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ttt1246-nov_12-mediaelectionpost-mortem.mp3

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This week, it’s the community-based media’s turn to react to the billions spent in campaign bucks and in PAC money, freed from all constraints by Citizens United, which was merely the crown on top of a series of rulings removing limits on how much campaigns and outside groups could raise and spend on electing people to office – not to mention the millions thrown into the ring on behalf of the now-failed amendment proposals to the Minnesota state constitution.

The presidential campaign and those amendments really sucked most of the air out of the room – so much so that, yet again this year, as in 2010, the all-important legislative majority switched parties – from Republican to DFL control. And again, the surprise was the Minnesota House of Representatives, which now sports a 12-vote majority of DFLers headed by newly elected Speaker of the House Paul Thissen and Majority Leader Erin Murphy (my rep).

The Senate was less a surprise, since those with political ears to the ground were predicting a majority turnover there. Sure as hell – it came – and for the first time in 20-odd years, DFLers are driving all three governing entities – both houses and the Governor’s office.

Some attention was given to the heavy races in the 6^th and 8^th Congressional Districts, but the other incumbents generally sailed through and were ignored. We do that. We pay little attention to races with token or no opposition, many of the local races and a ballot question or two, and almost none of the judicial races, including the state Supreme Court, and certainly the most invisible of all – Watershed District Commissioners. What’s that? Watershed District what?

What about the St. Paul Schools Levy Referendum? It passed, 2 to 1, even though voters could have confused it with yet another Amendment and voted NO.

We try to get a handle on all this and examine the entire commercial nature of political campaigns and why this commerciality represents a conflict of interest for media who cover those campaigns with one penciled hand while taking the massive campaign dollars with the other. What happened in this country to turn campaigns for public office into just another advertising scheme for used cars and detergent?

TTT’s ANDY DRISCOLL and MICHELLE ALIMORADI toss these questions and more to a panel of local and community-based media outlets rarely heard from in the campaign cacophony consuming our airwaves and the printed page for over two years running.

GUESTS:

 BETH HAWKINS – Reporter, MinnPost.com, covering primarily the Constitutional Amendments and Education this year

 MARY TURCK – Editor, Twin Cities Daily Planet

 CHARLES HALLMAN – Reporter, Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder

 PAUL DEMKO – Reporter, Dolan Media Company (Politics in Minnesota and the Legal Ledger, etc.)

 MILA KOUMPILOVA – Education Writer, St. Paul Pioneer Press

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ttt1226-june_25-religioninschools.mp3

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Time was – back in the 1950s – those of us from Catholic grade schools who found ourselves attending public high schools – in my case Central High School from St. Luke’s Parish (now St. Thomas More) in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis – religious education was continued by way of what were called “Release” classes. Every Wednesday afternoon, the agreement between the schools and the church allowed Catholic students to be “released” from their class(es) early to walk a few blocks to a Catholic Church (in our case, St. Peter Claver – where the “Black Catholics” go. Still do, but very mixed now), sit around talking some catechism and all that for an hour, then woke up and went home. Probably between ten and twelve showed up each week.

This went on for the first year, perhaps another half-year before I gave up on that nonsense.

Meanwhile, in place of the discredited high school fraternity/sorority system that prevailed in Minnesota until thrown out in the early 50s under a somewhat scandalous shadow, came the Hi-Y (boys) and Y-Teens (girls) clubs established under the rubric of the YMCA and YWCA, respectively. About five to seven clubs for each gender and themselves taking on Greek names (Kappa Hi-Y was the one I joined). Of course, we Catholics were theoretically forbidden to belong to one of these because the Y’s are “Christian” – meaning Protestant (horrors!). The Catholic answer to all this were the CYC’s – Catholic Youth Centers – all put together to keep us Catholic and away from all the others. Our school was St. Paul’s true melting pot. About 80% of the city’s Jewish kids attended Central (you’d know many names) and they had their own groups. The boys belonged to AZA, the girls – B’nai B’rith.

All this to say that religion and religion youth groups have forever been part of a teen’s life in Minnesota’s public schools. But, those organizations, while well-attended and active, were off-campus, and, as far as I know, the elementary schools were out of bounds altogether. No religious group claimed the right to use public school resources or spaces for their religious or social activities. Meetings, classes, social events and dances, etc., were all staged elsewhere and the classrooms were free of such intrusion.

The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life has tracked most of this record of court cases and disputes between churches and state institutions. One of their surveys may shock you:

“Federal courts, …civil libertarians point out, have consistently interpreted the First Amendment's prohibition on the establishment of religion to forbid state sponsorship of prayer and most other religious activities in public schools.

“Despite that long series of court decisions, polls show that large numbers of Americans favor looser, not tighter, limits on religion in public schools. According to an August 2006 survey by the Pew Research Center, more than two-thirds of Americans (69%) agree with the notion that ‘liberals have gone too far in trying to keep religion out of the schools and the government.’ And a clear majority (58%) favor teaching biblical creationism along with evolution in public schools.”

This is shocking news, running counter to Supreme Court rulings dating to 1940 that were clearly designed to separate public schools from intrusive religious credos. Until 2001, when, in a 6-3 decision (Child Evangelism Fellowship [CEF] vs. Milford (NY) Central School), the US Supreme Court threw out a district policy forbidding the use of school property for religious purposes, effectively freezing out CEF from establishing its “Good News Clubs” there. Such a ban violated freedom to promote a viewpoint, said the majority. Outside groups could be banned, but not based on their views. The dissenters rabidly stated that the CEF was using Good News Clubs to proselytize, but the majority said that doesn’t matter. A Minnesota case is pending in the Federal Court of Appeals.

Much of this would no doubt be buried in the arcane business of local school governance and the courts were it not for 1) a series of articles by MinnPost.com’s Education Reporter and Columnist, Beth Hawkins, and 2) a new book by investigative reporter Katherine Stewart, The Good News Club: The Christian Right’s Stealth Assault on America’s Children. The latter will be in town to appear and sign books and talk about this phenomenon under the auspices of Americans United (for Separation of Church and State). All of this in advance of a Child Evangelism Fellowship strategy conference to be held here in MInneapolis in July.

TTT’s ANDY DRISCOLL and MICHELLE ALIMORADI will talk with the reporters/authors and an AU representative about the legal history, the political climate and the future of the precedents in the arena of religion on the public schools.

GUESTS:

 KATHERINE STEWART  - Free-lance Investigative Reporter (The New York Times, The Guardian, theDaily Beast, Bloomberg View, and Religion Dispatches); Author, The Good News Club: The Christian Right’s Stealth Assault on America’s Children.

 BETH HAWKINS – Education/Public Policy Reporter/Columnist and Blogger (Learning Curve), MinnPost.com

 DEREK BIRKELAND – Board Member/Treasurer, Americans United (for Separation of Church and State) – Minnesota

Katherine Stewart presentations and book-signings:

MONDAY, JUNE 25, 7:30 P.M. – MAGERS & QUINN BOOKSELLERS
 - 3038 Hennepin Ave.  Minneapolis

TUESDAY, JUNE 26, 7:00 P.M.
– COMMON GOOD BOOKS
 - 38 Snelling Ave. S.
– Saint Paul