A Stitch in Haste

Andrew Sullivan asks, in the context of "moments of silence" in public schools, whether just a little theocracy might be hunky-dory:

It makes you want to sympathize with the Christianists. Can we exercise a little mutual respect on these matters?

The title of his post is "Fundie Atheists."

First things first: The plaintiff parent at issue here is suing, not over the moment of silence per se, but over the overtly religious undertones in the moment of silence legislation: "silent prayer or ... silent reflection on the anticipated activities of the day" —

"Neither side here has a slam-dunk case," said Sheldon Nahmod, a Chicago-Kent Law School professor and constitutional scholar. "A statute that requires a moment of silence and that's all, or a moment for meditation and that's all, would be constitutional. But here the questions will revolve around the language referencing prayer and making it mandatory."

But of course, just having a moment of silence (which, incidentally, does nothing whatsoever to further a school's educational mission) would be too much (or is it too little?) for the theocrats, who suffer from the political equivalent of Tourette Syndrome — they can't go two weeks or travel across two school districts without having a prayer-in-the-classroom spasm.

It's a bit silly to suggest that an exasperated pushback reaction to fundamentalism is itself "fundamentalism." Stated differently, "What's one more drop?" is not a very persuasive argument to make to a water torture victim. For example:

--A federal appellate court has just rejected a taxpayer-standing lawsuit against the Indiana legislature's practice of opening sessions with sectarian prayers (non-sectarian invocations at government meetings already have a longstanding — and unwarranted — First Amendment exemption).

--Louisiana legislators are trying to resuscitate two blatantly unconstitutional earmarks to churches by repackaging them as "faith-based initiative" grants. (See my previous post.)

--Some veterans (perhaps including this guy) with nothing better to do are upset because the federal government had the audacity to remind its military cemeteries that an outrageous "Judeo-Christian" (and trinitarian, if you're keeping score) flag-folding recitation was neither officially sanctioned nor constitutional, and should not be read aloud by cemetery (i.e., government) employees without the express prior request of the family. I guess those mourning relatives are "fundie atheists" too.

And that's just what happened to be in my aggregator at this particular moment. Many, many more anecdotes and lawsuits cross my computer screen every single day, with nary a peep from me. There are only so many hours in the day. But point out a single one, or file a single exasperated lawsuit and — presto! — you're a "fundie atheist."

Sullivan's position is simply untenable. He should know better.