Jul. 10, 2014 @ 12:00 AM
The United States’ greatest enemy may very well be “an enemy from within” — the progressive movement.
This is the first of a series of columns intended to define and expose the tactics I believe progressive visionaries plan to employ in the U.S. over the next several years.
One must first understand the idiopathic process of the progressive movement is literally revealed in the name. Through a progressive, resolute methodology of challenging the status quo, liberals doggedly advance the standards from right to left. They understand that rooted mindsets will not change overnight, but through a gradual desensitization to liberal theology, they can create an ideology more befitting a “new age” of Americans.
Progressives often leverage the liberal factions of our judicial system and the classroom in their quest for fundamental change. Over the next several weeks I plan to deal with the evolving strategies we’re witnessing in the United States and how to recognize and avert them.
Abe Lincoln was quoted as saying, “The philosophy of the classroom today will be the philosophy of government tomorrow.” In my youth, religion was a welcome part of the classroom. Saying the Lord’s Prayer and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance was simply part of our daily morning routine. Most of my teachers even had a Bible on their desk, and why not? It was the accepted foundation for all we knew and loved about America. And nearly every classroom wall displayed the Ten Commandments.
Scripture was something we reverenced and referenced nearly every day.
Then in 1962 the Supreme Court ruled that official prayer had no place in the public school system. While many blame Madalyn Murray O’Hair, an outspoken atheist of the time, her role was minimal.
The decision resulted from the case of Engel v. Vitale in which parents challenged a prayer written by a New York education board. These multi-denominational parents did not want their children subjected to state-sponsored devotions which the high court equated to the government “respecting an establishment of religion.”
The relatively benign invocation in question read, “Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our Country.” Still, parents were adamant that it shouldn’t be uttered in the public sphere.
In the following year, 1963, the Supreme Court handed down another important ruling dealing with prayer in public schools. In Abington Township School District v. Schempp, the court declared school-sponsored Bible reading and recitation of the Lord’s Prayer unconstitutional. And in 1980, the Ten Commandments were eventually removed from the classroom.
It’s been 50 years since the Supreme Court first ruled that official prayer in public schools is unconstitutional. The landmark decision has given liberals the opportunity to debase Christianity and begin progressively removing God from the classroom where it would instill conservative values in young minds.
Since then, this liberal “progression” has marred the path for our nation’s youth and indeed unconstitutionally “impeded” the “free exercise of religion” in America.
Removing God from the classroom was integral to the progressive agenda.
Mark Caserta is a conservative blogger, a Cabell County resident and a regular contributor to The Herald-Dispatch editorial page.
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