From "I'll Have to Pray on It" by Coach Dave Daubenmire, posted 8/9/07 at newswithviews.com
...Well it just so happens that I had recently been at a gathering where the discussion of such “public” indoctrination had come under inspection. A group of parents had invited me to come and listened as they “privately” aired some concerns that they had about what was taking place in their “public” schools.
“What should we do, Coach?” they inquired of me. “We think it is horrible what they are exposing our kids to at such a young age. Somebody is going to have to do something about it?"
I had been here before. As a guy with a reputation of being a bit “edgy” as far as Christianity is concerned, I knew that the “somebody” they wanted to do something was me. They didn’t come right out and say it, but I knew they wanted to hire me as a mercenary, free of charge of course, because I had “experience” in this “type of thing.” In other words, they wanted me to go fight their fight for them, sort of a Christian hired-gun. Let me take the fire as they hid in the pews and watched.
“What do you think we should do? I queried them. “What is it you would like to see happen?”
They did not appreciate my questioning; they had invited me for answers. I didn’t let them hide in their silence.
“Let me ask you a few questions. Who pays for the schools, whose children are being “educated” there, and who is responsible for training the children?”
All eyes immediately dropped to the floor as mine panned the crowd. “Until you answer those questions there is no need to proceed. After a long pause I said “Let me help you out.”
I knew someone in the room was in trouble for inviting me to the meeting.
“Here it is in a nutshell. The schools are paid for with your tax dollars. The teachers, school board, and superintendent all work for you. You buy the books, the buses, pay the utilities, the salaries, and build the buildings. In many cases, you ‘tithe’ more to the schools than you do your church. Yet you have no say. Some “expert” in Washington knows what is best for your kid, even though they don’t know him, his parents, or his community.
The children belong to the Lord; He has merely put them in the care of earthly parents. They do not belong to the teachers, the school board, the superintendent, the National Education Association, or the Gay and Lesbian Task Force. George Bush doesn’t own them, Congress doesn’t own them, and the Supreme Court is not their family. If you have children it is because God has entrusted them to you.
The responsibility for training children falls to the parents. You will live with the consequences of what your children are taught. To turn the education of them over to people who will teach them things that are in opposition to everything that you as the parents believe is to bastardize them. They have your genes but someone else’s values. What more defines a child as yours? Is it the fact that he looks like you, or is it because he thinks like you? If you believe in your values, why wouldn’t you want your children to be taught them? Why would you pay the freight for your school to teach your children things you don’t believe?”
The room was uncomfortably silent.
“You want a plan? Well here you go. Call everyone that you know. Every pastor, every elder, every church member, every Sunday school teacher and ask them to join us at the school board meeting next Monday. If you do that, if you rally a crowd, I’ll go speak on your behalf. We will demand that the homosexual agenda be removed from our schools, that comprehensive sex-education be aborted, that abstinence education be the ONLY thing taught, and that every student be taught creationism as the origin of the species. We will make it clear that until our demands are met, not a one of us will ever vote for a school levy again, and we will encourage everyone we know to also oppose government indoctrination of our kids. They work for us. The school board will never see the light until they feel the heat. I say it is time we turned up the temperature.”
It was pretty clear to everyone. Now was the time to fish or cut bait.
In the back of the room a cowardly man stood up and cleared his throat. “This seems pretty radical stuff to me. There are a lot of good people working in the schools. They do the best they can to educate our children, with all of the restraints that are put on them” And then he hid behind his skirt. “I’ll have to pray about it. I’d have to be led by the Lord to do that.”
“Really?” I said as the steam rose off of my collar. “What is there to pray about? Let me sharpen the picture a bit for you, sir. If someone was breaking into your house to rape your daughter would you have to pray about your response? If you found a predator online trying to make a rendezvous with your 12 year old would you have to pray about it? If your neighbor was window peeping into your bedroom would you have to pray about it? If a drug dealer was standing on the corner giving marijuana to children would you have to pray about it? If your baby-sitter were feeding your child poison, would you seek the Lord about what to do?"
Do you pray before you go fishing? Do you pray before you play golf? Do you seek the Lord about going to a football game? Do you seek the Lord’s guidance before you put your kids on the yellow school bus from hell? As I once heard Zell Miller say, Silence isn’t golden, it’s yellow...
