see defending "every course needed to graduate" as core, but I suspect that if some fundie sued, that's about as much as the state could win. Once you get into courses where you graduate no matter whether you take them or not, it's hard to objectively justify them as "core."
Unfortunately not. The term for this is a "rider," and they are regularly employed by both political parties at both the state and federal legislatures, and have been since at least the 1800s. A good example of a Dem one occurred under Obama, when the Dems controlled both arms of Congress, so they added a completely unrelated student loan rider to the ACA health care bill. Another quite famous example (on the GOP side) is the Hyde Amendment, a no-abortion-funding rider which gets added to Defense Department budget bills every time the GOP gets control. What do student loans have to do with health care or state department outreach have to do with military budgets? Absolutely nothing. They are just using bills that so many legislators want to pass, to sneak in something that might not get passed on its own.
The strategy is also used by legislators if they want to prevent a bill from passing - if you can put in a rider that is so toxic nobody can stand it, maybe you prevent the majority from passing the overall bill. In these cases it's referred to as a 'poison pill amendment.'
True, both sides do use this strategy. However, it appears to be more common for the Republicans, and they are the only ones pushing explicitly religious nonsense this way.
It's generally done by the party in power, because AFAIK they tend to have better control over the amendment-adding process. So yeah it is going to be the case that it's more common for Republicans to do it in states like Ohio. Go to New York or California, the party most likely to employ riders is going to be the Dems.
It might be interesting to get an actual breakdown of the practice. Find out how many riders are attached to bills in every state legislature, how many pass, and which party proposes them compared to which party is in power. I don't have the time or the resources to do that, unfortunately.
I think my overall point is that this is very bog standard politics, and we shouldn't get irate when the opposing party uses it while being happy when our own does. Either get irate about the process as a systemic thing, or accept that it's just part of the legislative sausage-making.
And remember that the cure may be worse than the disease; if you want to restrict amendments based on relevancy, you have to give the 'amendment banhammer' power to someone. Who's that going to be? Majority lead of the legislature? Governor? Some appointed lawyer? That person could simply be partisan too, letting through anything they like and rejecting even the most relevant amendments by the opposition.
[Edit] I should add too that the current government shutdown is being caused over what is, essentially, a Dem demand for a rider. There is objectively no reason why a bill intended to fund government functions should include a change in the tax code to retain an expiring healthcare tax credit. They are utterly unrelated. Why are the Dems insisting on it? They think the GOP is lying when they say they'll consider it as a separate bill, so the Dems view attaching this unrelated but important health care rider to a critical federal budget bill as the only way they'll get it passed. Yeah, so speaking of 'sauce for the goose'...
Quite honestly, if it were up to me, the practice of adding riders would be entirely removed for both parties; I'm assuming there's something I haven't considered that makes it worthwhile but to me it's little more than underhanded political tactics.
I would also point out that there is a good chance the GOP is, in fact, lying when they say they'll consider fixing the current healthcare issues as a separate bill later. The current GOP seems to operate mostly by deceiving people, and this is the natural result of the distrust they've created. I'll admit that the Dems haven't exactly done a great job of supporting their base either, but the GOP hasn't proven itself trustworthy in recent years.
Once you get into courses where you graduate no matter whether you take them or not, it's hard to objectively justify them as "core."
The students need X number of credits to graduate. When I was in HS, you could earn enough credits to graduate a semester early, which my brother did. Today, that isn't possible.
Good point. Still, I can see the fundie lawyer arguing "my client is taking 6 courses. She needs 5 to graduate, but those are the core English, Math, Science, etc. courses anyway so we dont dispute they are core. What we argue is that the one remaining course is not core because it is neither specifically needed to graduate, nor are the credits for it needed to graduate."
As it always is, this is a tacit admission of just how weak the Christian message is that they feel driven to get to children before they've reached the age of reason. There is something very sick about a country that puts religious indoctrination ahead of actual education. This country is falling behind the rest of the developed world when it comes to public education, thanks to the religious right and their enablers holding public office.
Trump and company are doing their damnedest to destroy public education in the US. BLOTUS wants to see everyone as dumb as he is.
Asa he would say "SAD!"
The goal of the Republicans is to destroy all public institutions. Public education is at the top of the list.
Well educated kids with some instruction in critical thinking make poor prospects for adopting their 'deeply held religious beliefs'. Critical thinking is to them pure anathema. Can's have any of that. They will do whatever they can get away with to degrade public education to achieve their goal of a totally dumbed-down populace.
USA “Public education” … the Untidy States of America … insanity.
🐪🐪🐪💙💙 …🦘🦘🦘
Dennis Prager calls that "good indoctrination".
Well, he would, wouldn't he. Prager also has a indoctrination machine masquerading as a university, no genuine university would ever recognize credits from.
He's trying to get a program into public schools, and has succeeded in some states.
https://www.prageru.com/state-announcements
The "history" lessons are quite something.
Of course he is, he smells the money from the sheep.
Essentially trying to get the public schools to teach David Barton's version of history, which no genuine historian would have any part of.
🙄
Dennis Prager should go to hell * sooner rather than later.
* A place I don't believe in.
Once again, I ask: Who are the real groomers?
👆👆👆🎯
“ Last year, one district adopted a policy that said every course that gives out letter grades is now considered “core curriculum.””
I am a huge fan of malicious compliance. Kudos to this school district.
I am fairly sure that district is in Cleveland, Columbus, or Cincinnati. Those are the cities that went for Harris.
It is Berea, a West Side suburb of Cleveland. It was founded as a utopian community in 1836.
"𝐼𝑓 𝐼 𝑑𝑒𝑐𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑑 𝑚𝑦 𝑑𝑎𝑢𝑔ℎ𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑛𝑒𝑒𝑑𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑤𝑜 ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑠 𝑜𝑟 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑠𝑐ℎ𝑜𝑜𝑙 𝑒𝑎𝑐ℎ 𝑤𝑒𝑒𝑘 𝑡𝑜 ℎ𝑖𝑘𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑤𝑜𝑜𝑑𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑛𝑒𝑐𝑡 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑠𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑙𝑎𝑟𝑔𝑒𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑛 ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑒𝑙𝑓, 𝑤𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑏𝑙𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡? 𝐼𝑓 𝑎𝑛𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑓𝑎𝑚𝑖𝑙𝑦 𝑤𝑎𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑝𝑢𝑙𝑙 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑖𝑟 𝑐ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑑 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑚𝑒𝑑𝑖𝑡𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑜𝑟 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑚𝑢𝑛𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑠𝑒𝑟𝑣𝑖𝑐𝑒, 𝑤𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑 𝑙𝑎𝑤𝑚𝑎𝑘𝑒𝑟𝑠 𝑟𝑢𝑠ℎ 𝑡𝑜 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑡𝑒𝑐𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑖𝑟 𝑟𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑡𝑜 𝑑𝑜 𝑠𝑜? 𝑂𝑓 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑠𝑒 𝑛𝑜𝑡. 𝑂𝑛𝑙𝑦 𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑔𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑛𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑝𝑟𝑖𝑣𝑖𝑙𝑒𝑔𝑒—𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡, 𝐿𝑖𝑓𝑒𝑊𝑖𝑠𝑒 𝑖𝑠 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑓𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝑖𝑡."
Indoctrination and profit. That's all the NSGOP wants. Even the few non-religious among them want this. Profit and indoctrination. The two tho is they need to satisfy their lust for power and their raw, naked greed. Why does the indoctrination take the form of conservative Christianity?
𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑦’𝑟𝑒 𝑠𝑜 𝑏𝑒ℎ𝑜𝑙𝑑𝑒𝑛 𝑡𝑜 𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑔𝑖𝑜𝑢𝑠 𝑒𝑥𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑚𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑦’𝑙𝑙 𝑠𝑚𝑢𝑔𝑔𝑙𝑒 𝑎𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑠 𝑙𝑖𝑘𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑜 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑜𝑠𝑡 𝑣𝑖𝑡𝑎𝑙, 𝑏𝑖𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑖𝑠𝑎𝑛 𝑙𝑒𝑔𝑖𝑠𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛.
This is why. Their power base is only those religious extremists. It makes them resort to cheating to get their way. And with Christian Fucking Privilege being what it is in this country, even some of those who should be opposed are blind to the consequences.
If only there were a Narcan for religion.
I found a Narcan for religion, though it might not work for everybody, it worked for me. It is called "The Friendly Atheist"
Ahem 🤣
Your last line! It is *chef's kiss!"
Gee whiz, this Narcan bill is so good, let's hang something COMPLETELY UNRELATED onto it! That's what that rider on House Bill 57 amounts to: yet more religious bullshit that Republicans attached for no other reason than because they could.
And here I am, longing for the days when Dick Celeste was governor. Bloody hell.
That's how the religious right rolls. They look for every opening to force their religion into the public schools.
Like the Spiritual rapists they are.
Dick Celeste. That’s a name from the past.
It sure is ... from back when Ohio was more purple than red.
Religious programs have the freedom to offer these services anytime, nights or weekends or school inservice/holidays, and yet they intentionally choose to offer them in the middle of the day when the children are required to attend schools. This right here proves that the religious programs do not value education and are intentionally trying to interfere with it. This also leads one to think that the legislators writing laws to insert these opportunities into school have the same motivations.
LifeWise should not have programming scheduled during school days. Full stop. The local sports club has teams and coaching and lessons, their school day offerings are designed only for preschoolers and the school aged programming is scheduled around the public school schedules. This is how you market to school aged children. They’re not trying to remove children from their education.
It is par for the course for republicans to leach onto useful legislation to pass unwanted laws. This is why line-item vetoes became a thing and were so controversial. Let’s stop the pork already.
Your example of sports clubs introduces what I think is a related factor. Lifeway doesn’t want to compete against sports in the after school time slots. They know sports is more important to kids than religion.
That may well be a factor, but LifeWise has other clear motivations that seem to be focused on interfering in school. Schools are a requirement legally, it makes no sense to try to compete with that over competing with sportsball. One may be more desirable, but the other is not optional.
I agree that competing with sports is a factor.
AFAIK line-item vetoes have never become a thing. At least not at the federal level, I have no idea about Ohio.
And you really shouldn't want that anyway. Ohio's governor is Mike DeWine, a Republican. If you gave him a line-item veto he might happily retain this bit of religion-promotion while lining out the Narcan availability.
When crafting your governmental authority, never assume the 'good king' scenario. You're better off assuming a 'bad king' scenario and limiting government authority to fit.
DeNazi uses his line-item veto to punish people, even those in his own party.
As I recall, Ohio Republicans tried to stop a statewide referendum on abortion rights and when they didn’t like the outcome, tried to undermine it. May have been an amendment to the state constitution. They really aren’t interested in playing by the rules, are they?
CHRISTIAN MANTRA: "Rules for thee, not for me."
They haven't properly fulfilled the vote either they keep trying to trick voters into restoring their ban, same as Missouri.
“And it sends an unintended message about what matters in a school day—that electives like art, music and physical education are expendable, the periods worth skipping, when they’re often the classes that keep students most engaged in school and well-rounded in life.”
Thank you! These classes are often dismissed as unimportant because they aren’t the three Rs. But they are imperative in actually educating children. How do we first begin to teach the three Rs? Through pictures. How can we get children to be able to write? Allow them to draw. What allows children to understand basic math concepts? Imagery. Art is an integral part of learning all three important subjects. Music is practically just math, through sound, it also is important to critical thinking as it teaches pattern recognition, same as art. Art, music and physical education all teach concepts that scaffold problem solving, critical thinking, interpersonal skills, communication, and all kinds of well rounded skills. Students might not be interested in these subjects for their future careers, or even advanced study, but exposing them to these subjects gives them tools to succeed in the three Rs, and in being good employees and neighbors.
These subjects have benefits that religion can’t possibly replicate. So taking children away from them to push your religion is detrimental to all of society.
The idea that these subjects also motivate students in school is palpable. Removing children from the school obviously messes up any motivation to engage. Just being away from the building is clear. But also, as mentioned in the article, it messes up the rhythms of learning for everyone, which mentally removes students from engagement.
In short, those religious classes are a DISTRACTION (and an unwarranted one at that) ... which the kids absolutely do not need.
To be fair, PE 𝘪𝘴 pretty skippable. I can't recall a single thing I learned in PE that I've ever had a use for in 20 years, and I can't imagine that ever changing. It was all how to play sportsball (insert flavor here) and once a year having to do X number of Y to meet an arbitrary one-size-meets-all fitness standard. Not once in 13 years of it was I ever taught, for example, any useful daily workout routines to stay in shape with, or anything else that might've actually been worth an hour of my day. As currently taught, it's a waste of students' time unless they're into sports, because it boils down to a "how to be an athlete" class, and not practical instruction for one's day-to-day life.
That's not to say it isn't possible to come up with a good curriculum for a PE class, of course- health and fitness 𝘢𝘳𝘦 important- just that, in 13 years, I never experienced one, even when the teachers 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘯'𝘵 overbearing sportsball coaches who thought that their preferred shape and size of rubber toy was the greatest thing since the invention of toilet paper. Which is far more a condemnation of yet another aspect of our shitty education system than it is of PE as a 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘤𝘦𝘱𝘵.
Plus, locker rooms are the Seventh Circle of Dante's Hell, and I think I 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 actually have chosen going to church over having to ever visit one again, had it been an option, as long as I got to pick the church (one of the quieter ones, perhaps, where I could get a decent nap in).
My kid just finished first HS PE credit this last summer. He got CPR training (thumbs up) basic nutrition information (thumbs down, too simple), had to design his own daily exercise routine (meh), and then a required project where they research the exercise they chose and talk to the class about what muscles and cardio it involves, where it helps, how to do it right, etc. (meh bordering on thumbs up).
Overall, I was not super impressed. But not a complete waste of time. CPR, always good. Daily exercise of your choice, good. The idea of making the kids do a research project where they have to describe to the class how to do their exercise correctly and what it actually exercises was an interesting idea. The main problem is that it was done at the end of the class after they'd already been exercising for weeks, rather than at the beginning when they could've used what they learned to exercise more correctly.
I don’t have too much on this. Yes absolutely it’s about giving religion privilege that any other activity would be denied. But it also seems to me that this is about keeping kids minimally educated so that they will make better workers and not want too much for their lives. Rich kids will get the privileges, and kids without as much money available will get church.
Except that they won’t make better workers, they’ll make better servants. And it will give conservative religion one more handle on controlling society. Because without the assistance of the law and public policy, the weakness of the Christian message, the weakness of Christian theology, would be revealed to everyone. And nothing is more important than control of that religious message.
Honestly I think art in particular, but also music and PE, makes for better workers. Both in the "hard" sense of making their on-the-job products superior (for example, art -> data presentation), and in the "soft" sense that a worker with a happy home life and positive hobbies is more likely to work hard and not be a jerk to coworkers. The teacher with the weekend garage band is >> the lonely teacher with no friends and nothing to do off-hours but think about how much they hate work.
That’s because we are hopeless liberals that believe in knowledge, art, and culture..
Gee. The Christian schools that I went to growing up only had us waste an hour in chapel once a week.
Fundies today don't really seem to have the faith that past generations of fundies had, do they?
Mostly they're scared shitless that they're losing ground to secularity, and they're hoping that Trump and his pretend-Christianity will bring them back to the foreground.
What they've forgotten is that the Freedom From Religion Foundation is still out there, along with Americans United, American Atheists, the American Humanist Association...
Until this regime declares the Freedom From religion, America Atheists, etc, as a terrorist sponsored groups out to destroy America.
Trump COULD, sure ... and they'll fight that, too. I know the FFRF well enough to know that there's no quit in them.
That is good to hear, we need groups like FFRF more now than ever!
OMG! Finally a stupid thing that Florida didn't do first! *Fist bumps self* shhhhh don't tell Desantis...
Don't worry they're trying to pass a Gilead bill criminalizing miscarriage right now.
"A pair of reproductive-related bills have been filed in the Florida Legislature in advance of the 2026 legislative session that starts Jan. 13.
One proposal, filed by Vero Beach Republican Sen. Erin Grall, would let parents file wrongful-death lawsuits for the death of a fetus at any stage of development."
https://thebradentontimes.com/stories/wrongful-death-for-fetuses-elimination-of-pregnancy-crisis-centers-on-tap-for-2026-session,165473?newsletter=165476
texass "we have the greatest numbers of maternal and fetal deaths in the US". florihell "hold my beer".
A good way to drive obstetricians out of the state. If it passes, I can see health care providers not wanting to treat pregnant women at all.
That's the idea. People who can't afford to travel hours to see a doctor, or can't afford to live near a medical facility don't deserve care. If they do, God will heal them. If they don't, too bad. And if they die, that's gravy. One less parasite on Christian Nationalist society.
The second bill in the link is intriguing. Filed by a Democrat to defund crisis pregnancy centers:
“ Skidmore argues that the program is no longer needed because of the state’s six-week abortion ban which, for the most part, bans terminations before many patients know they are pregnant.
“When we live in a state that has a six-week ban, how many crisis pregnancies do you think there are that we still need to fund $29.5 million for these centers?” Skidmore asked. “What crisis pregnancies are they helping with? There aren’t any, because there are no options for pregnant women. So, this is just false. All of it is false and a misuse of taxpayer dollars.”
“… the death of a fetus at any stage of development.”
Except “fetus” describes certain stages of development and not others. An embryo is not a fetus, etc.
Definitely not. If that swaggering, overbearing, tin-plated dictator with delusions of godhood got wind of that, he would jump up and down in his little white thug boots and rant-whine about it the live-long day.
Because he's an attention whore who doesn't know when to STFU and leave well enough alone.
https://www.releasedtime.org/florida
If the xtian cult had any value or merit, they would not need to be groomers, trying to corrupt young minds lacking developed critical thinking skills, into accepting fairy tale nonsense and gibberish.
It would seem from the endless stream of child rape by christians that their cult ONLY exists to rape and abuse minors.
https://ibb.co/rGdJqTQM
The real groomers are at it once again. Not a single drag queen in their ranks.
Religion is a helluva drug.
One that is the fatal to a polite society. Like any other drug, some can take it in moderation, a keep it to just personal use, some just ride it into grift city, and try to force it on the unwilling.
Anything, anything, anything to sabotage even the smallest effort to help people.
You don't need medicine to counteract overdoses; if you take drugs, you deserve to die. You don't need comprehensive sex ed; if you have sex, you deserve to die (especially if you enjoy it). You don't need affordable healthcare; if you deserved to live, you'd already be rich.
The in-group among the ruler class is all that matters. Everyone else is expendable, and they should fucking well be grateful we deigned to gaze upon them in their squalor! Here, have some religion and shut up about your problems; we don't want to hear it. There's money to be made, and your whining is annoying your betters.
The elite members of the Christian Nationalist moment have the same attitude that the medieval nobles had toward the peasantry. The elite members of the Christian Nationalists movement should remember that you can only oppress the peasantry so far. If the peasantry feel that they have nothing left to lose, the peasantry will lash out in violence to try to even the socioeconomic (I doubt the MAGA base could even pronounce the word, much less understand what it means) playing field.
Guillotine instructions are likely available online.
Worked out SO WELL for them in France /s
That was exactly what I was thinking when I wrote that!
Parents should begin having their kids leave school to practice yoga, meditation, wiccan classes, etc.
The mother who said that children wouldn't be allowed to skip school to hike in the wood is partially wrong. The parents can always say they are dryads worshippers.
They would find a way to say that doesn't count. Probably by claiming the organization needs to have facilities and a 501(c)(3) designation.
“My religion holds that organized rituals are evil. How dare you tell me how to practice my religion.”
If I were a parent I would do this and let the school district or state challenge it in court.
My kid would need to already be extremely well positioned for college entry before I did that.
Otherwise, analogous to "living well is the best revenge," here it's "taking a college-worthy elective (while you go to midweek Sunday School) is the best revenge."
𝐿𝑎𝑠𝑡 𝑦𝑒𝑎𝑟, 𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑑𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑡 𝑎𝑑𝑜𝑝𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑎 𝑝𝑜𝑙𝑖𝑐𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑠𝑎𝑖𝑑 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑠𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑔𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑠 𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑙𝑒𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑔𝑟𝑎𝑑𝑒𝑠 𝑖𝑠 𝑛𝑜𝑤 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑑 “𝑐𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑐𝑢𝑟𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑢𝑙𝑢𝑚.”
An excellent strategy. I'm surprised it's held up. I could definitely see defending "every course needed to graduate" as core, but I suspect that if some fundie sued, that's about as much as the state could win. Once you get into courses where you graduate no matter whether you take them or not, it's hard to objectively justify them as "core."
𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑓𝑎𝑐𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑟𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑔𝑖𝑜𝑢𝑠 𝑔𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑎𝑤𝑎𝑦 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑠ℎ𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑑 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑜 𝑎 𝑏𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑚𝑒𝑎𝑛𝑡 𝑡𝑜 𝑠𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑙𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑠 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑁𝑎𝑟𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑖𝑠 𝑠𝑦𝑚𝑏𝑜𝑙𝑖𝑐 𝑜𝑓 ℎ𝑜𝑤 𝑅𝑒𝑝𝑢𝑏𝑙𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑛𝑠 𝑛𝑜𝑤 𝑜𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑒.
Unfortunately not. The term for this is a "rider," and they are regularly employed by both political parties at both the state and federal legislatures, and have been since at least the 1800s. A good example of a Dem one occurred under Obama, when the Dems controlled both arms of Congress, so they added a completely unrelated student loan rider to the ACA health care bill. Another quite famous example (on the GOP side) is the Hyde Amendment, a no-abortion-funding rider which gets added to Defense Department budget bills every time the GOP gets control. What do student loans have to do with health care or state department outreach have to do with military budgets? Absolutely nothing. They are just using bills that so many legislators want to pass, to sneak in something that might not get passed on its own.
The strategy is also used by legislators if they want to prevent a bill from passing - if you can put in a rider that is so toxic nobody can stand it, maybe you prevent the majority from passing the overall bill. In these cases it's referred to as a 'poison pill amendment.'
True, both sides do use this strategy. However, it appears to be more common for the Republicans, and they are the only ones pushing explicitly religious nonsense this way.
It's generally done by the party in power, because AFAIK they tend to have better control over the amendment-adding process. So yeah it is going to be the case that it's more common for Republicans to do it in states like Ohio. Go to New York or California, the party most likely to employ riders is going to be the Dems.
It might be interesting to get an actual breakdown of the practice. Find out how many riders are attached to bills in every state legislature, how many pass, and which party proposes them compared to which party is in power. I don't have the time or the resources to do that, unfortunately.
I think my overall point is that this is very bog standard politics, and we shouldn't get irate when the opposing party uses it while being happy when our own does. Either get irate about the process as a systemic thing, or accept that it's just part of the legislative sausage-making.
And remember that the cure may be worse than the disease; if you want to restrict amendments based on relevancy, you have to give the 'amendment banhammer' power to someone. Who's that going to be? Majority lead of the legislature? Governor? Some appointed lawyer? That person could simply be partisan too, letting through anything they like and rejecting even the most relevant amendments by the opposition.
[Edit] I should add too that the current government shutdown is being caused over what is, essentially, a Dem demand for a rider. There is objectively no reason why a bill intended to fund government functions should include a change in the tax code to retain an expiring healthcare tax credit. They are utterly unrelated. Why are the Dems insisting on it? They think the GOP is lying when they say they'll consider it as a separate bill, so the Dems view attaching this unrelated but important health care rider to a critical federal budget bill as the only way they'll get it passed. Yeah, so speaking of 'sauce for the goose'...
Quite honestly, if it were up to me, the practice of adding riders would be entirely removed for both parties; I'm assuming there's something I haven't considered that makes it worthwhile but to me it's little more than underhanded political tactics.
I would also point out that there is a good chance the GOP is, in fact, lying when they say they'll consider fixing the current healthcare issues as a separate bill later. The current GOP seems to operate mostly by deceiving people, and this is the natural result of the distrust they've created. I'll admit that the Dems haven't exactly done a great job of supporting their base either, but the GOP hasn't proven itself trustworthy in recent years.
Dems are definitely the lessor of two evils. It seems to be our fate to suffer the evil of two lessors.
Once you get into courses where you graduate no matter whether you take them or not, it's hard to objectively justify them as "core."
The students need X number of credits to graduate. When I was in HS, you could earn enough credits to graduate a semester early, which my brother did. Today, that isn't possible.
Good point. Still, I can see the fundie lawyer arguing "my client is taking 6 courses. She needs 5 to graduate, but those are the core English, Math, Science, etc. courses anyway so we dont dispute they are core. What we argue is that the one remaining course is not core because it is neither specifically needed to graduate, nor are the credits for it needed to graduate."