Saturday, November 29, 2014

Arizona school board member complains that Biology textbook violates her "religious rights." Decides to cut out offending pages. A little thing we call "censorship."

Courtesy of The New York Times:  

The textbook, the one with the wide-eyed lemur peering off the cover, has been handed out for years to students in honors biology classes at the high schools here, offering lessons on bread-and-butter subjects like mitosis and meiosis, photosynthesis and anatomy. 

But now, the school board in this suburb of Phoenix has voted to excise or redact two pages deep inside the book — 544 and 545 — because they discuss sexually transmitted diseases and contraception, including mifepristone, a drug that can be used to prevent or halt a pregnancy. 

A law passed two years ago in Arizona requires schools to teach “preference, encouragement and support to childbirth and adoption” over abortion, and the school board decided that those pages were in violation of this law — even though the Arizona Education Department, which examined the book for compliance, found that they were not. 

The controversy has turned into a referendum on the 2012 law, with supporters saying the textbook content cannot be removed fast enough and opponents crying foul for any number of reasons: technical, ethical, pedagogical. But the Gilbert school board is moving forward, trying to figure out how to remove the material in question — by way of black markers or scissors, if need be — despite resistance from parents, residents, the American Civil Liberties Union and even the district’s superintendent. 

“It comes down to, it’s the law, and we need to be in compliance with the law,” said Julie Smith, a member of the Gilbert Public Schools governing board and also a parent who raised concerns about the book. “If people don’t like the law, they need to take it up with their state legislator. I don’t write the law. It’s my job to uphold it.”
The offending pages.
By the way that Julie Smith woman is apparently the driving force behind this censorship.

And here are her reasons why:

Ms. Smith, the school board member and parent, said she had been driving her family home from church back in January when her son told her about what was in the textbook. “I almost drove off the road,” she said. 

“I’m Catholic; we do not contracept,” Ms. Smith said. “It is a grave sin.” By including those pages in the curriculum, she added, “you have violated my religious rights.”

"We do not contracept?"  Well considering this woman's heavy handed parenting style that's probably too bad.

As for violating her religions rights? Well nobody's religious rights should have any impact whatsoever on what is taught in a public school classroom.

And in my opinion if science classes are taught in a factual manner than they should violate somebody's religious beliefs almost daily.

By the way you know that removing these pages, or using a sharpie to black them out, is going to do NOTHING to stop students from accessing them. It's called the internet folks, and if the kids want to read them (And after this you they all will.), then by gosh they will do exactly that.

29 comments:

  1. Anonymous2:38 PM

    Science, it's a funny thing because Darwin was a scientist and I just witnessed some of his good works here in Wasilla with a big giant redneck truck, upside down with quite a few people trapped inside and one lying outside on the pavement. We were flagged through the accident scene and diverted but apparently this truck full of idiots was going too fast and spinning wheels in this first snow of the season and suffice it to say it didn't work out well for them. I'm just glad that no one else besides the truck and the occupants (and the one laying on the pavement not moving...) was involved in their idiocy. Science, it works, sometimes not in your favor. Snowy roads are slick, that's science. Idiots going to fast and spinning out, science as well, Darwin's science.

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  2. I will never understand how stating and exploring facts ("Contraception can prevent unwanted pregnancy") violates anyone's freedom of religion.

    She doesn't "contracept"? Well, I don't murder but I am informed of its existence, and of many of its most common causes/triggers/motives and most importantly, of its consequences.

    These Christian terrorists want children to be ignorant of consequences and to be isolated from the "fact-based" world.

    There are days when I feel as if I'm living in the most ignorant country on the planet.

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  3. Anonymous2:55 PM

    I'd like to know how many children this woman has and how far apart in age. What the heck do catholics do to control the amount of children they have? Abstain? Isn't that a sin too?

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    1. Olivia3:26 PM

      "What the heck do catholics do to control the amount of children they have?"
      They LIE! Go to any Catholic church on Sunday and see how many 2 child families are there. I know some couples who use natural planning methods but not many. I have Catholic family members who figured out how to solve the birth control issue. They marry non Catholics who don't have a problem using artificial methods. I, too, would like to know how many kids that woman has.

      Delete
    2. Anonymous4:04 PM

      I went to an insanely conservative Catholic college. Most of the families there had at least 5 children. Several had 11, 14, 15, 18. And yes, they ALL homeschooled.

      THANK THE UNIVERSE I was able to escape from that utterly insane ideology.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous4:38 PM

      Well in my small hometown, the super Catholic, outspokenly anti choice family had eight kids and was on public assistance.

      Delete
    4. Anonymous4:45 PM

      4:38pm

      Those people are why I'm a bit happy that public assistance is being decreased because there are too many overbreeding abusers. Once these people finally get hungry and have their rent assistance taken away and their food stamps and their welfare they might finally realize that overbreeding is a bad idea. Tough love is at its heart, tough, and there are a lot of people in this nation that need a wakeup call. Maybe we'll see all those christian bleeding hearts that ask for our "$1" per day for the starving third world kids asking us to help out the overbreeders and their hungry broods.

      Delete
    5. Paul in Minnesota3:57 AM

      404 PM ... I'm glad you escaped. I also escaped in stages. Mostly in high school. Also in college. Hooray for us!

      Delete
  4. Anonymous3:10 PM

    Rachel Maddow's got it covered...

    http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/arizonahonorsbiologycom

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    1. The video is:http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/watch/page-ripping-censorship-gets-second-look-360597571981

      Delete
    2. Rachel covered this?

      How did I miss that?

      Delete
    3. Anonymous4:16 PM

      Don't know how you missed it G, she covered it in two shows.

      Delete
    4. G: Take shorter bathroom breaks. -:)

      Delete
  5. Anonymous3:16 PM

    She wants to force her superstitious belief in the supernatural on others. She is just another brain addled primitive. They are legion.

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  6. Caroll Thompson3:28 PM

    Here in Maine, they not only teach high school kids about contraception, they have health clinics in the high schools in the largest cities and elsewhere where students can get a prescription for contraception, or receive those three month shots, etc...

    As a result, Maine has the seventh lowest teenage pregnancy rate, which we think is a good thing. But our Live Free or Die neighbor New Hampshire has the lowest teenage pregnancy rate in the nation at roughly 13 teenage pregnancies per 1,000 teenagers.

    States in the South, of course, have the highest teenage pregnancy rates in the nation. Arizona sits at #40.

    If people want to keep the abortion rate down, the smartest thing to do is prevent pregnancies in the first place. But I guess we have a bunch of dumb asses running around this country trying to run young people's lives.

    http://thenationalcampaign.org/data/landing

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    1. Anonymous3:59 PM

      I think the standard evangelical in the pew honestly believes (because they are constantly told, with statistics--albeit skewed--as proof) that if birth control and abortion were more difficult to access, sexual activity among teens would decrease. I remember James Dobson quoting a statistic about how condoms were only effective 60-some percent of the time. Later, after I was no longer in the evangelical bubble, I heard that study was on a type of condom that was so unreliable it was no longer manufactured or sold. Of course, back then we didn't have the internet to fact-check. But when you grow up hearing that Dobson is sitting at the right hand of God, it doesn't occur to you to fact-check him anyway. So if he, or someone like him, says, "Statistics show that decreased access to birth control and abortion lowers rates of sexual activity among teenagers," a large number of people will believe that without ever checking to find out whether it's true. AND THEY ALL VOTE!!!!!!!!! (and for people like these school board members, ecause and how he tells them to. I cannot possibly emphasize that enough to readers on liberal/progressive blogs, because I really think most liberals and progressives have no clue how this actually works.)

      Also, the "liberal media" slander/libel strategy has worked very effectively. Any facts or statistics, like the ones you cited about Maine and New Hampshire, that don't fit the message are simply presented as skewed, biased liberal propaganda. I tried to tell my dad about the study that found that our media actually has a conservative bias. His response? "Their findings are wrong, because the media is liberal. Any legitimate study would confirm that, so if it doesn't, then it can't be legitimate." You cannot possibly win an argument with someone like that. Trust me, I've tried.

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  7. If you can't take the truth of science it's time to drop out of the class.

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  8. Anonymous3:42 PM

    The stupidity of the religious wrong and their unintended consequences most often hurts other people. But this once, just maybe, Julie Wing Nut has shot herself in the foot. Pages that maybe disinterested students would not have read have come to their attention. Nothing like banning pages or books to peak intellectual curiosity. You go Julie; I like it when kids read and learn because they are inspired.

    Meanwhile, Julie needs to enroll her children in parochial school and keep her hands off the curriculum offered in public schools. In America the beautiful, she is free to exercise her parental control. She is not free to to co-opt the choices of other parents.

    ~Sierra

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  9. London Bridges4:05 PM

    This is a horrific crime:
    http://www.alternet.org/abc-reportedly-paid-darren-wilson-six-figure-fee-interview

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  10. Anonymous4:14 PM

    Oh my, it's SO terrible that poor Mrs. Smith's religious rights have been violated by that awful science book. Fear not, though, because I have the perfect solution for her.

    If she insists on keeping her children ignorant and backwards, she should immediately remove them from that heathen-laden public school and put them in the nearest Catholic school. That way, they will not be exposed to all that shocking (and scientifically accurate) perversion in the science books.

    Oh, she should also learn how to knit and sew, because she's going to be making a truckload of baby blankets and booties for the passel of grandchildren she will have in a few years.

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    1. Anonymous5:13 PM

      Then her kids will be beaten by nuns and buggered by priests. That'll teach 'em :-)

      Delete
    2. Anonymous6:30 PM

      5:13 -

      I went to Catholic school through the end of 6th grade, when I finally convinced my mother to let me transfer to public school.

      Being the good little girl I was, I didn't ever get hit by the nuns and I wasn't terribly traumatized by my elementary school years, but they DID show me enough about the church to turn me off forever.

      Delete
  11. Anita Winecooler4:22 PM

    This censorship was a big topic at our Thanksgiving table. First off, Julie is dead wrong when she states emphatically that Catholic Women do NOT contracept, They work their way around that by saying they took the pill for some other reason, and there are plenty of legitimate medical off label uses for the pill. And I suppose there are plenty of catholic men who wrap their willies because they can't afford another child or they don't want to bring their wives a "gift" of an std in the cases where they're unfaithful to their relationship.
    This crazy law needs to be rescinded and the students need to learn ALL their options, or we'll have a generation of kids having kids and dropping out of school.
    If any Catholic feels offended, it's their duty to take their kids out of public school and either home schooll or send them to those wonderful places called Parochial Catholic Schools. Just hope that your kids can outrun pedophile priests and deal with the psychological and physical burdens they'll carry throughout life,
    This sounds like "Footloose" and dancing.

    You're so right, Gryphen.

    "By the way you know that removing these pages, or using a sharpie to black them out, is going to do NOTHING to stop students from accessing them."
    We went straight to the banned books and movie sections of the Catholic Paper and laughed at the stupidity. JD Salinger was lambasted for the "F" word in "Cather in the Rye" and "Bob and Carol, Ted and Alice" sent them over the edge, not to mention "The Graduate".
    My fundie aunt somehow knows that none of her unmarried kids are not having sex nor exploring their bodies when half of them have kids already .
    Mine aren't saints, but I don't have my head buried in sand either, it's just a small part of what we call "being human".

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  12. Anonymous4:40 PM

    The worst part of this story is that this anti-education trog is on the school board.

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  13. Anonymous5:43 PM

    Good god! so it violates her religious rights to even have an awareness about contraception?

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  14. Randall6:44 PM

    You know what else would demand the pages on contraception be censored?
    Sharia Law.

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  15. Anonymous11:11 PM

    “I’m Catholic; we do not contracept,” Ms. Smith said. “It is a grave sin.” By including those pages in the curriculum, she added, “you have violated my religious rights.”

    So somehow, religious affrontation for her part amounts to the unquestioned mandate of censorship for all. Talk about a fucking God complex were "I" equals "everyone. If Christ were alive, he'd stone her himself on the basis of flawed logic alone.

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  16. Anonymous3:17 AM

    Well, there is no such verb as "contracept" and this Catholic couples have practiced contraception for eons. In my home town when I was a child, back in the fifties, most Catholic families had one to three children. There was one family that was extremely poor that had a dozen children. This woman may not practice contraception but the Catholic couples all around her at Mass are. Besides it's wrong to edit a textbook to suit the needs of one kind of crazy lady..
    Beaglemom

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  17. Ms. Smith should resign, remove her children from public school and retire the entire family from society, or move to ~better~ country.

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