Keep Church out of Public Schools

Religious Education Belongs in Church

Vote to Keep Church and State Separate

It always amazes me when we have to fight the same fights over and over again.

Our middle daughter attended West Bend West High School in the early 1980s. While she was a student there, a number of West Bend evangelical Christian pastors petitioned the school board to add “scientific” creationism to the high school curriculum. The board held a meeting to discuss the proposal. Anticipating a large turn out and a heated debate, the meeting was held in the old Badger gym.

Over 200 people attended that meeting, including representatives from the American Civil Liberties Union and professors of education and anthropology from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Over 50 people registered to speak at the meeting. Not one of the pastors who had signed the original petition spoke in support of their proposal. Most of those who spoke opposed the idea of bringing religion into the public school curriculum, including several Christian pastors who opined that religious teaching belonged in church schools, not public ones. I gave the board a copy of a recent federal court decision awarding significant monetary damages and attorney fees to parents whose children had been exposed to the kind of curriculum proposed here. In the end, the board voted by a slim majority to send the matter back to the board’s curriculum committee for further study where the proposal later died.

In the early 1990s, our youngest daughter was a student in the district schools. A group from the community brought up a proposal to add “intelligent design” origin theories into the science curriculum. All of the courts that had heard “intelligent design” cases up to that point ruled that it was just another name for the same creation theory the “scientific” creation cases barred from public schools in the past. Thankfully, the school board rejected this proposal, recognizing that the laws creating the wall between religious teaching and public education would expose the district to unnecessary litigation and expense.

Fast forward to this past Monday. The same basic fundamentalist Christian arguments reared up once again in board member Monte Schmiege’s comments during the discussion surrounding adoption of new science education standards for the district’s schools. Board member Joel Ongert correctly noted that Schmiege’s concerns were more properly applied to Sunday school classrooms than pubic school ones.

Schmiege noted that some scientific theories are based upon assumptions that can and, in some cases, should be examined and challenged if insufficiently supported. That idea does not open the door to challenges to assumptions underlying scientific theories based upon religious beliefs. If you want to challenge theoretical scientific assumptions, develop an alternative hypothesis, test it, test it again and report the factual findings that support your challenge to the assumption. Relying on ancient texts in dead languages translated to satisfy a 17th century church hierarchy has no part in a scientific discussion. In other words, everyone is entitled to their own beliefs, but not their own facts based upon those beliefs.

Schmiege’s comments exposed what has been evident in some of his public writings. In one, he opposes public education, is a strong proponent of allowing religious education in public schools and does not subscribe to the constitutional principles mandating separation of church and state.

Schmeige’s comments on Monday were supported by school board candidate Mary Weigand. Weigand also has a history of attempting to force her fundamentalist Christian views upon the community. About ten years ago, Weigand joined Ginny Maziarka in leading the fight attempting to ban certain books from the West Bend Community Library because the books’ same sex themes were offensive to their homophobic religious beliefs. Their challenges were ultimately unsuccessful when the library board voted unanimously to leave the books on the library shelves.

Weigand has for years promoted her beliefs that the earth is only 6,000 years old after being created as told in the biblical book of Genesis.  She created a booth setting forth her beliefs that man walked the earth with the dinosaurs after the creation and took it to county fairs around Wisconsin. Weigand has further taken her anti-science stances into our schools when she promoted abstinence only sex education in the face of established studies showing it to be ineffective in preventing teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

Monte Schmeige and Mary Weigand are running for seats on the West Bend School Board in the election on April 3^rd. Your vote for Chris Zwagart and Kurt Rebholz will show the community that religious education belongs in churches, not in public schools and that science should be left to scientists who use the accepted scientific method.

Waring Fincke is a retired attorney and serves as a guardian for the elderly and disabled with a Sheboygan county non-profit agency.

Our Local NRA Wannabes

Meet Delta Defense

Your local NRA

The NRA is not the only outfit promoting the absolute, god given right to own and use firearms wherever and whenever we want. We have our own local Delta Defense proudly flying the “Don’t Tread on Me” flag joining that chorus.

For those who missed the Delta Defense signs all over West Bend as it sponsors events and charities to purchase some aura of respectability, the company provides the base for a number of connected entities promoting armed concealed carry and self defense, trading on fear and based on the idea that we need to be ready at a moment’s notice to use deadly force against those who might do us harm.

Tim Schmidt and his wife, Tonnie, who was elected to the West Bend school board last year, founded Delta Defense in 2003.  They first opened in Jackson. Then, they purchased the former Museum of Wisconsin Art building across from the West Bend Library, bailing out the Museum’s construction loan with a grant from local economic development funds. Next, they got more help from the City to build their new headquarters on the hill behind Boston Store. West Bend Mayor Kraig Sadownikow, a proud “Three Percenter,” Second Amendment absolutist and staunch supporter helped engineer city support.

Delta Defense provides logistical and editorial support for the United States Concealed Carry Association, a wholly owned membership club, that provides training for concealed carry instructors, conducts concealed carry classes, hosts concealed carry expos and other firearm and self-defense related activities. It produces and sells a wide range of DVDs and handbooks that tell you how to kill others and avoid the consequences in the pursuit of personal freedom. One of these, “Countering the Mass Shooter Threat,” will teach you how to be the good guy with the gun who saves the day at your local school. They sell insurance to pay your legal fees if you are charged criminally for defending yourself or others and subsequently acquitted. Delta Defense also produces an Internet streamed radio broadcast “Armed American Radio” and lobbies for fewer laws restricting gun ownweship.

The USCCA publishes a slick magazine for its members aptly named “Concealed Carry,” heavily laden with ads for all manner of handguns and knives and devices to hide them.

The magazine publishes handgun, knife and holster reviews, accounts from those who used a gun for self-defense, legislative reviews of enactments that favor concealed carry or seek to impose restrictions on firearms. The July 2017 issue focused on “guns, politics and the law” and exposes the company’s underlying philosophy.

Delta Defense President and CEO Tim Schmidt wrote there, “that the right to keep and bear arms is God-given and affirmed by the 2nd Amendment to our Constitution” and that it was “downright crazy that we should ever have to jump through bureaucratic hoops, submit to permitting processes or ask permission from our government to exercise that God-given right...” He submits only so he can carry a gun for self-defense. His editor follows noting that laws against violence are necessary in a civilized society. Another article claimed, “The whole concealed carry thing is about being ready to shoot someone.” The author continues that arming everyday folks, not just the authorities, actually helps keep the peace because no one wants a shooting war with a neighboring clan less upright.

The most telling article in the July issue recounted lessons learned from the horrific mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Florida. The first was how difficult it is to prepare mentally for such an event. The second involved how difficult it is, even for a trained law enforcement officer, to actually hit the shooter during a mass-shooting event. Third, nobody fought the shooter. Fourth, no one recognized the danger when the shooter walked in with a rifle. No mention, not a single word, that restricting access to semi-automatic rifles with high capacity magazines might have averted the shooting all together or, at least, given those with handguns a better chance of survival.

No effort like this would be complete without conspiracy theories about the government keeping guns away from the citizenry. The July issue took the Veterans Administration to task for legally informing the FBI about people it deemed “mentally defective” so they could be prevented from obtaining a firearm. This was followed by an article condemning state legislatures for passing laws allowing court ordered firearm confiscation from at substantial risk of harm to themselves or others.

More recent editions of “Concealed Carry” give good advice on dealing with the criminal justice system after you shoot someone, “shut up and lawyer up,” and not so good assessments of the recently passed laws in several western (“Left Coast”) states allowing court ordered firearm confiscations and a gratuitous attack on former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg for sponsoring moderate gun reform efforts. The January 2018 edition takes issue with mandatory firearm training requirements for concealed carry permits noting that voluntary training is good but government required training is awful.

If the NRA seems too big and far away to influence, contact Delta Defense and let them know they are on the wrong side of history.