The Religious Lifestyle
Via Misty at Shakespeare's Sister, I've read the interesting news that the University of California is denying credit for some courses taught at a "Christian" High School. Skipping entirely over whatever merits there may be to the suit brought by the high school — for my money they're a bunch of cry-baby fundamentalists — I was interested by this bit of the story:
The civil rights lawsuit filed by Calvary Chapel ["Christian" School] alleges that the 10-campus University of California is trampling the freedom of "a religious school to be religious." UC rejected the content of courses such as "Christianity's Influence in American History" and "Christianity and Morality in American Literature."
In court documents, UC says the free-speech clause of the First Amendment gives it the right to set admission standards. "What we're looking for is this: Is the course academic in nature, or is it there to promote a specific religious lifestyle?" UC spokeswoman Ravi Poorsina says.
Maybe it's only because I'm gay, hence living an alternative "lifestyle", but I'm quite interested to see that this school may be promoting a "religious lifestyle". Tsk, tsk. I think we should follow the lead of the forward looking UC and henceforth always refer to fundamentalists as having succumbed to the "religious lifestyle".
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I welcome comments -- even dissent -- but I will delete without notice irrelevant, rude, psychotic, or incomprehensible comments, particularly those that I deem homophobic, unless they are amusing. The same goes for commercial comments and trackbacks. Sorry, but it's my blog and my decisions are final.
on Saturday, 14 January 2006 at 13.21
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I thought I would agree wholeheartedly with the UC decision; but when I saw the titles of the specific courses it rejected, I paused. It seems to me that courses on "Christian influence on American history" and "Christianity and morality in American literature" are legitimate topics, though I'm sure that the approach taken by the Calvary Chapel school would not be one that I would want to take. To ingnore the role that Christianity has played in the history of western Europe and its "new world" offspring seriously distorts that history (imagine a history of Saudi Arabia that completely omitted any reference to Mohammed or Islam, for instance — or a social history of America in the second half of the twentieth century that omitted any reference to "gay liberation" for that matter).
While the subjects of these courses are, it seems to me, legitimate areas of study, they don't look to me like high-school courses — more like optional courses in university history or literature curricula.
Still, I really like the "religious lifestyle" idea. But, unlike being gay, it really IS a choice!
on Saturday, 14 January 2006 at 13.26
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Having sent that, I re-read the UC statement, and see that they were not rejecting the subjects, but specifically the CONTENT of the courses because it was deemed not to be academic in nature but rather religious propaganda.