Below is my class picture from 1981. As you can see, it was a diverse bunch.
I can’t say with any precision at this late date, but I estimate that the “white” portion of this class was about half Jewish, the rest Catholic, and at most there were two Protestants besides me. Of course, at the time, I was not even a tiny bit aware of this. People’s faith traditions were not something that even entered my mind, mainly because no one ever bothered to talk about them or treat people differently because of them. At the time of this photograph, I was dating the girl in the center of the photograph, who was Italian-American (Catholic), and not once in our whole relationship did anyone, including us or our parents, ever mention that we didn’t share the same religion. But, of course, we didn’t.
For me, this was my school, my home town, what I considered to be “America.” I had to leave to discover that much of the rest of my state and country didn’t think anything like the way that we thought. I’m not going to suggest that we were some kind of superior lot. For one thing, we were horrible snobs who looked down on other communities that had less exalted interests. But one thing we had right was the idea that America is a place for everyone, and that what mattered wasn’t the color of your skin or the religion of your parents, but how you acted and treated others.
Where I live now in Pennsylvania the classrooms are beginning to look even more diverse than this, even though they were close to 100% white in 1981. One big difference is there are a lot more kids whose parents don’t use any version of the Bible as a Holy Text. But even for my 1981 class, the idea that the Bible should be the “official” book of New Jersey would have seemed presumptuous and unconstitutional. There’s simply no sense in which I can relate to what the Tennessee House of Representatives just did in voting to make the Bible the official book of their state.
To be fair to the Republicans down there who are primarily responsible for this bill, there is some very strong resistance from the leadership. House Speaker Beth Harrell voted against the measure, as did Senate Majority Leader Mark Norris (in committee) who says he hopes it does not pass in his chamber.
“I sure hope it won’t pass. I think it’ll be a dark day for Tennessee if it does,” Norris said.
“All I know is that I hear Satan snickering. He loves this kind of mischief. You just dumb the good book down far enough to make it whatever it takes to make it a state symbol, and you’re on your way to where he wants you.”
Someone needs to translate that from the Tennessean for me, but I get that he doesn’t think the exercise is a good idea. Also, the Governor and Lieutenant Governor have both expressed concerns about the bill, intimating that a veto could be forthcoming. The governor’s spokesman said, “The governor doesn’t think it’s very respectful of what the Bible is.” And the Attorney General is totally opposed it the bill.
The bill would violate both the U.S. Constitution and Tennessee’s state constitution, Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery III said.
“I am quite confident that the Bible’s distinguished place in history will not be diminished in the absence of a state’s endorsement,” Slatery said in a statement.
He said Tennessee’s constitution states that “no preference shall ever be given, by law, to any religious establishment or mode of worship.”
But none of this changes the fact that the Tennessee House of Representatives passed the bill by a 55-38 margin, with at least one proponent using the occasion to savage the state’s chapter of the ACLU and their Jewish Executive Director, Hedy Weinberg.
I hear a lot from conservative Christians that I and my type don’t respect their traditions and culture, but just look at my class from 1981. How much are these folks respecting our traditions and culture?
The answer is that they are not respecting them at all. This kind of bellicose religious particularism would have been out of place where I grew up even 34 years ago. It is so much more inappropriate in contemporary America, which is increasingly making my 1981 classroom look monochromatic and insular.
Put another way, who’s violating the “Don’t Tread on Me” ethos here?
