What She Said: Kaminer Responds to Romney

Author of "Free For All: Defending Liberty in America Today," among others, Wendy Kaminer, responds to Mitt Romney's unfortunate misrepresentation of secularism. Read her piece, rather then my ramblings on freedom posted earlier. Unfortunately, Romney's concerns about secularism being a new religion are not new. I'm started to read, "In Defense of Secular Humanism," by Paul Kurtz. Right off the bat, in his book published in 1983, he quotes Tim LeHay. Who is Tim LeHay? Well, before he co-wrote the Left Behind series, he was a Baptist minister, founder of the Creationist Institute in San Diego, a leader of the Moral Majority, and Chairman of the Conservative Council, a group of 50 conservatives I'm sure are super fun at parties. Remember, this was all back in 1983, the time of Pac Man. His big claim? Humanists controlled America, from the TV to the schools. He warns in his book, "The Battle for the Mind," that "We are not free to send our children to school where they are safe from violence, drugs, and Anti-American teachers... In fact, to provide our young with the high-caliber education which includes an emphasis on basics and character building, we must pay tuition to send them to a Christian school or to other private schools while paying taxed to subsidize the religion of humanism in our public schools."

I couldn't read much more of Paul Kurtz book, but will provide a review later. What is shocking, is that the argument and dialog between fundamentalists and humanist, secularists, and atheists does not appear to have changed much. It's also apparent that the current conservative push in America has taken a long time to develop. I'm hoping something more sensible doesn't take as long to move it to the fringes.