WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:08.800 Good evening. Welcome to Moral Politics with Bill Alford. I'm your host Valerie 00:08.800 --> 00:13.800 Tirico and this is our monthly series on Christianity in the public square. How 00:13.800 --> 00:18.840 would you feel if you found out that your local neighborhood grade school, your 00:18.840 --> 00:24.320 public grade school, had become a religious recruiting ground? Would it be 00:24.320 --> 00:30.680 okay if it was your church? How about if it was Mormons or Muslims? Would it 00:30.680 --> 00:35.800 matter to you if it was Catholics or evangelicals or Jews? How about Jehovah's 00:35.800 --> 00:41.680 Witnesses or Scientologists? You're probably thinking it doesn't matter who. 00:41.680 --> 00:47.320 We have something called separation of church and state. It's not happening. No 00:47.320 --> 00:52.960 religion has the right to troll for converts on a public grade school 00:52.960 --> 01:01.440 grounds. If you think that, you're wrong. Here with us tonight is a North Seattle 01:01.440 --> 01:08.560 parent, John Lederer, who's going to talk about what was happening at his daughter's 01:08.560 --> 01:12.240 grade school. Thank you for joining us tonight, Mr. Lederer. 01:12.240 --> 01:19.360 Oh, thanks. Is it okay if I call you John? Oh, please do. Call me John. So you went to your daughter's 01:19.360 --> 01:23.400 school and quite by accident found out that there was something going on there 01:23.400 --> 01:29.520 called a Good News Club. What is a Good News Club? Well, basically a Good News 01:29.520 --> 01:37.160 Club is Sunday school that happens right in the public school. And it was 01:37.160 --> 01:43.200 happening in my daughter's school back in 2008. She was a first grader. And 01:43.200 --> 01:48.000 basically it has all the elements of Sunday school that you would expect to 01:48.000 --> 01:57.040 find. It's basically, you know, singing songs, scripture, memory, learning about 01:57.040 --> 02:02.280 the Bible in this case. Everything you would expect to see in Sunday school 02:02.280 --> 02:07.040 happens in a Good News Club. And it was happening after school on a Friday 02:07.040 --> 02:12.560 afternoon right after classes in my daughter's public elementary school. In 02:12.560 --> 02:17.280 this case, it was Loyal Heights Elementary in Seattle. So, but it's after 02:17.280 --> 02:22.600 school. It's not actually happening as a part of the school program. Well, it's not 02:22.600 --> 02:27.560 exactly part of the school program, but it's happening right alongside all of the 02:27.560 --> 02:32.340 school-sponsored after-school activities, all of the PTA-sponsored after-school 02:32.340 --> 02:35.720 activities. It's happening in a classroom. In this case, it was a kindergarten 02:35.720 --> 02:40.840 classroom. It's happening right after school. And basically the Good News Club 02:40.840 --> 02:47.120 students who are going to their Sunday school essentially in the 02:47.120 --> 02:53.000 public school were meeting in the cafeteria right alongside the other 02:53.000 --> 02:57.360 groups, the chess club and the math club, who were meeting to have their 02:57.360 --> 03:02.760 snacks. And they were virtually indistinguishable from any of the school 03:02.760 --> 03:07.400 or PTA-sponsored after-school activities. So do you think the children, though, 03:07.400 --> 03:12.160 could tell the difference? Absolutely not. I mean, if you walked into that 03:12.160 --> 03:16.840 cafeteria and you saw, you know, one group of students over here and another group 03:16.840 --> 03:20.640 of students over there, the Good News Club, you wouldn't know which was the 03:20.640 --> 03:25.400 school-sponsored after-school club and the PTA-sponsored after-school club, 03:25.400 --> 03:29.800 which was the why and which was the boys and girls club and which was the Good 03:29.800 --> 03:33.280 News Club. You wouldn't be able to know. But, you know, they call it the Good News 03:33.280 --> 03:38.440 Club because they want it to sound like an after-school activity, like the math 03:38.440 --> 03:42.240 club or the science club. But it's not a club. It's Sunday school. Well, but I think 03:42.240 --> 03:45.840 a lot of people would say, look, like kids in our culture could use a little 03:45.840 --> 03:52.080 bit of character education, spiritual education, having the chance to learn 03:52.080 --> 03:56.680 some Bible stories, you know, kind of learn about our Judeo-Christian 03:56.680 --> 04:01.920 heritage. That doesn't sound all bad. Well, it isn't bad at all. The 04:01.920 --> 04:05.200 question is whether it should be happening in a public elementary school 04:05.200 --> 04:11.600 or not. And in this case, though, you have to also look at the kind of Bible study, 04:11.600 --> 04:18.520 the kind of religious practice that was going on in the Good News Club. So what 04:18.520 --> 04:24.680 kind of Bible study is it? Well, you sort of have to go back to 04:24.680 --> 04:30.920 who is sponsoring it to really understand what was going on. Who is sponsoring it? 04:30.920 --> 04:36.000 The Good News Club is sponsored by the Child Evangelism Fellowship. So, child 04:36.000 --> 04:41.840 evangelism. Child evangelism means converting kids, right? Yeah, it's basically about 04:41.840 --> 04:49.280 proselytizing and converting children to a particular evangelical fundamentalist 04:49.280 --> 04:54.920 brand of Christianity that is espoused by the CEF, the Child Evangelism 04:54.920 --> 04:58.240 Fellowship. This is a national organization that's been around for 04:58.240 --> 05:03.240 quite a long time, since the 1930s. But only starting in the 1990s did they 05:03.240 --> 05:08.600 really start to push in a major way with some of their legal partners to get 05:08.600 --> 05:13.680 into the public schools. And they were able to succeed in 2001. There was a 05:13.680 --> 05:19.520 Supreme Court decision that got them the right to rent facilities in public 05:19.520 --> 05:23.240 schools. So you're saying that the Supreme Court said they have the 05:23.240 --> 05:29.840 right to go on to public schools and try to convert kids? The Supreme Court said 05:29.840 --> 05:36.600 that they have the right to go into the public schools and rent school space if 05:36.600 --> 05:40.200 that district, if that school district is making their space available to other 05:40.200 --> 05:44.920 to other community organizations. No, they did not say they have the right to 05:44.920 --> 05:50.360 proselytize or to convert public school kids to their brand of 05:50.360 --> 05:54.080 Christianity. But in fact, that is exactly what they do when they move into a 05:54.080 --> 05:59.720 school. And unfortunately, it's not being properly checked by either the courts or 05:59.720 --> 06:08.440 the school districts. It sounds, it's, I mean, targeting five, six, seven-year-olds 06:08.440 --> 06:19.520 for religious conversion seems ugly. Well, it, you know, I kind of think it's, I think 06:19.520 --> 06:26.840 it's very wrong. I mean, basically, as a parent, it's my job to oversee my 06:26.840 --> 06:33.120 children's religious exposure, that initial exposure to spirituality and to 06:33.120 --> 06:38.800 religion. That's my job as a parent. Are you, may I ask, are you a churchgoing family? 06:38.800 --> 06:45.840 I'm a part of an interfaith family. We do attend church on a regular basis at 06:45.840 --> 06:51.040 Trinity United Methodist in Ballard. And my children get their religious 06:51.040 --> 06:58.400 education, as I think is proper, in a church, not in a public school where it 06:58.400 --> 07:02.640 doesn't belong. I would think a lot of people would listen to you being offended at the 07:02.640 --> 07:09.080 thought of, you know, kind of Sunday school, Bible school happening on, at a 07:09.080 --> 07:13.080 grade school, and they think, well, he must be anti-religious. No, I'm not 07:13.080 --> 07:18.520 anti-religious at all. I, and neither is my family. What I'm trying to do is to 07:18.520 --> 07:27.200 protect my children and, and my rights as a parent to be overseeing and directing 07:27.200 --> 07:31.520 my children's initial indoctrination into religion and spirituality. 07:31.520 --> 07:35.680 Well, what's wrong with a little bit of extra Bible study? I mean, you, you go to a 07:35.680 --> 07:39.200 church, you value the Bible. 07:39.200 --> 07:46.440 Well, that, that may be, that may be true, but the, the, the issue is where is the 07:46.440 --> 07:52.800 proper place for this kind of education to take place? And I strongly believe 07:52.800 --> 08:00.800 it's proper, not, not in a public school where we have lots of people of varying 08:00.800 --> 08:06.480 different faiths and non-faiths, but in the community where, where it properly 08:06.480 --> 08:13.000 belongs. I think you have to look at, at, at CEF, the Child Evangelism Fellowship, 08:13.000 --> 08:18.680 and what they believe in to get a sense of, of, of the evangelical and proselytizing 08:18.680 --> 08:19.760 nature of their work. 08:19.760 --> 08:24.280 So what do, what do they believe? Child Evangelism Fellowship? 08:24.280 --> 08:29.680 Well, they, the purpose of the Good News Club, and you can go to their website, 08:29.680 --> 08:34.800 cefonline.org, and you can find this for yourself. The, the purpose of their Good 08:34.800 --> 08:41.440 News Club is to evangelize boys and girls in the gospel of Jesus Christ. 08:41.440 --> 08:44.960 And by the gospel of Jesus Christ, they mean what? 08:44.960 --> 08:51.440 Well, it's a very kind of fairy tale version of Christian faith, and, and 08:51.440 --> 08:55.360 that's a little bit understandable given that they're focusing on five to ten 08:55.360 --> 09:00.840 year olds who really don't have the capacity to, to understand their faith at, 09:00.840 --> 09:06.120 at a much deeper level at that, at that age. But, but given that it's, it's a very 09:06.120 --> 09:08.240 fairy tale version in a way. 09:08.240 --> 09:12.560 So by fairy tale, you mean kind of happy, a little too clean, a little too pretty? 09:12.560 --> 09:15.440 Well, there's, there's a basic story. 09:15.440 --> 09:20.560 One of the things that they do in these Good News Clubs is they, they hand kids 09:20.560 --> 09:26.160 these little puzzle toys. They're called flipper flappers. 09:26.160 --> 09:27.000 Flipper flappers. 09:27.000 --> 09:31.000 Yeah, they're, they're, they're a lot of fun. You can, you can, you can flip them 09:31.000 --> 09:35.440 around, and I gave one to my daughter once, not telling her what it was or, or 09:35.440 --> 09:39.240 what the story is behind it, and she played with it for 20 minutes. 09:39.240 --> 09:42.520 She, she thought it was a lot of fun. It really captured her attention. 09:42.520 --> 09:47.120 But the idea is, is, is a pretty simple one. If you hand this to kids, it costs 50 09:47.120 --> 09:51.200 cents, and they bring it to school, it's going to start a conversation. 09:51.200 --> 09:53.040 So what's the, what's, yeah, what's the conversation? 09:53.040 --> 09:57.880 The conversation that they have around this little toy is one which you see, you 09:57.880 --> 10:04.320 see this yellow, yellow circle. That's supposed to represent the, the wealth of, 10:04.320 --> 10:10.320 of Christian faith, the, the, God's love. And then, and then if you turn to the 10:10.320 --> 10:16.160 black heart, the black heart is supposed to represent the, the heart of sin that 10:16.160 --> 10:18.560 is in all children that they're born with. 10:18.560 --> 10:21.240 So they're basically teaching this idea of. 10:21.240 --> 10:25.240 You're going to hell because you have a heart of sin unless you would, unless you 10:25.240 --> 10:29.400 adopt some simple rules. And they have to be simple because they're only five or 10:29.400 --> 10:36.200 six years old. Obey your parents, love Jesus Christ, adopt Jesus Christ as your 10:36.200 --> 10:38.720 savior for the rest of your life, and go to church. 10:38.720 --> 10:46.000 If you do those simple things, then you, God will absolve you of your sin, and 10:46.000 --> 10:52.040 that's the red cross, the idea of this the blood of Christ. 10:52.040 --> 10:57.240 God will absolve you of your sin, and you will achieve the white heart, the pure 10:57.240 --> 11:01.520 heart, and achieve salvation. So what they're looking for children to do in a 11:01.520 --> 11:05.520 Good News Club is to make a, what they call a salvation commitment, where they 11:05.520 --> 11:15.240 agree to adopt these, these, these four basic rules, and to, and to basically move 11:15.240 --> 11:19.680 on to, to, to a world in which they're ensconced in a church. 11:19.680 --> 11:23.600 So you go to a Christian church, and I happen to be familiar with that church. 11:23.600 --> 11:29.920 I don't think that that church would say you have to be saved by blood, that you 11:29.920 --> 11:34.640 have this kind of original sin, your black, heart is black, unless you're 11:34.640 --> 11:38.960 saved by this, the blood of Jesus, you're gonna go to hell and burn forever, and 11:38.960 --> 11:44.080 there's only one way. So, so you come from a different kind of Christian 11:44.080 --> 11:48.200 tradition. Your church doesn't teach those things. Well, absolutely it doesn't, 11:48.200 --> 11:52.760 and, and, but when you, when you do teach those things to very small children, and 11:52.760 --> 11:56.560 you do it in a public school, I mean, think about how the child reacts to that. 11:56.560 --> 12:00.360 How do they react, do you think? Well, I, I can see how they react, because it's 12:00.360 --> 12:04.520 happened in our school. You know, they basically say, okay, I'm saved. I've made 12:04.520 --> 12:08.000 that salvation commitment, but all my friends in my school, they haven't made 12:08.000 --> 12:11.640 that salvation commitment, so they're all gonna go to hell. They're not gonna, 12:11.640 --> 12:15.520 they're not going to get to live with Jesus after they die like, like, like I 12:15.520 --> 12:18.400 will, because I haven't made that commitment. They haven't made that 12:18.400 --> 12:22.120 commitment like I have. So you've got five-year-olds at loyal heights looking at 12:22.120 --> 12:25.280 their friends and thinking their friends are gonna be tortured forever. That's 12:25.280 --> 12:30.000 basically it. So of course they're going to try to draw them in. They're going to 12:30.000 --> 12:35.400 try to take that message to them and say, I want you to be saved like me, because I 12:35.400 --> 12:40.760 want to live with you and with, and with Jesus after we die. So, so the message 12:40.760 --> 12:47.480 itself is evangelical. The message tells children to try to reach out to, to other 12:47.480 --> 12:53.680 kids, but there's other things that CEF does in addition to the message that 12:53.680 --> 12:58.920 clearly is designed to reach the unchurched. I mean, and in fact, that is 12:58.920 --> 13:03.080 the goal of CEF is to, that's why they're in the public schools. That's why their 13:03.080 --> 13:07.040 name is called Child Evangelism, evangelize them, evangelize them, right? 13:07.040 --> 13:12.800 Evangelism. It's about, it's about getting converts, right? Getting converts, and, and 13:12.800 --> 13:18.200 the school becomes a fertile ground for doing just that. You know, there's a lot 13:18.200 --> 13:22.280 of different ways in which they do this. So if in the Supreme Court, in this kind 13:22.280 --> 13:28.240 of legal gray area, whatever it is, if, if it was said these guys are going into 13:28.240 --> 13:37.880 our public schools, their goal is to get converts among five, six, seven, eight-year-old 13:37.880 --> 13:43.320 children, you're saying that, that the Supreme Court said, that's okay. We can't 13:43.320 --> 13:48.080 stop that. No, absolutely. The Supreme Court did not say that's okay. You know, 13:48.080 --> 13:53.120 in a way, it's, it's kind of sad because CEF is pretty systematically 13:53.120 --> 13:57.120 misrepresented what the Supreme Court actually said in its, in its decision. 13:57.120 --> 14:02.320 What did the Supreme Court say as you understand it? As, as I understand it, in 14:02.320 --> 14:06.240 reading Justice Clarence Thomas's decision, it was a six to three decision. 14:06.240 --> 14:10.880 It was very controversial. There were five different decisions rendered among 14:10.880 --> 14:15.400 nine justices. They couldn't agree on how to decide this case. I mean, that's 14:15.400 --> 14:21.640 pretty unprecedented. But Justice Thomas wrote the majority opinion, and he, he 14:21.640 --> 14:26.880 basically said, look, if a school district makes its facilities available 14:26.880 --> 14:32.360 to anyone, to any community group, they can't discriminate as to whether that 14:32.360 --> 14:38.840 community group is religious or not. Okay, that's what he held. But he then went on 14:38.840 --> 14:46.600 to say, there's no issue here about the Establishment Clause of the Constitution. 14:46.600 --> 14:53.720 There's no issue because the CEF in the case that was before the court had taken 14:53.720 --> 14:59.680 great pains to separate itself from the school. They weren't holding their, their, 14:59.680 --> 15:04.960 their Good News Club in a classroom. They weren't involving teachers. They weren't 15:04.960 --> 15:10.600 involving staff. They weren't, they were doing it well after school. They weren't 15:10.600 --> 15:15.000 advertising in any of the school communications. He noted all of those 15:15.000 --> 15:19.000 things in his decision. So, and, and is that what happened at Loyal Heights? The 15:19.000 --> 15:22.240 exact opposite happened at Loyal Heights, and the exact opposite happens every 15:22.240 --> 15:26.680 time CEF goes into, into a new school. How did it work at your school? At our 15:26.680 --> 15:31.280 school, what they did is they came in and they immediately tried to embed 15:31.280 --> 15:37.440 themselves in kind of the legitimacy of the school. They, the, the first thing they 15:37.440 --> 15:42.400 did is they, they sent home a flyer in kids mail advertising themselves. Well, 15:42.400 --> 15:48.760 kids mail, you know, kids backpacks. That's, that's a school communication tool, 15:48.760 --> 15:53.240 and they basically used it. So it's an implicit way of saying this has school 15:53.240 --> 15:56.720 approval. This is school approval. It's a very implicit, but direct way of saying 15:56.720 --> 16:00.960 this has school approval, and a lot of parents immediately objected saying, okay, 16:00.960 --> 16:04.120 what is this Good News Club and why is it here? Because we didn't ask for it, and 16:04.120 --> 16:09.160 two, why are you using kids mail to get the word out about this outside group 16:09.160 --> 16:13.720 that wants to hold an after-school club at our school? And the principal 16:13.720 --> 16:18.040 immediately reacted, said, oops, we shouldn't have done that. From now on, I'm 16:18.040 --> 16:21.560 changing the policy. I'm going to review everything that goes out in kids mail, 16:21.560 --> 16:26.240 and I'm not, and, and, you know, that's never going to happen again. They're not 16:26.240 --> 16:30.560 going to use it. So that was, that was the first thing. The next thing they tried to 16:30.560 --> 16:35.840 do is they tried to sponsor an ad in the PTA's auction pamphlet. We have a big 16:35.840 --> 16:39.720 fundraiser at the school. It's an auction that happens every year. So another way of 16:39.720 --> 16:43.560 saying this is integrated into the school. We're a part of the school community. They 16:43.560 --> 16:47.800 were trying to reach parents and get the word out, so they wanted to have a full 16:47.800 --> 16:54.720 page ad in the auction catalog, and a bunch of us, other parents, basically 16:54.720 --> 16:58.600 said to the PTA, no, you can't accept their ad, because then it will look like 16:58.600 --> 17:01.760 they're part of the school, and they're not. And that's what the Supreme Court 17:01.760 --> 17:08.320 said they couldn't do. They couldn't do, exactly. And so, so in that case, that was 17:08.320 --> 17:12.720 the, that was the second example. The most egregious example of them over, and 17:12.720 --> 17:15.920 then they were also putting up signs in the hallway, and we had to deal with that. 17:15.920 --> 17:20.880 But the most egregious example was when the leader of the Good News Club, who was 17:20.880 --> 17:27.440 this woman from a local church, an evangelical church, called United Free 17:27.440 --> 17:33.960 Evangelical Church in Ballard, she, she decided she wanted to start 17:33.960 --> 17:37.840 volunteering in a kindergarten classroom, and she started volunteering four days 17:37.840 --> 17:42.760 a week in a kindergarten classroom as a teacher, as a teacher's helper. And, and 17:42.760 --> 17:48.000 this, this was really problematic, because suddenly you had the church lady, 17:48.000 --> 17:53.680 the person who was leading Sunday school, who's now volunteering and looking like a 17:53.680 --> 17:57.400 teacher to a five-year-old in the classroom. So suddenly it looks like 17:57.400 --> 18:03.320 teachers, or volunteers in this case, are participating in the Good News Club and 18:03.320 --> 18:07.680 leading the Good News Club, so that it's all part of the, so, so clearly it crosses the 18:07.680 --> 18:12.360 line of making to the student the Good News Club look like it's part of the 18:12.360 --> 18:18.080 school curriculum. And as a psychologist, I would say there is no way a five-year-old 18:18.080 --> 18:22.240 can tell the difference. Between a volunteer and the teacher and the staff, 18:22.240 --> 18:27.080 and I mean, it's all the same to them. They're all adults, right? And so they 18:27.080 --> 18:29.880 couldn't see the difference. There were a lot of parents in that classroom who 18:29.880 --> 18:34.000 said, you're not, this woman is not working with my kid, and they had to move 18:34.000 --> 18:37.880 her to another kindergarten classroom, and this kept happening until eventually 18:37.880 --> 18:44.040 the principal had to ask this woman to not volunteer anymore, because it wasn't 18:44.040 --> 18:48.360 working. She couldn't work with any of the parents' kids, because they all kept 18:48.360 --> 18:52.560 saying, we don't want to work with her. So what can, you said though, the school can't do 18:52.560 --> 18:57.520 anything about it? What, or can they? Well, there's a lot of things that the 18:57.520 --> 19:05.280 school district, you know, needs to do in order to really make sure that, that 19:05.280 --> 19:12.000 these, these divisions that need to take place between the Good News Club and the 19:12.000 --> 19:17.400 rest of the school are, are, are solidified. One is that they need to make sure that 19:17.400 --> 19:20.680 teachers and staff don't participate in the Good News Club in any way, and that 19:20.680 --> 19:26.080 includes right on down to helping a kid get to the Good News Club meeting place. 19:26.080 --> 19:30.800 I mean, they, they really can't go anywhere near the Good News Club. Once 19:30.800 --> 19:35.040 they do that, then it looks like the Good News Club is part of the school's 19:35.040 --> 19:40.720 curriculum. And, and then they also need to take great pains to make sure that 19:40.720 --> 19:45.920 there's no perception of any endorsement or the practice of religion. They need to 19:45.920 --> 19:49.800 make sure that the, all this school's communications vehicles, all the PTA's 19:49.800 --> 19:54.280 communications vehicles, are free of any information about the Good News Club. It 19:54.280 --> 19:58.920 cannot be just simply added to the list of after-school activities, because then 19:58.920 --> 20:03.400 it becomes part of the, of the school's sponsorship. So what do you want, what do 20:03.400 --> 20:09.840 you want parents to know about this? Well, I think, I think, I think part of it is I 20:09.840 --> 20:16.880 need to, I need to tell parents what we were able to do with this story. We, we 20:16.880 --> 20:21.600 pushed back, and because immediately they came in and, and crossed all of these 20:21.600 --> 20:25.640 lines that, that the court had established, that, that school policy had 20:25.640 --> 20:30.040 established, they immediately came in and crossed all of these lines. And we pushed 20:30.040 --> 20:37.960 back, and we got the administration at the school to stop some of the most 20:37.960 --> 20:44.480 egregious practices. Did the club go away? We got the PTA to not, to not take these ads and do all of these 20:44.480 --> 20:50.480 things. And no, the club hasn't gone away. It's still there, but the second year 20:50.480 --> 20:55.960 that they came back was a 180-degree change from that first year. They had 20:55.960 --> 21:00.560 clearly decided consciously they were going to change their strategy radically 21:00.560 --> 21:06.000 in Loyal Heights Elementary School. They did not put, advertise at all, not even 21:06.000 --> 21:08.680 on the community bulletin board where they're allowed to advertise. They didn't 21:08.680 --> 21:14.640 advertise anywhere in the school. They stopped wearing their t-shirts. They, they, 21:14.640 --> 21:17.840 the first year they had all of their kids wearing Good News Club t-shirts on 21:17.840 --> 21:22.920 Fridays just to remind everybody. So they were using kids to recruit other kids. They were using kids as advertising. They were using kids as 21:22.920 --> 21:32.040 advertising by giving them these t-shirts and telling them where they were on Friday. The kids are the mules that carry the advertisers home. The kids wear the t-shirts. They were wearing the t-shirts. The kids worry about their friends going to hell. 21:32.040 --> 21:52.520 Well, and just having the t-shirt is a conversation piece, and that's what it's designed for. But in the second year they, they stopped doing that. And they also were moved from a classroom to, to a portable. So farther away from the mainstream. And they accepted that. So basically we've come to 21:52.520 --> 21:58.520 an uneasy standoff where because parents pushed back against the Good News Club 21:58.520 --> 22:05.840 and CEF, we were able to change the rules in a way that we can live with. We don't 22:05.840 --> 22:11.880 like them, but we can live with it. And they were not able to cross, immediately 22:11.880 --> 22:17.040 cross the line of, of trying to integrate themselves into the rest of the school. 22:17.040 --> 22:21.360 And they, and they have remained somewhat isolated from, from the rest of the 22:21.360 --> 22:26.480 school ever since. So, so I guess the, the message for parents is if you're vigilant 22:26.480 --> 22:32.120 and you press back, you can change their behavior in a very fundamental way. And 22:32.120 --> 22:39.080 we, we've shown that. You know, it's another, another major. So I would guess that 22:39.080 --> 22:42.960 there are some parents who would like to have their kids getting Sunday school on 22:42.960 --> 22:48.280 the school grounds, who are getting kind of their, some religious education during 22:48.280 --> 22:52.760 the week. But, and it sounds to me like maybe by pushing back, you've kind of 22:52.760 --> 22:56.640 gotten to a point where the kids who are going to the club would be those kids. 22:56.640 --> 23:02.560 That it's not that they're on campus with the kids in the classroom recruiting 23:02.560 --> 23:08.120 kids and trying to convert kids. Well, CEF is smart. They don't move into a 23:08.120 --> 23:13.720 school unless they've got a core group of, of, of parents that are going to send 23:13.720 --> 23:17.400 their kids. I mean, they need to have a critical mass before they're actually 23:17.400 --> 23:21.920 going to make, make a move into a school. And basically it's, it's, it's degenerated 23:21.920 --> 23:25.960 to that original critical mass. They haven't grown from what I've seen. They 23:25.960 --> 23:30.520 have anywhere from six to 12 kids participating on a weekly basis. And it's 23:30.520 --> 23:35.440 pretty much stayed there. So, and that's, I think that's been helpful. I think the 23:35.440 --> 23:40.560 awareness raising has, has, has, has been helpful. I think also just keeping them 23:40.560 --> 23:45.360 sort of isolated from the rest of the school has been helpful. So, so, so there's, 23:45.360 --> 23:51.880 there's, you know, there's a group of parents that clearly, you know, are going 23:51.880 --> 23:55.040 to participate no matter what. And the reason that they're participating is 23:55.040 --> 23:59.400 because they want to establish a presence in the public school. I mean, they could 23:59.400 --> 24:03.120 easily have their Good News Club down the street at the local evangelical 24:03.120 --> 24:07.960 church. It's within walking distance of the school. In fact, we offered to buy 24:07.960 --> 24:11.400 them a van, to help them buy a van if they would just get out of the school. Of 24:11.400 --> 24:15.000 course, they didn't want that because they want to be in the public school. The 24:15.000 --> 24:18.840 public school is their mission field. Yeah. Child evangelism. I mean, I have to 24:18.840 --> 24:25.160 say, child evangelism, proselytizing children, converting children away from 24:25.160 --> 24:30.040 their parents' spiritual tradition. Child evangelism, it's just two words that 24:30.040 --> 24:35.080 shouldn't even go together. I kind of feel that way too, but, but I mean, I think 24:35.080 --> 24:39.600 my fundamental point is this is just an inappropriate activity in the school. 24:39.600 --> 24:43.960 When you press CEF, what they say is, look, the Supreme Court has said we have a 24:43.960 --> 24:47.880 right to be here. But, you know, as Americans, we need to be able to 24:47.880 --> 24:52.400 distinguish between what our legal rights are and what's the right thing to 24:52.400 --> 24:57.080 do. And those are two completely different things. And in this case, yeah, 24:57.080 --> 25:02.040 CEF has a legal right to rent space in a public school. But does that make it a 25:02.040 --> 25:08.160 good idea for us to be having religious instruction inside the public school as 25:08.160 --> 25:12.680 an after-school activity? I think not. I think it's a really bad idea. And it 25:12.680 --> 25:17.640 doesn't, it doesn't really matter whether it's evangelical Christians or any other 25:17.640 --> 25:22.920 religion. It just doesn't belong in the public elementary school. It's, it's not 25:22.920 --> 25:27.640 an appropriate activity in that venue. If they want to evangelize, go stand on the 25:27.640 --> 25:31.880 corner and evangelize, you know, go stand in the public park if that's where you 25:31.880 --> 25:37.760 want to be, but not in the public school. So if this was, if this was a more minority religion, even 25:37.760 --> 25:42.760 farther afield, I mean, I think in, you know, fundamentalist, fundamentalism in 25:42.760 --> 25:47.160 this kind of, what you're describing is a minority religion in Seattle. But what if 25:47.160 --> 25:54.880 it was Scientologists or if it was, who knows, if it was Hindus, would they let 25:54.880 --> 25:58.040 them, would they let them? Well, yeah, I mean, I think that's, that's the 25:58.040 --> 26:03.360 interesting part here. Since 2001, any religious organization has had the 26:03.360 --> 26:07.760 freedom to walk through this door, but only one has. So what you're saying is that 26:07.760 --> 26:13.320 Scientologists would have the right to form clubs on public schools according 26:13.320 --> 26:17.320 to the Supreme Court's decision in 2001, they're, they're free to do that. They're 26:17.320 --> 26:20.880 free to rent space and have an after-school club just like CEF, but 26:20.880 --> 26:26.040 nobody has. So you got to ask yourself, why not? Why only CEF? Why does everybody 26:26.040 --> 26:31.040 else seem to get it except the Christian evangelical group? You know, everyone else 26:31.040 --> 26:36.840 seems to think, as I do, it's not a very good idea to try to move into a public 26:36.840 --> 26:41.080 elementary school. But apparently only this group seems to think it is a good 26:41.080 --> 26:46.800 idea. I mean, there's something about this particular form of religion that, that 26:46.800 --> 26:50.680 lends itself to that kind of thinking that somehow everybody else doesn't seem 26:50.680 --> 26:54.040 to, doesn't seem to think in those terms. It's all right there in their name, 26:54.040 --> 26:58.040 isn't it? Child evangelism. Right. We're going to reach children, we're going to 26:58.040 --> 27:03.840 bring the unchurched into our church. And thanks to Clarence Thomas, we can now do 27:03.840 --> 27:10.520 that in a public elementary school. And they're doing it. They're doing it every 27:10.520 --> 27:13.880 day. John, is there anything else you'd like to say to our audience as we're 27:13.880 --> 27:20.960 wrapping up? We've got like one minute here. Well, I guess, I guess the biggest 27:20.960 --> 27:26.320 thing is that I, I really, I really don't want them, you know, getting in between me 27:26.320 --> 27:30.400 and my child and my child's initial indoctrination into religion. And by 27:30.400 --> 27:34.080 bringing their form of religion into the public school and by teaching this 27:34.080 --> 27:39.320 evangelical message to children, that's precisely what they're doing. You know, we 27:39.320 --> 27:44.600 really need to, to think about whether this is the appropriate activity that 27:44.600 --> 27:48.640 needs to happen in a public school. And parents have the opportunity to really 27:48.640 --> 27:54.960 make a change and to fight back and to, and to make a difference. Mm-hmm. Thank 27:54.960 --> 27:58.920 you for joining us tonight. It's been my pleasure.