These two stories indicate that whereas some people have to work at making themselves look foolish, others find that it just comes naturally:
A
parent complained to the Washoe County School District this week about her child's school showing students parts of Pope John Paul II's funeral on television.
The complaint by Debby Carr, the mother of a Marvin Moss Elementary School student, was the only one received Thursday by the district's communications office, said Ron Cooney, a district spokesman.
Carr said she is concerned that showing the pope's funeral sends a mixed message about what is allowed in public schools about religion.
Cooney said the district's central office didn't instruct individual schools about what to do in regard to the pope's death and funeral. He said a teacher at Moss plans to show a tape of it today so children can see an example of a historical world event.
"If there are parents who don't want their children participating, they can opt out," Cooney said.
The district's policy allows religious literature, music, drama or art in the curriculum if presented objectively. An emphasis on religious themes in the arts, literature and history also is permitted if it doesn't foster particular religious tenets or demean any beliefs.
The policy also says that student-initiated expressions to questions or assignments in forms of compositions, art, music, speech and debate that reflect their beliefs are allowed.
And then there's this story out of Madison, Wisconsin:
A Madison secular organization is protesting Gov. Jim Doyle's order to fly flags at half-staff at public buildings all week to remember Pope John Paul II.
The gesture "appears like an endorsement of Roman Catholicism over other religious viewpoints," said Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation. Gaylor said her organization would have looked the other way if the order had been for just Friday - the day of the pope's funeral - instead of all week.
"This seems excessive," she said. "Not everyone in the country is Roman Catholic, and (the pope's) not even American."
Federal statutes allow a president to lower flags not only upon the death of principal figures of the U.S. government but also upon the death of "other officials or foreign dignitaries."
Gaylor said she respects the private mourning of Catholics but protests state-backed grieving.
The American Humanist Association in Washington, D.C., also opposes the weeklong lowering of flags, said Tony Hileman, executive director. "We have to ask whether this would be done for other cleric - the Dalai Lama or Jewish or Muslim leaders."
Ms Gaylor evidently thinks that someone has to be an American in order to merit our respect and honor for the contribution he's made to civilization, and that if one is not a Catholic one cannot be moved to pay tribute to greatness. Why she should think such a thing is incomprehensible. Perhaps someone might remind Ms Gaylor of the old adage that it's better to keep one's mouth closed and have people just suspect you're a ditz than to open it and remove all doubt.
As for Ms Carr and Mr. Hileman, perhaps if they hadn't slept through the eighties they would understand that no religious figure in the history of the twentieth century did as much to relieve oppression and to promote peace as has John Paul II.
Mr. Hileman, blithely unaware of the embarrassing fatuousness of his assertion that this honor would not be accorded to religious leaders of other faiths, seems totally oblivious to the fact that there simply is no Jewish leader, and certainly no Muslim leader, who has accomplished what the late pope has. If there ever were, they would doubtless be likewise honored.
One gets the feeling that for such people as these the pope's contribution to the toppling of communist tyranny in eastern Europe is unimportant. Their gripe is that the pope was the head of a religion and was himself a model of piety. Honoring such a man in ways that might influence others to admire him is something they just can't abide regardless of the historic greatness of his life. Their carping sounds paltry and ignoble because that's precisely what it is.