Texas, Our Texas

As someone who grew up, but no longer lives, in Texas, I have conflicted feelings about my home. It's a big, beautiful state with a range of environments—deserts in the west, woodlands in the east, rolling plains in the middle and beaches to the south. Due to its great size, there are probably as many people living the quieter rural life as there are urbanites. The people tend to be friendly (or at least polite) and generous.

On the other hand, Texas is hot in the summer (and I mean hot—maybe not hot like Arizona is year-round, but really hot in July and August). There's a lot of poverty across the state and not a lot of social services to alleviate it. And those friendly people, especially the fair-skinned ones, can be downright unfriendly or worse when someone's complexion is darker or their language accented with anything other than a twang.

Two stories in the Times today caught my attention and reinforced my contradictory opinions: the first, about wind farming West Texas, made me proud of my birthplace; the other, about Bible classes in public schools, made me shake my head in disbelief once again.

The wind farming story is a no-brainer: I can't imagine that harnessing a clean, cheap, renewable energy source has any downside. Of course, that won't stop TXU from looking for ways to raise their fees for that electricity as soon as they start delivering it—have you ever heard a utility say, "We're doing so well with this, we just don't need any more money from our customers!"—but, for the moment, Texas is making enormous progress toward weaning us all off fossil fuels. It's a laudable move and the people of Texas should be proud that their state is helping lead the way for the rest of the country.

The second story, however, shows how the Evangelical Right continues to trample on the Constitution in pursuit of its agenda. In this case, however, I think they've left themselves open to be hoisted by their own petard: there are no guidelines for how their bible classes are to be taught. The best thing about this fact is that there will certainly be some overzealous Evangelical who will go too far and violate the separation of church and state, which will lead to the courts having to put an end to something that should never have been approved in the first place.

At the same time, however, the lack of curriculum they provide actually leaves these courses open to being a true educational experience. I've no doubt that the zealots who got this approved can't imagine that there's any way to teach these classes other than how they would do so in their Sunday Schools—that's the myopic result of being certain that yours is the One-True-Religion. They probably don't even know any Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Hindi, Buddhists, atheists, agnostics, Wicans, Druids or Native American spiritualists (or at least they don't think they do). Suppose a teacher with a different agenda were to get control of one of these classes? Or, worse still, someone who was willing to keep an open mind about spirituality and belief?! For most evangelicals, that's the most terrifying scenario of all: kids capable of thinking for themselves. Clearly, if that were to happen, those souls are lost to secular humanism forever.

The Canterbury Tales: The Archbishop's Prologue

The Right Reverend Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, is in the center of "a row," as the Brits like to say (I might call it "a fracas," others might say that he's getting himself "b***ch-slapped") because he said in an interview on the BBC that he believes that British law needs to remain open to modification in order to remain inclusive. Unfortunately, he advocated Islamic Sharia law in order to "maintain social cohesion" for the growing Muslim communities in the U.K.  Now, he's not saying that Sharia law will (or should) replace British law; he's just saying that it should be an option for those who wish to use it.

British law already allows for parties to use whatever legal means they choose to resolve differences, so long as both sides agree to the process. This includes Islamic Sharia and Jewish Beth Din courts. So it's difficult to see what Dr. Williams' would see being done differently. He specifically says that he doesn't mean Sharia as it is more zealously applied in many Muslim countries; I'd be interested to know specifically which additions he believes might be useful. 

My overall feeling, however, is that all of the British politicians who are criticizing the Archbishop for his statements are guilty of playing into people's ignorance and fears. And the Archbishop is guilty of choosing the wrong medium—a radio interview—to begin a dialogue on an incredibly complex subject. It's taken me almost an hour just to write a three paragraph blog post outlining the subject; he's going to be able to make a persuasive argument speaking extemporaneously in a broadcast studio?