Ep.6: Religion in Schools

# Satanists Nextdoor
# Ep.6: Religion in Schools

[Lilin Lavin]
Welcome, dear listeners, to Satanist Next Door. We're your hosts, Lilin Lavin and Tommy Lavin. Whether you're an open-minded, curious onlooker or a fellow Satanist-seeking camaraderie, our goal is to share our personal experiences and delve into the intricate tapestry of Satanism in our daily lives, occasionally inviting other guests to share their unique perspectives, leaving no pentagram unturned.

We'll explore how our beliefs shape our views on society, dive into struggles and triumphs we've encountered, and reveal the humanity that unites us all. So grab your favorite chalice and join us on this captivating journey. Satanist Next Door is ready to peel back the curtain and offer you a glimpse into our world, one captivating episode at a time.

[Tommy Lavin]
Hello and welcome to another episode of Satanist Next Door. Today, we are going to be covering pushing religion into schools. The stuff we're kind of seeing here, especially on the front lines, Texas and Florida have both gone a little bit batshit crazy with this sort of stuff.

So we're definitely seeing an uptick of religious ideology being pushed into schools either by law or just by mandate, I guess you would say.

[Lilin Lavin]
Oh, and as parents who live in Texas, who have kids that attend school, obviously, we are a little bit more attuned to what's happening in this particular state. So it's not to say this isn't happening across the nation. I know it is.

Multiple different states are dealing with it from different vantage points. But for us, there's been a huge amount of religious leaning laws that were pushed towards schools in this last session in specific.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, some of them got through, some of them didn't. But because they didn't, doesn't mean that they stopped. When they don't, they just kind of go back to the drawing board and say, okay, how can we get these other four people on board or whatnot in order to get this passed?

So it's just because it doesn't win the first time through is definitely not necessarily a victory. It's more of a regroup for them.

[Lilin Lavin]
No, and I think as we'll later discuss, we're going to talk about how this has been an ongoing problem. And usually, it wasn't even about religion in the first place. Religion was used as a way to toe in the door, different things at different points of time, and to really test the waters to see how far they could push things.

They being individuals that were hellbent on putting religion into school. It's not every religious person. There's plenty of people I've heard that are incredibly religious, some of them being devout Christians that were against a lot of these things.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. And I guess my opening statement when it comes to religion in schools, and when we say schools, we are talking public schools. So public schools, which are supposed to be secular, private schools, do what the hell you want.

I mean, if you're sending your kid to a private school, and it's a religious school, you made the choice you're paying for it. That's what you want them to do. And then, you know, if you're not happy with that, you can always remove them from the private school.

[Lilin Lavin]
And I'm not gonna, yeah, I know what you meant. But we don't mean do whatever the hell you want, as in, we don't care what happens to those kids. We mean, you know, you have the right to remove your kids at any point in time.

And I would hope for the amount of money you pay for private school, you checked it, and you were either fine with it or whatever.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. And so, you know, with public schools, they are supposed to be secular. And so when I hear parents complaining that they've taken God out of the classroom, or, you know, we need more religion in school, or God will stop the mass shootings in schools.

Well, the first one to that, if God's gonna stop mass shootings in schools, then why isn't God stopping pedophilia in churches? That would be my first question to that. Because, you know, obviously, it's not working there.

Um, but if you want your child to have a religious education, it's really, really pretty simple. Enroll your child into a religious private school. You know, maybe sometimes they're too expensive.

Okay, tell your pastor to sell one of his mansions and lower the price of the school. But you don't punish everybody else in the state, because you want your child to have a religious education, and you want that religious education to happen at public school, which is supposed to be secular.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah. And to be clear, I have no issue with education, including religion. But if you're going to include religion, then it has to encompass all religion.

And it has to be as unbiased as possible. And when we're using faith as the position we're coming from, it's going to inherently have a bias. And that doesn't allow kids to formulate thoughts about what they really understand or believe when it comes to religion.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, I mean, I'm kind of on the fence whether religion should be taught in school or not. I understand where you're coming from, where it does have historical value, it has educational value. The problem that I run into is, I just know people.

And I just know that, okay, they're going to be like, Oh, well, we've got to cover all of them. So Christianity is going to get 95% of the time. And then we're going to shove all the other religions into the 5%, you know, so.

[Lilin Lavin]
Right. And that's where it becomes very tricky. I just feel like historically, religion is a very important component on just development of countries across time.

So to ignore the parts that religion played would be really stupid, in my opinion. And if you're going to discuss them, people have to have a basis to understand what they mean. And that's also tricky, because every religion we have today was different 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago.

And as far back as you want to go, they've evolved to a degree over time. I mean, like the evangelical movement, obviously, is not the same as the, you know, Catholic beginning that a lot of people had.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, yeah. I mean, evangelicals and Catholics are unlike two totally separate sides of Christianity, which both of them kind of call each other not Christians. They're that far apart.

You know, and part of this will be anything from, you know, putting the 10 Commandments into schools. But one that you've brought up a lot is, you know, corporal punishment in schools, you know, spare the rod, spoil the child, the whole thing that they argue using religious doctrine.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah, that was one that was presented. That was a bill that actually didn't pass. And it was House Bill 772.

It was presented earlier this year, being 2023. And the argument was to remove corporal punishment. So the bill, if it would have passed, would have removed corporal punishment as an option.

At this time, I believe only 19 states allow it, which is still way too many out of 50, though 19 is much better than it could be. I would like zero. But the bill, which was defeated by 86, it was a 58 to 86 vote, often had people bringing up religion as the reason why it had to stay.

That paddling to, you know, provide the corporal punishment was in line with biblical philosophy, where, you know, we are wise members to follow the design that God has for disciplining children is what one of it was Schaefer, who's a representative said, in their explanation why it should not be removed.

[Tommy Lavin]
So God wants us to beat our children, basically. It is I'm going to try and remember when I post this episode on social media to include some of these links in here. There's actually a map and the maps pretty damn telling, because it's got blue for states that have no corporal punishment.

It's not allowed. And it's got different shades of red for the states that do allow corporal punishment. And surprise, surprise, it is the Bible belt below the Mason-Dixon line that they're all red, whereas above in the West Coast, they're blue.

They don't allow corporal punishment. So they've kind of obviously moved forward in their way of thinking, whereas down here in Yee-haw, Bill, yeah, and that map isn't even up to date with where we are right now.

[Lilin Lavin]
But it does show very clearly where things are going and where they have been. And it was interesting. There was someone that wrote an article when they were talking about the resurgence of corporal punishment, which is something that was troubling to me.

And it was an NBC News article that was written last year. And the individual was talking about what they had seen when they were younger. It was S.C. Beckner. And S.C. Beckner wrote, it's been 37 years since I was paddled at the age of 13. After running away from the residential Christian school, I've been sent to by my parents for being emotionally out of control and refusing to attend school. Now, again, the statistics that we'll share with you do not share private schools like Christian schools.

So you won't be able to see what those statistics are. Most of them do not report. The man who hit me with a wooden paddle, air holes drilled into the ends for a better swing, was a hulking church deacon in a three-piece suit.

He stood at 6 feet 4 inches tall with a broad neanderthal-ish features in comparison to my less than 5 feet 90 pound frame. This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you, he said, followed by, I'm doing this because I love you, little one. Then came the first swing of three that lifted my body, bent at the waist over the back of a chair off the floor.

Large knotted blackberry blue bruises rose on both sides of my buttocks, preventing me from sitting down for days. And we'll try to share the article so you can read it yourself. But again, this came out last year.

At this point, it's been 38 years since it was 37 last year. So they went into their experience, and it was traumatizing, and they share a lot more than that. And they also touch on the fact that everywhere else at this point, prisons, juvenile prisons, adult prisons, military.

Yeah, you cannot inflict this type of physical pain on somebody. And it actually really startled people, especially when people that are championing this are quoting the Bible. And it's not just Texas.

Oklahoma, they had the same sort of thing that we did where they were trying to get rid of corporal punishment in school. And again, they had an individual that quoted the Bible and talked about how, you know, they said that, let's see, where was it? Jim Olson, a Republican representative quoted the Bible verse from Proverbs, the rod and the rod proof gives wisdom.

And he then went into more specific detail Proverbs 29, the rod and rod proof give wisdom, but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame. So that would seem to endorse the use of corporal punishment. And again, this is being used to tell people that it's okay to do this in public school.

And as you said, public school is secular. We've got people of about any faith you could imagine that attend school. And what does that say to them?

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah. Now, I do believe in Texas, you have to sign a form to, yeah, it's either an opt out form or an opt in form. I forgot which one it was, whether it's you opt out, you know, I forgot which one it was, but still, either way, that's still pretty screwed up.

I think we have well enough psychiatric data to show hitting children is not positive. It doesn't get positive results. It doesn't help at all.

And obviously, like you said, if this isn't allowed in military boot camps, if it's not allowed in prisons and juvenile halls, or you know, any of these other places, yet we still allowed in our schools and yet the conservatives are going to be like the children are our most precious gift. So we're going to beat them.

[Lilin Lavin]
It does come across really disingenuous. If they're this wonderful, precious gift, why would you want to inflict trauma? And I don't know, it doesn't make sense to me.

Yeah, I'm not going to tell people how to parent, but I'm damn well going to tell you that beating the crap out of your kids is not parenting.

[Tommy Lavin]
No, definitely not. Not parenting. And you found something really, really interesting.

Because you know, when we talk about religion in school, and this whole thing about pushing religion in school, people think this is like a pretty new sort of thing. But you actually found historical documentation that went all the way back to something like 1840s.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah.

[Tommy Lavin]
This was a religious fight in school over Bibles and religion being in school. Now, if I remember correctly, it was like the type of Bible because it was like versus Catholic. Yeah.

But just the fact that we've gone since the 1800s, you know, there's been this discussion of religion in school, what kind of religion and in this case, you tell me it started a whole riot.

[Lilin Lavin]
It did. It was really crazy. I had never heard of the Bible riots before.

I mean, I don't know, maybe they just skipped that because they just didn't want to get into it. But when in May 1844 riots broke out in Kensington, Philadelphia, or the Kensington region, it was known as the Bible riots and it lasted for three days. It involved American born Protestants and Irish immigrants.

And it was interesting because it was, I think, much less about the Bible being in school because at the time you could have biblical education. It was the fact that the individuals that had been born over the years in the Kensington area and felt they had inheritance through that birth began to feel a bit of competition between the Irish settlers that were coming to the area. And so even though they had worked with these folks and they had, you know, done all these different union strikes together and they had worked really well together to continue doing things and making progress, it wasn't until the Irish population that was coming to the region began to outpace the existing people there that they started to then use that as a way to, I guess, essentially start a war between the two as a way to try and stop the workers from taking their jobs.

[Tommy Lavin]
Trevor Burrus I mean, it read just so much like, if I read this, I'd be, I mean, taking the Bible part out, but the reason for it just sounds exactly like the conservative talking points now about the border. You know, it's like, they're taking our jobs, they're taking our houses, they're bringing crime, these darn immigrants. These are Irish immigrants at that time, you know, and it's, it's just amazing that you just rinse and repeat the same shit over again, and people fall for it.

And they're like, yeah.

[Lilin Lavin]
Jennifer Yeah, which is important to remember when you see religion being injected into the argument, wherever it is, a lot of times it has a lot more to do with other things. And it's just a way to try to combat something on another front. So yeah, it was really interesting.

But it was not, you know, like I said, that was one thing that didn't pass that should have passed, which would have prevented corporal punishment. The other issues that we've seen were obviously the In God We Trust thing did pass. And I believe that was last year.

Trevor Burrus So explain to them what the In God Jennifer So In God We Trust was created as the model for the nation. And that is how they decided that they'd be able to install it in every public school in the state of Texas. And by installing it, it means that someone had to donate to them a very specific size, type font coloration, framed In God We Trust.

And that would have to be displayed in a prominent public area of every public school in the state. And yes, people absolutely did spend a crap load of money to create these and hand them out. And if they were provided, it couldn't be denied, it had to be put up.

So that was an area that they did win that. And you can't really fight it on the stance that it's indoctrinating kids or placing religion in school, because again, it became our national motto quite a while back. And so they got around it that way.

[Tommy Lavin]
Trevor Burrus Yeah, in like the 50s, it became our model, right? I remember correctly, it was the way that we could fight against communism.

[Lilin Lavin]
Jennifer Some are, you know, some are knows that the invasion of communism as we were in the Soviet era issues.

[Tommy Lavin]
Trevor Burrus Yeah. And, and yes, because I'm going to have somebody come back on this, because when I've talked about it on social media, people will be like, In God We Trust was on our money all the way since like the 1800s. Yes, in the 1800s, on certain coins, certain coins, I think it was like the two cent piece they had In God We Trust.

But it was added to money and all of that as part of our, our actual motto more in the 50s. That's when it kind of became the big thing. So, yes, in the 1800s, there was a two cent piece that had In God We Trust on it.

[Lilin Lavin]
Jennifer I mean, Trevor Burrus But it wasn't on the rest of the money. Jennifer We're gonna argue that then there was a, in 1787, there was a Fugio cent that was actually Benjamin Franklin. It was a design that actually says mind your business on the coin.

And I honestly think I'd like to see that one come back.

[Tommy Lavin]
Trevor Burrus Definitely. Can we get mind your business on all of our money moving forward?

[Lilin Lavin]
Jennifer It's really cool. If you have a chance to go look at it on the one side, it says we are one. And it has 13 chain links.

And the other side, it says mind your business and it shows a sun and a sundial. And it's really cool looking 1787. So I would not have been sad if we had kept that as you know, our tokens.

[Tommy Lavin]
Trevor I'd love to see mind your business on my money rather than In God We Trust.

[Lilin Lavin]
Jennifer Yeah, that would be a lot of fun, honestly. But yeah, I digress. I know that's not exactly what we're talking about.

But you know, it's a poor example of why we should be putting it there. And it was definitely a way to try and end around people's just favor of just indoctrinating or forcing a specific religion on people.

[Tommy Lavin]
Trevor Yeah. And, and again, as we talk about some of these things, you know, it depends on, again, this kind of depends on where you live. If you're in a more conservative state, I would say these things are either happening, or they're in process, you know, and they're kind of using states like Texas and Florida to test the waters and see, okay, what do we need to do to get this passed through?

Because, you know, they do a bunch of trials in Texas, when it finally passes in Texas, they know, okay, these are the things that people objected about it. So they know how to put the better way in the other in the other conservative states as they move forward. But I would say, if you're not in a conservative state, and then you're in a more liberal state, doesn't necessarily make you safe.

Because as we've seen, over time, they're able to the conservatives and the Christian nationalists have been able to get laws moved into non conservative states just through other means, you know, either they, they get the Supreme Court to knock something out, row the way, you know, or, or the Supreme Court just arbitrarily decides to

[Lilin Lavin]
pick up a case and move forward with that as a way to, I guess, push something. They've done that in several different instances. One of the ones that involved, again, religion in school was the praying coach that that ended up losing, they didn't actually lose their job.

So I'm not going to say lost their job, they didn't, they didn't renew their contract. But, you know, people made it very clear that they didn't feel what he was doing was right. And then he used that as his validation for why he shouldn't be in that environment.

But yeah, he tells her when he lost his job, he actually just didn't renew his contract.

[Tommy Lavin]
So yeah, and, and again, you know, that's fine. If the the problem that I have with all of this is it's like, okay, but why is your more important than everybody else's, you know, if you get time to pray, then everybody else should get time to pray or worship in some way, shape or form, you know, if you get five minutes, and everybody else gets five minutes, I guess we got to take an hour or two out of the day just to do, you know, religious worshiping in school where it's really not supposed to be part of the school curriculum.

[Lilin Lavin]
And I think that's one that didn't pass, I'll have to double check that was something did want to do in Texas as well, where it wasn't just that they could have Bibles in school, which again, fine, if you're using it as part of a comprehensive curriculum that is discovering different aspects of all religions, but it one single religions Bible does not belong as a school endorsed book. But they wanted to allow prayer over the PA system, they wanted to allow prayer time for teachers, they wanted to allow in a much more aggressive fashion, I have zero issue with people having time in the day, and I mean, small amount of time to pray to whatever God, God's deities belief systems they have silently silent, zero, zero issue, that is your time to send to yourself or focus on whatever or worship, whatever, fine, but that's a silent moment.

And it should be it's between you and whatever it is that you're trying to connect with.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, I mean, if you're going to do it, do five minutes of silent time in the morning. And if you want to take that five minutes to pray silently, again, to yourself, then so be it. Definitely shouldn't be over the PA system.

Definitely shouldn't be led by the teacher or influenced by the teacher, either. And that that would be just the other thing that I would say would would happen is, you know, a teacher would take it upon themselves to influence it, because we've seen all sorts of shit from teachers.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah, no, literally, we've dealt with it. We've had a teacher who did end up getting fired. And I was very happy about that.

I was sad that they put themselves in that position. Of course, that's not what you want. But I had one, one of our kids was very sick.

They were not doing well in class. And I would often go and pick them up from school. And this teacher decided to give them a Bible and ask if they could pray.

And I, again, it's up to our kids what they want. My kid expressed they were incredibly uncomfortable situation that they kind of tried to say no, thank you, and that it was pushed on them. And that's when I had an issue, you know, if the teacher had handed it to them, and they had taken it, and it ended right there, I wouldn't have cared because that's up to my kids.

But the minute that they're made to feel intimidated, like they have to participate in something, or they have to do something or accept something. Now we're getting into a bit of a problematic area for me.

[Tommy Lavin]
Well, and this was in elementary school. And I would actually sort of counter argument a little that I would have even had a problem if they would have handed her the Bible, because in elementary school, most children are taught to obey your teacher and to obey the adults. So they're going to by default, just go along with what the teacher wants.

[Lilin Lavin]
Right, I guess to preface that we have always been very open with our kids, and they've been allowed to to go to church with, you know, family members or whatever, anytime they wanted to do that. So at that point, I know, she had been exposed to it. And I knew if she accepted it, because she just wanted to be polite or whatever, that was fine.

But other kids, they don't necessarily have the wherewithal to understand that. So yeah, definitely, it was not appropriate.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, I mean, we've, we've raised our kids to be free thinking, critical thinking, since a young age. And we've also, you know, raised them that adults aren't always right. Even us.

Yeah, even us. But you know, just because an adult tells you to do something does not mean that you need to do that. And you know, that goes a little bit into things like bathroom breaks and stuff like that, that they're trying to restrict in schools.

[Lilin Lavin]
And yeah, we had one kid that just wasn't gonna put up with that and kind of directly put the kibosh on it.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, she, it is a good story. So I'm gonna tell it on this because I'm sorry ahead of time. No names.

No, no, no names. It was in high school. And she's she asked to permission to go to the restroom.

And the teacher said, No, which I'm sorry, that's just bullshit. If somebody has to go take a leak or something, let them go to the bathroom.

[Lilin Lavin]
You damn well know they're not paying for the doctor bill if they get a urinary tract infection.

[Tommy Lavin]
And so we had always told our kids, you know, if a teacher or somebody in school tries to tell you no, you cannot use the bathroom to just go anyways. And if the school wants to call, they can call us and we will totally back you. And so she asked, teacher said no, she got up, she started walking, the teacher said, what are you doing?

And she said, I'm going to the bathroom. She said, you can't go to the bathroom. And she said, Look, I'm gonna take a piss.

Now I can either do it in your garbage can right here in front of the class, or I'm going to the bathroom. And the funny thing is knowing this child, she would have dropped pants and pissed in that garbage can right there in front of the whole class if the teacher would have challenged her on it. So needless to say, she went to the bathroom and they never called us on that one or anything because by then the school kind of knew you were not going to really get anywhere with their their parents because yeah, yeah, we're that parent.

[Lilin Lavin]
And I'm going to shamelessly plug a little bit if you guys are involved with satanic temple or have curiosity about it, there is actually a protect child project that deals with this exact thing. And there is a card that your kids can have that you can, you know, give to them that they can present to their school quietly privately that says that they have inalienable rights and bodily autonomy. And that if those rights are infringed, then it can cause further action.

So it's it's a really cool thing. You can check that out on their website and they've got their campaigns and it's listed under there.

[Tommy Lavin]
So yeah, so yeah, back to the type of shit that they're trying to push into here. So so God, we did the God we trust that one passed. Yeah, we talked about the 10 commandments, corporal punishment was another one that they tried to do.

[Lilin Lavin]
So 10 commandments, they tried that failed. And I was really pleased. I do not have the gentleman's name.

But he was a Republican, a Christian Republican that is actually in our Texas legislature. And they pushed back and said that they disagree with it for a number of reasons. There was adultery, idolatry, not adultery, where you're worshiping something else and putting it in there was not in line with their beliefs.

And that, you know, there was a lot of really great arguments made by this individual. And he was really well spoken. He countered it very well against the person that was introducing it.

But the gist of it was that every classroom and not just in a building prominently placed every room in the school would have to display prominently the 10 commandments.

[Tommy Lavin]
Now, again, this is public school, a secular public school. And I would totally expect that if you were sending your child to a Catholic or a Christian school, you know, okay, you sent them to a Catholic Christian school, of course, they're going to have the 10 commandments on the wall. But in a public, public secular school, where you have people of all denominations, all all religions, you know, even atheists, you know, everything from that through, why would you put one religion prominently on the wall?

That is just wrong.

[Lilin Lavin]
And I don't know what people think of Texas. I'm sure a lot of people that aren't here have ideas, but we have a very diverse population. And even where we are, which is outskirts of the Houston area, we have every type of denomination of child that and I don't know what a difficult position it would be as a student who, you know, otherwise would look at their teacher and you either like them or you don't, whatever.

But then if you know that they're pushing a particular belief, and it's not one you share, and they seem to have, you know, a particular favoritism towards other kids that do share that belief, it's going to put you in a very awkward position, it's going to make you incredibly uncomfortable. And the more that's pushed, the more you're going to isolate other people and other thought.

[Tommy Lavin]
Yeah, I mean, I can totally see teachers using that in a discriminatory manner, even when it goes to grading papers and stuff like that. I mean, it's human nature. You know, it's we've seen centuries of how people from one religion treat people of another religion a different way, you know, and so to think that most people will be able to compartmentalize themselves and not do that is just asinine.

You know, it's it's human nature. It's what they will do. A lot of these religions are are taught that they are the truth.

I mean, I've actually gotten in conversations with people who claim to not to be religious. So I'm like, Okay, you're not religious. You you don't believe in God or in Oh, no, no, no, I believe in God and Jesus and Christian.

I'm like, Okay, so you're religious? No, no, no, I'm not religious, because Christianity is the truth. Relationship and yeah, and religion is a, a false belief.

And so because I'm Christian, I'm not religious. I follow the truth. And to me, that's just complete and total bullshit.

It's like, no, you're religious. Now you're just trying to, you know, play games with words, right?

[Lilin Lavin]
So and there were in my childhood, I can say teachers that were obviously religious, but they didn't overly, you know, push that out there. And they just exemplified that belief in their actions, which I am totally fine with. I'm totally fine with that.

It's when you start pushing it and expecting kids to learn it or using your Bible as a way to push an opinion or thought or to make people feel uncomfortable, then it's, it's just gross, but we're way off topic. Yeah, so yeah, it was that. We talked about the campus setting aside time for employees to read the Bible or religious text and pray.

That one actually never passed the, it passed the Senate, but it didn't go further than that. Then we talked about the Ten Commandments. That one did not pass thanks to a lot of people having positions that they shared.

I know I wrote something, I believe you wrote something, multiple people wrote something. We had, there was a period in Texas where you're allowed to submit your own statement about a law. Oh, not everything that's put up for voting is given that opportunity, but this one was.

And so, yeah, I definitely did that. And then there was the, what was the other? Oh, chaplains, the chaplains in school.

Yeah.

[Tommy Lavin]
The chaplains replacing counselors.

[Lilin Lavin]
That one was really crazy to me. Now this did pass. It was Senate Bill 763.

You can look this one up. It allows for Texas schools to use safety funds, again, safety funds. That's what allows your kids to have security and other things that are necessary.

And I don't know if you kept up, but there's been a lot of issues in these schools. But anyway, it uses safety funds to allow for schools to pay for unlicensed chaplains to work in mental health roles. Now, mind you, these individuals are not trained in child psychiatrics.

They're not trained in child development. They are understanding those important things that one would want a counselor role to have, and they don't have to be involved in a certified program. Yeah.

[Tommy Lavin]
You even said unlicensed. So no licensing. So unlicensed chaplains to replace school counselors.

[Lilin Lavin]
It was delayed because some house members wanted an amendment to require chaplains to have accreditation, and that was defeated. There is also a request to allow it to be pluralistic, to allow people of different faiths. That was defeated.

It was also requested that parents would be able to opt out. That was defeated. So what finally passed was what they wanted in the first place, which was just to ensure that they would be allowed to do that.

Now, they made sure to say that no school can be compelled to do this, that it's up to them, and they can put whatever rules and regulations in place that they want as they see fit. I don't know if you know much about schools, but if they do adopt this, which the board has to vote on, and the board is made up not always of people that the community has put there, then they would be able to arbitrarily decide what the recommendations and what the requirements would be around this program. Yeah.

[Tommy Lavin]
And in a state like Texas, I can guarantee you that a lot of these schools will adopt this program. And so instead of having trained, licensed school counselors, you are going to have unlicensed chaplains in the school. And again, unlicensed chaplains also are not mandatory reporters.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah, that's another important thing that they don't have to report abuse or physical or sexual abuse at all. So, and another really important kind of scary thing for me, and I don't know how much of this program will be adopted into a school. I don't know that it will be adopted anywhere.

People may opt to just not do it at all. If you are in Texas and you don't like this idea, please write your school board, because that's going to help with that. But maybe, well, it does make a difference because these school boards do need community support.

And so the less support they have, the more likely they are to not support it because they want to continue with their position. But again, that's not a guarantee, but it is important that you voice your concerns. But the issue I have is what about kids that are struggling with very intimate issues or having problems at home?

If you start saying things that are very obvious platitudes and dismissing it or telling them to pray about it and not providing them useful, applicable, helpful information, then what is that going to do to a kid's confidence? How does that affect someone that's dealing with suicidal ideation or that's struggling with sexual identity? Things that are going to come up and would normally be someplace they could at least have a starting point to learn or to get other resources to deal with.

Right.

[Tommy Lavin]
I mean, they're supposed to be able to go to a licensed counselor who is supposed to be unbiased. Now, we again, we know human behavior, but if you have a chaplain in there, that is a religious position, that it is a person from a religious, I don't know what you want to say, religious community who is now going to be promoting their religious doctrine to children in order to fix their problems. My parents beat me.

Oh, well, in Paul 329, you should read this and see, is there something you're doing that's causing your parents to act that way? Because spare the rod, spoil the child, and you just might be at fault for getting beat. And that's just total BS.

I'm sorry. That's just not going to fly. But in the Texas legislature, it did.

And so, again, if you're not in these conservative states, I would still be concerned, because these things have a way. And if you don't believe that Christian Nationalists and Project Blitz and all of that sort of stuff is out there, and they have a well, well-planned agenda to move this stuff nationwide, they do. They do.

They just they know where to start. They know where the path of least resistance is, so they could get their claws in. And then all of a sudden, from there, it starts to spread to other places and other places.

[Lilin Lavin]
And it's smart, because they put things in, they'll present a Senate bill and a House bill, so they're hitting it from two different angles. But I did want to make a clarification and a correction. So I did find which representative it was that fought against the Ten Commandment bill.

It is a Democratic state representative, James Talarico from Austin. Yes, from Austin. I can hear some of you folks sighing.

But they accused Republicans of trying to force public schools to display it. And then they went on to say that they were a devout Christian, and that to me, it's not only unconstitutional, it's un-American and deeply un-Christian. And I say this, because I believe this bill is idolatrous.

I believe it's exclusionary. I believe it's arrogant. And those three things in my reading of the gospel are diametrically opposed to the teachings of Jesus.

So I will say I very much appreciate this individual for standing up against one of these bills, and the way that they did it, and the professional way that they addressed the situation. Okay, so he wasn't a Republican. He wasn't a Republican.

He was represented by a Republican who admitted it. It was the canny noble who submitted this and championed it. So yeah, they spoke up against the person that was submitting it.

And they really did a great job. There's some video out there of their speaking. I just couldn't recall it.

But it's Representative James Talarico, a Democratic representative out of Austin.

[Tommy Lavin]
So, but they are Christian. And I kind of love it when Christians defeat other Christians on things that should be defeated, because at the end of the day, if you look at at least the words that they have in their Bible about the type of person Christ was, I don't really remember anything in there where Christ said, go ahead and indoctrinate kids in school with this.

[Lilin Lavin]
Well, and this is where I do kind of push back because there are people that are religious to fight back against this. It was really, and if you are a Christian, you're listening, thank you. But the way that he did this is he went about, he actually quoted a Bible verse.

He used it to say, you know, this is why this is wrong. It was Matthew 6, 5. Don't be like hypocrites who love to pray publicly on street corners.

When you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And it just went on to talk about things like that. But again, so eloquently utilized the true teachings based on their personal interpretation of their religion.

And I say true teaching, not to say that it is true or truth, but based on what they believe the Bible was trying to express, that it was something to be personal and private, and that when you lord it in front of other people, you're actually demeaning the faith that you supposedly follow. But again, this was one of many bills, but it wasn't like if it wasn't for people like him who was publicly happy to come out against it, we would not maybe be in this position. And we would now be dealing with, well, what do we do in a couple of weeks when our kid goes back to school?

[Tommy Lavin]
Darrell Bock Yeah. And so there is a lot of, there is a lot of, you know, religious, a religious ideology being pushed into the schools. And then, you know, the one that we hear about out a lot on the news is, you know, all these book bannings and things like that.

And I think that'll be its own subject. Chris Yeah.

[Lilin Lavin]
Yeah, I know there was a temple service that myself and a few other ministers were able to speak on, and it specifically talked about the book bans. And we were of very different opinions on how to handle some of that. But we all agreed that it was like, very concerning.

Some of us did not think it was fair to remove the Bible based on the context of what they said was an inappropriate book. And I understand why. Myself, I believe that if you're going to say these are the restrictions, and the Bible happens to fall under that, then it too, should be removed.

Darrell Bock Yeah.

[Tommy Lavin]
I don't think you'll get, I don't think removing the Bible is a way to try and get empathy, because I think a lot of these people are way beyond empathy. I think it's more of, no, you have to play by the same rules. And so if these are the rules you set up for everybody else, well, guess what?

The rules apply to you too. Oh, you don't like the rules? Well, that sucks.

How about don't implement the fucking rules?

[Lilin Lavin]
Chris Yeah. And to be clear, like some other people had said, I don't think it should be removed if it's not being forced on people. If people want it there, and it's not mandatory in every class from being used to announce it from the loudspeaker, that's fine.

The only time it should be included in a classroom setting is if it's with a bunch of other religious texts and being discussed in an intellectual non-biased comparative. But again, how realistic is that?

[Tommy Lavin]
Darrell Bock Yeah, I just don't think that one's all that realistic. So, yeah, I mean, I think that's sort of in a broad, very broad type of stuff that is going on right now. The ideology that we're seeing being pushed into schools, again, firsthand here on what I'd consider the front lines, which is Texas, because it's its own little sort of theocracy with inside of itself.

And, you know, so be aware, even if you're not in a conservative state, these are things that you need to be aware of. And just, you know, do you, is this something that you want in our country? We're not, you know, this isn't how our country is set up.

[Lilin Lavin]
So... Chris No. And just remember, if you are a person that has a deeply held belief, that's great.

And if you want to teach it to your kids and have them grow with that, you have ample opportunity outside of school. There's lots of different opportunities for you to share that with your kids. And if you have been honest and upfront and shared with them things, don't be afraid for it to be challenged.

Because that's the only way that we learn where we fit within the world and what our beliefs are for ourself. You know, you can share whatever you want with your kids. That does not guarantee they're going to take to it.

And that's okay.

[Tommy Lavin]
Dr. Justin Marchegiani Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we've always supported our kids no matter what they wanted to study.

You know, we opened it up to them and allowed them that opportunity. And that's generally the way that most Satanists, you know, are is that we do not look to indoctrinate children. Children should be allowed to research and find their own path.

And when they're old enough, make their own decision on that.

[Lilin Lavin]
Chris Yeah. I mean, and before, you know, they're going to start to assert who they are way before they're old enough. But definitely they're, you know, once they're old enough to go off and decide whatever it is that they want to start going to church or whatever, you know, go do that.

[Tommy Lavin]
Dr. Justin Marchegiani Yeah. But not in school. And so, yeah, I think with that, we've we've covered a lot of this.

You know, we'll cover other areas like book bands and stuff like that at a later date. But I think we've done a, you know, I think we've pretty much covered ground on what's going on here in schools.

[Lilin Lavin]
Chris Yeah. So if you have feedback, thoughts, opinions, feel free to let us know. And if there's stuff you'd like to see us talk about, make sure to hit us up on social media or anywhere that you find us and let us know what that might be.

And we're happy to possibly go ahead and add that in to one of our next podcast.

[Tommy Lavin]
Dr. Justin Marchegiani Awesome. Hail Satan.

[Lilin Lavin]
Chris Hail Satan.