Yay! A creationist thread!

[fencerchica]

As another of the fnetters with a homeschooled background, this was my experience:

I grew up in a traditionalist Roman Catholic household, meaning that although my parents and most of their friends followed the Popes, they did so only grudgingly, due to their disagreement with the direction the Catholic Church had been trending in throughout the 20th century. Some of their friends, by contrast, were Sedevacantists, who believed that with the liberalizing reforms of Vatican II, the Roman Popes had actually gone right off the cliff into heresy. Some of those followed ultra-orthodox Archbishop Marcel LeFabvre into schism, although now that Ratzy's on the job, he's working on courting them back into the fold (more ill that speaks of him; they're a bunch of nutters). My folks, on the other hand, were aligned with the FSSP, which hoped to turn the Roman Catholic Church back to ultra-orthodoxy from within, but functionally speaking was no less reactionary than the LeFabvrites. The norm for me was a kid was attending the Latin Tridentine mass, not the Novus Ordo mass in English that normal US Catholics are used to. My folks homeschooled me because the only other option in their eyes was the school operated by the traditionalist parish they belonged to, but they acknowledged that it was pretty lacking academically. Additionally, these cultish groups tend to have a lot of petty backstabbing personal feuds, and my folks didn't get along well with the directors of that school, who tended to use their position to manipulate the parish as a whole.

I was with a correspondence based home-schooling program accredited by the Mid-Atlantic states, that followed the traditionalist Catholic party lines sketched out above. They came down very hard on a reactionary political and social agenda that permeated every aspect of the curriculum. For science texts they used the infamous Beka books published by fundamentalist Protestant Christians, although they were apologetic about doing this because their perspective on Protestantism was quite hostile -- certainly at least as hostile as the attitudes some Southern Protestants have towards Catholics. Papal encyclicals were assigned as supplementary reading alongside the actual science curriculum. They were officially silent on evolution although they invited students to, optionally, study the young-Earth creationism included in the Beka texts. The entire concept of democracy was seen as suspect at best, heretical at worst. Colonialism was seen as the natural order of things, and the de-colonization of the 20th century was described as a tragedy and maybe even a sin against God's will. With a few weak caveats about slavery not being right (although surely, they added, abuses against slaves were greatly exaggerated), the antebellum US South was held up as an example for how society should operate, with commentary about how a strictly hierarchical society reflected the order of Heaven. The English courses included frequent readings of texts about Catholics being persecuted by Elizabeth or fighting against Cromwell, Catholics being persecuted by Puritans in the US during Cromwell's reign, Catholic Jacobites in Scotland, "heroic" clergy and nobles being "persecuted" by the Third Estate during and after the French Revolution, Catholic soldiers who fought on the Fascist side during the Spanish Civil War (this by the way is where the term "Carlist" comes from), Catholics who fought in Mexico's Cristero War, Catholics who defended the political power of the Papal State in Italy against Garibaldi, and so forth and so on.

The "tl;dr" take-away is that for me homeschooling was academically pretty rigorous but also a calculated attempt at ultra-conservative brainwashing on the part of the correspondence program (my parents have since greatly mellowed, partly I think because of the shock of being confronted by a stark view of what their co-religionists really think). For me it kinda paid off because it means I really know my enemies, but somehow I doubt that was the result they were shooting for. Google a book called "Christ the King: Lord of History" if you want the party line in a single volume -- it would be freaking hysterical if you didn't know people actually believe this ****e. It was my senior year history/civics text.

[Gav]

Man, this forum is way less fun without trolls.

This comment is funny because there are still plenty of trolls on this board.

Some may actually have already contributed to this thread...

[I_luv_saber]

The "tl;dr" take-away is that for me homeschooling was academically pretty rigorous but also a calculated attempt at ultra-conservative brainwashing on the part of the correspondence program (my parents have since greatly mellowed, partly I think because of the shock of being confronted by a stark view of what their co-religionists really think). For me it kinda paid off because it means I really know my enemies, but somehow I doubt that was the result they were shooting for. Google a book called "Christ the King: Lord of History" if you want the party line in a single volume -- it would be freaking hysterical if you didn't know people actually believe this ****e. It was my senior year history/civics text.

I don't necessarily disagree with you that some people do this, and it is a danger. But I still think homeschooling is a great choice for people who would otherwise have no other option but send their kids to a school that vastly under-performs. And, sadly, that tends to be most US schools. Maybe I'm being an optimist, but I honestly believe most people who choose to homeschool their kids are mainly thinking of education, not indoctrination.

Ultimately, you can't change stupid. If people are going to be stupid, they're going to be stupid, period. No amount of regulation of procedure or curriculum (which has been discussed quite a bit) is going to change that. You simply can't regulate intelligence. And the truth is, if people want to indoctrinate their children, they don't need homeschooling to do it.

This doesn't really contradict anything you've said, I'm just attempting to add some context.

[telkanuru]

This comment is funny because there are still plenty of trolls on this board.

Some may actually have already contributed to this thread...

Hey, I resent the implication that I contribute to anything.

[fencerchica]

Man, you wouldn't know it after the length of my prev post, but I omitted to mention a couple major points I wanted to make.

1) Beka Books: Ubiquitous among conservative Christian homeschoolers, with the exception of some of the most anal-retentive traditionalist Catholic ones, these books explicitly pound the pulpit for young-earth Creationism. They've cornered the market and thus exert a great deal of influence which they wield in pursuit of their agenda.

2) Among the homeschoolers I knew as a kid, they called mine the "liberal" program. My folks had to field frankly pretty rude challenges from a few of their traditionalist friends as to why they chose the program they did for me (answer -- because at least academic standards meant *something* there, unlike with their friends' choices, where only a religious litmus test mattered). Those families chose a homeschooling program w/ an even more reactionary social agenda.

[fencerchica]

Maybe I'm being an optimist, but I honestly believe most people who choose to homeschool their kids are mainly thinking of education, not indoctrination.

I absolutely agree with you that if people want to try to indoctrinate their kids, they will, and homeschooling isn't necessary to make a good go of that. However, homeschooling clearly facilitates this goal to a greater degree, and indoctrination is commonly a primary motivation for choosing it.

Here's an article I read recently on the topic of how secular homeschoolers constitute a minority in the movement, and have to contend with a lot of hostility from the majority:

Secular homeschoolers: Darwinfish out of water

"If you think you face a challenge raising kids without religion in a majority religious culture, rest assured that you face nothing compared to what I hear from some secular homeschoolers."

[I_luv_saber]

I absolutely agree with you that if people want to try to indoctrinate their kids, they will, and homeschooling isn't necessary to make a good go of that. However, homeschooling clearly facilitates this goal to a greater degree, and indoctrination is commonly a primary motivation for choosing it.

I'm not so sure that it's commonly the primary motivation for people... I'll address this a little more in a later paragraph.

However, I certainly can't argue that those people are out there and that homeschooling can facilitate that, for obvious reasons.

All in all, I'm still in favor of supporting it in the end.

Here's an article I read recently on the topic of how secular homeschoolers constitute a minority in the movement, and have to contend with a lot of hostility from the majority:

Secular homeschoolers: Darwinfish out of water

I don't doubt that most homeschoolers are not secular - but in a society with such high amounts of Christians anyway, maybe that's not so odd? I mean, just because one is Christian and a homeschooler does not mean that one is engaging in homeschooling in order to pound the Christian faith into someone...

"If you think you face a challenge raising kids without religion in a majority religious culture, rest assured that you face nothing compared to what I hear from some secular homeschoolers."

I'm not sure why this is so either.

In my experience, I was never involved with the homeschool community aside from being under an umbrella affidavit and being members of HSLDA. We never went to any of the events or anything like that. I found activities outside of that. As a matter of fact, that's why/how I got involved in fencing in the first place! As such, I can't see how it would matter if you are secular in a homeschool environment. Who the hell cares what other homeschoolers think?

My mother is Christian, but my education focused very little on that, aside from some Bible study separate from the actual education. Her reason for deciding to homeschool me and my brother related to the fact that our local high school is a major under-performer, and a pretty rough school to boot. That of course doesn't represent everybody - but I tend to think that most people out there choose this for the similar reason of nearby bad schools, with the fact that most people being Christian just being an accident of society as a whole.

EDIT: I'd also note a quick Google revealed a plethora of textbooks with seemingly no connection to religion whatsoever. I'm not sure what the fuss is about... just because religious textbooks seem to be the status-quo for the most part, it by no means seems secular ones are drowned out or hard to find.

[Inquartata]

Man, this forum is way less fun without trolls.

The market is wide open, and there are no barriers to entry...

[fencerchica]

I'm not so sure that it's commonly the primary motivation for people... I'll address this a little more in a later paragraph.

In the original article that jessicasimpson posted, a spokesman for your own organization, HSLDA (more on them anon) disagrees with you:

"The majority of home-schoolers self-identify as evangelical Christians," said Ian Slatter, a spokesman for the Home School Legal Defense Association. "Most home-schoolers will definitely have a sort of creationist component to their home-school program."

Additionally, the article states,

Christian-based materials dominate a growing home-school education market that encompasses more than 1.5 million students in the U.S. And for most home-school parents, a Bible-based version of the Earth's creation is exactly what they want. Federal statistics from 2007 show 83 percent of home-schooling parents want to give their children "religious or moral instruction."

(Note that the article in the OP phrases it too mildly: the phrasing in the cited study is that "From 2003 to 2007, the percentage of students whose parents reported homeschooling to provide religious or moral instruction increased from 72 percent to 83 percent.")

However, I certainly can't argue that those people are out there and that homeschooling can facilitate that, for obvious reasons.

All in all, I'm still in favor of supporting it in the end.

Well, I'm not arguing homeschooling should be banned, either, not only for ethical reasons but also because some reasonable people need homeschooling for good reasons including those you cited in your background. But I get a little cheesed at the argument that, overall, the homeschooling movement, as it exists in the US today, is by and large a benign phenomenon, when for 83% of homeschoolers (and 100% of the homeschoolers I knew growing up) it was certainly not.

I don't doubt that most homeschoolers are not secular - but in a society with such high amounts of Christians anyway, maybe that's not so odd? I mean, just because one is Christian and a homeschooler does not mean that one is engaging in homeschooling in order to pound the Christian faith into someone...

But this isn't the problem the article in the OP's addressing. It's not about garden-variety Christianity; it's about extremist forms of Christianity, which are what's prevalent among homeschoolers (as discussed in the article). The whole point of the article is to explore the phenomenon of moderate Christian homeschoolers who unsuspectingly find themselves in a scene where young-earth Creationists and other exotic species constitute the majority.

In my experience, I was never involved with the homeschool community aside from being under an umbrella affidavit and being members of HSLDA.

Do you know very much about the HSLDA? They collect financial and political support from lots of folks who have no idea who and what they really are. If you take up the threads and start tracing them back, you find yourself down the rabbit hole, BIG time.

EDIT: I'd also note a quick Google revealed a plethora of textbooks with seemingly no connection to religion whatsoever. I'm not sure what the fuss is about... just because religious textbooks seem to be the status-quo for the most part, it by no means seems secular ones are drowned out or hard to find.

Well, again the point of the OP is that texts that're customized for homeschooling, and texts that're aimed at Christians, including moderate Christians, turn out on closer inspection to have an ultra-conservative agenda. It's particularly jarring -- and dishonest -- because companies like Beka don't really make it public, which is why parents get blindsided when they purchase texts that weren't really openly advertised as being as conservative as they turn out to be.

[I_luv_saber]

In the original article that jessicasimpson posted, a spokesman for your own organization, HSLDA (more on them anon) disagrees with you:

{snip}

Additionally, the article states,

I would note that in the article you posted, it says:

Stats from the Nat’l Center for Education Statistics regarding the most commonly-cited reasons for homeschooling in the US: “Parents’ concern about the environment of other schools (85%); “To provide religious or moral instruction” (72%); “Dissatisfaction with academic instruction at other schools” (68%). Hat tip to Melanie K!

This tells me that while religion is a consideration, it's not necessarily the primary consideration. I've no doubt that it weighs in, I just contest that it's the primary reason for most...

Well, I'm not arguing homeschooling should be banned, either, not only for ethical reasons but also because some reasonable people need homeschooling for good reasons including those you cited in your background. But I get a little cheesed at the argument that, overall, the homeschooling movement, as it exists in the US today, is by and large a benign phenomenon, when for 83% of homeschoolers (and 100% of the homeschoolers I knew growing up) it was certainly not.

I'm not sure why having religion involved makes it not benign. Lots of parents still teach their kids about their faith without homeschooling. Why does the fact that it happens when they learn at home make a difference?

But this isn't the problem the article in the OP's addressing. It's not about garden-variety Christianity; it's about extremist forms of Christianity, which are what's prevalent among homeschoolers (as discussed in the article). The whole point of the article is to explore the phenomenon of moderate Christian homeschoolers who unsuspectingly find themselves in a scene where young-earth Creationists and other exotic species constitute the majority.

I don't know what to say other than "so what"? Firstly, I still don't really buy the argument that most are super-crazy-religion nuts. Obviously your experience differs from mine, but it just hasn't been my experience - maybe it varies by region. But at any rate, even if we accept for the sake of argument that's true, what would you intend to do to fix the problem? How could you enforce any solution?

Do you know very much about the HSLDA? They collect financial and political support from lots of folks who have no idea who and what they really are. If you take up the threads and start tracing them back, you find yourself down the rabbit hole, BIG time.

Sure, but the main reason we were signed up (I can't speak for anyone else in this regard) is for the legal defense. That's it. Nothing more than providing a sort of insurance service. In that regard, they are providing a valuable service that can be harder to find otherwise. Aside from that, I've not much knowledge about them as we just... didn't care. We did our own thing independently.

Well, again the point of the OP is that texts that're customized for homeschooling, and texts that're aimed at Christians, including moderate Christians, turn out on closer inspection to have an ultra-conservative agenda. It's particularly jarring -- and dishonest -- because companies like Beka don't really make it public, which is why parents get blindsided when they purchase texts that weren't really openly advertised as being as conservative as they turn out to be.

I'm still not sure what you're getting at. I agree they exist. I agree they are the status-quo. I don't see it being a huge problem.

[fencerchica]

This tells me that while religion is a consideration, it's not necessarily the primary consideration. I've no doubt that it weighs in, I just contest that it's the primary reason for most...

The reason reported by the highest percentage of homeschoolers’ parents as being most important was to provide religious or moral instruction (36 percent).

I'm not sure why having religion involved makes it not benign. Lots of parents still teach their kids about their faith without homeschooling. Why does the fact that it happens when they learn at home make a difference?

But this isn't the problem the article in the OP's addressing. It's not about garden-variety Christianity; it's about extremist forms of Christianity, which are what's prevalent among homeschoolers (as discussed in the article). The whole point of the article is to explore the phenomenon of moderate Christian homeschoolers who unsuspectingly find themselves in a scene where young-earth Creationists and other exotic species constitute the majority.

I don't know what to say other than "so what"? Firstly, I still don't really buy the argument that most are super-crazy-religion nuts. Obviously your experience differs from mine, but it just hasn't been my experience - maybe it varies by region. But at any rate, even if we accept for the sake of argument that's true, what would you intend to do to fix the problem? How could you enforce any solution?

"So what?" WTF? If I were you, I would be even more pi$$ed off than me; it's your movement and your religion that are being co-opted and perverted by fundamentalists. And who brought up "enforcement" here? Academic standards should be enforced, but this is about soft power. How about vocally and publicly challenging your local equivalent of "Homeschoolers of Maine" (discussed in Dale McGowan's article) when they host conventions from which not only secular homeschoolers but also non-fundamentalist homeschoolers are quietly excluded (even though the organization bills itself as inclusive)? How about encouraging moderate Christians to be aware of the existence of these stealth-fundie programs and to investigate very carefully before joining a religious homeschooling program (like the lady discussed in the AP article)? How about extending peer support to secular and moderate homeschoolers, who are ostracized by most homeschoolers and pro-homeschooling orgs? How about supporting progressive homeschooler bloggers and community organizers? How about ditching HSLDA?

Sure, but the main reason we were signed up (I can't speak for anyone else in this regard) is for the legal defense. That's it. Nothing more than providing a sort of insurance service. In that regard, they are providing a valuable service that can be harder to find otherwise. Aside from that, I've not much knowledge about them as we just... didn't care. We did our own thing independently.

If you were paying members of HSLDA, you were signing your name up to their agenda, and not really just "doing your own thing independently." Look, if you pay money to a cause -- and they are a cause -- you're accepting a share of ethical responsibility for what they do. And there are alternatives to HSLDA. The fact that (I assume) y'all didn't know the alternatives existed is a sign of how HSLDA has leveraged their volume to drown out the competition, as well as a testament to their dishonesty about who they really are. AND a testament to how they dishonestly go about ensnaring homeschoolers with a false sense of alarm in order to hawk their product. Check this website out, which discusses problems with HSLDA and alternatives to joining them: Homeschooling is Legal

I'm still not sure what you're getting at. I agree they exist. I agree they are the status-quo. I don't see it being a huge problem.

Sighhhh... so in other words you think stuff like the experiences of the woman in the AP article is totally cool? Even if you don't give a rat's about what happened to her and her kids (which is pretty cold, if true) don't you even think it gives homeschooling a bad name??

[dcmdale]

Sighhhh... so in other words you think stuff like the experiences of the woman in the AP article is totally cool? Even if you don't give a rat's about what happened to her and her kids (which is pretty cold, if true) don't you even think it gives homeschooling a bad name??

Cool, no. Something you have to get used to if you are homeschooling, yes.

For obvious reasons, publishers don't like to send complementary copies to homeschoolers the way they do regular school teachers. The result is you buy stuff that doesn't work for your kids or is garbage or for whatever reason doesn't get used. That happens with secular material as well as Christian based. Apologia, Bob Jones, A Beka, et al hardly hide the fact that their material is religiously based. If you order a book from a Christian website entitled "Exploring Creation with..." (which the series title for Apologia's elementary science texts), do you think you might get something with a creationist viewpoint? Just maybe?

I am not really sure that I understand what you are arguing for (or against).

Are you arguing that religious publishers shouldn't be allowed to publish textbooks that are slanted towards their viewpoints? That sounds a lot like censorship. That parents can't buy them? That they can't be produced or bought unless another company makes a competing secular book?

Are you arguing that Christian homeschoolers can't meet and have conventions because there isn't equivalent opportunity for secular homeschoolers? That doesn't make sense to me. There are, or have been (I don't know the current state of things), secular homeschool associations, and, frankly, they didn't much like religious homeschoolers.

For us, we used A Beka English for a while in the early grades because its phonics based approach worked well for a dyslexic child. After that, it got too dogmatic and we dropped it. Not a big deal. We didn't like their science curriculum, so we didn't buy it. We used Bob Jones math for a while. It differed from "secular" math mainly in that it gave a lot more problems and would best be described as "old math." Through eighth grade, our science curriculum was largely built off secular resources. History involved a *lot* of reading and field trips because we didn't like the available texts. In high school, many of the texts were secular college texts. It isn't like you can't educate your kids without relying on the religious publishers. It may be a little harder, but that is homeschooling.

The one glaring exception was high school biology. That wasn't a subject that we felt qualified to teach, so we put our daughter in a class taught by somebody with a MS in Bio from UNC. She chose the book. Except for the chapter on evolution, it pretty much matches the textbook my son (who we didn't HS in highschool) had. The Evolution chapter had all of the same material that was found in the secular text, plus about 3 pages that would be objectionable. It is probably not the text I would have preferred, but, not anything that couldn't be talked to as a "teacher."

If you were paying members of HSLDA, you were signing your name up to their agenda, and not really just "doing your own thing independently." Look, if you pay money to a cause -- and they are a cause -- you're accepting a share of ethical responsibility for what they do. And there are alternatives to HSLDA. The fact that (I assume) y'all didn't know the alternatives existed is a sign of how HSLDA has leveraged their volume to drown out the competition, as well as a testament to their dishonesty about who they really are. AND a testament to how they dishonestly go about ensnaring homeschoolers with a false sense of alarm in order to hawk their product. Check this website out, which discusses problems with HSLDA and alternatives to joining them: Homeschooling is Legal

Yes, we belonged to HSLDA when we lived in a state where the law was ambiguous. We even utilized them once. Yes, there are other legal defense resources out there, but they are the most experienced. I read your website. It is quite alarmist. I know a bit more about some of these than this website wants to present. While I don't know about everything, the credibility of this site would not lead me to not join HSLDA if we were still HS'ing and if I still lived in a state where it was an issue. If you don't like them, don't join them.

[fencerchica]

Apologia, Bob Jones, A Beka, et al hardly hide the fact that their material is religiously based. If you order a book from a Christian website entitled "Exploring Creation with..." (which the series title for Apologia's elementary science texts), do you think you might get something with a creationist viewpoint? Just maybe?

First, I'm sure you know that calling the world "creation" isn't necessarily synonymous with being a young-earth creationist. (See: Humani Generis) Second, I wasn't arguing that book from a Christian publisher shouldn't be expected to be Christian. The woman in the AP article didn't think she was getting a secular book. The point is fundamentalism masquerading as moderation. Third, a parallel situation to a book/org trying to pretend to be moderately religious while actually being fundamentalist is the way that the HSLDA bills itself as being an advocacy group for all homeschoolers, while in reality, secular homeschoolers need not apply and Catholic homeschoolers are grudgingly tolerated. This flows into...

I am not really sure that I understand what you are arguing for (or against).

This semi-drift of the thread branched off because people were responding to the OP's AP article by defending fundie homeschoolers as either not that bad or not that dominant. What I'm arguing is just that:
1) homeschooling has come to be dominated by fundamentalists of both the Protestant and Catholic persuasions;
2) they're hostile towards secular/moderate society;
3) they use their mass in the homeschooling movement to deceive and to bully secular and moderate homeschoolers; and
4) they try to hide this, and it's valuable for people interested in homeschooling to see them for what they really are so as to know whom to avoid.

In other words, I'm backing up the observations made in the AP article versus the arguments of those who, unrealistically IMO, seem to believe that the majority of the US homeschooling movement is this happy hippy land where everyone wuvs each other.

Are you arguing that religious publishers shouldn't be allowed to publish textbooks that are slanted towards their viewpoints? That sounds a lot like censorship. That parents can't buy them? That they can't be produced or bought unless another company makes a competing secular book?

Geez. As I said to i_luv_saber when he suggested I was arguing for "enforcement", no I am not arguing for censorship, book banning, etc. For the nth time, I'm just arguing that 1) the homeschooling movement is more under the sway of fundamentalism than the general public realizes (and I'm making this argument in response to those who doubted the depiction in the original AP article), and 2) that the well-being of moderate and secular homeschoolers would be well served by publicizing the true natures of the fundie movers & shakers in the homeschool movement, so some resistance can be more effectively mounted. I think the story Dale McGowan told of secular and moderate homeschoolers getting ambushed by the H.O.M.E. conference is tragic and infuriating -- and exactly what the fundies want.

Are you arguing that Christian homeschoolers can't meet and have conventions because there isn't equivalent opportunity for secular homeschoolers? That doesn't make sense to me. There are, or have been (I don't know the current state of things), secular homeschool associations, and, frankly, they didn't much like religious homeschoolers.

Argh. No. I am not arguing this straw man you are proposing. Again for the nth time, I am arguing that fundie Christian orgs such as HSLDA and HOME falsely represent themselves as being innocuously moderate when in reality they have a very exclusive and extreme agenda. Their success in misrepresenting themselves has let them manipulate the support of the apathetic and incurious and hijack the leadership of the homeschooling movement to seduce and/or alienate any homeschoolers who don't hew to their agenda. Obviously they have the right to have conventions. But people should know them for who they are. That's all I'm saying. As for secular homeschooling associations, I have yet to see anything indicating that they rank up there in power and influence with religious ones, which is probably due to the fact that they don't have the numbers. That still doesn't justify fundamentalists claiming falsely to be moderate and then creating a climate of hostility towards seculars/moderates.

Yes, we belonged to HSLDA when we lived in a state where the law was ambiguous. We even utilized them once. Yes, there are other legal defense resources out there, but they are the most experienced. I read your website. It is quite alarmist. I know a bit more about some of these than this website wants to present. While I don't know about everything, the credibility of this site would not lead me to not join HSLDA if we were still HS'ing and if I still lived in a state where it was an issue. If you don't like them, don't join them.

As someone with some passing familiarity with HSLDA I disagree with you that the website I suggested is "alarmist". Also, obviously someone who dislikes HSLDA has the right not to join them, but that elides the point that HSLDA has cornered the "market" of homeschooling advocacy under the false pretenses of concern for all homeschoolers. The reality is that they only care about homeschooling insofar as it promotes the political and social agenda of the late RJ Rushdoony.

[I_luv_saber]

"So what?" WTF? If I were you, I would be even more pi$$ed off than me; it's your movement and your religion that are being co-opted and perverted by fundamentalists. And who brought up "enforcement" here?
<buncha stuff>

I... already said I don't agree with it. I'm against it. If anyone asks me about it, I'll tell them. Call me apathetic, but I really don't care enough to go out and start boycotts or sit-ins, thanks. It's other people's choice, not mine... doesn't mean I agree with it, but it really is their choice.

If you were paying members of HSLDA, you were signing your name up to their agenda, and not really just "doing your own thing independently."

Did you agree with Google caving to Chinese demands for censorship not long ago? If you didn't, I'm sure you stopped using Google, right?

Look, as a homeschooler, it's a good idea to have legal defense lined up. HSLDA provided that. We didn't really care about anything else because, yes, we were doing our own thing independently. This is not a difficult concept: We needed a service, HSLDA provided it. Just because I use a product from a company doesn't mean I throw my full support behind it. That's simple nonsense.

Sighhhh... so in other words you think stuff like the experiences of the woman in the AP article is totally cool? Even if you don't give a rat's about what happened to her and her kids (which is pretty cold, if true) don't you even think it gives homeschooling a bad name??

No, I don't think it's cool. I also don't think it's a huge deal. This isn't rocket surgery. "I want to teach my kids at home so they get a better education. I buy textbooks. I teach my kids." I'm not seeing where it matters what the rest of the community think/is doing. That's their choice, not mine.

Sure it gives it a bad name, and I don't like it, and I'm against it. Aaaaaand? What, I have to organize protests or boycotts before I'm "really" against something? Come on, now, this is just silliness.

I'm against a lot of things. It doesn't mean I'm going to be out there going on a hunger strike for every one of them.

[dcmdale]

First, I'm sure you know that calling the world "creation" isn't necessarily synonymous with being a young-earth creationist. (See: Humani Generis) Second, I wasn't arguing that book from a Christian publisher shouldn't be expected to be Christian. The woman in the AP article didn't think she was getting a secular book. The point is fundamentalism masquerading as moderation. Third, a parallel situation to a book/org trying to pretend to be moderately religious while actually being fundamentalist is the way that the HSLDA bills itself as being an advocacy group for all homeschoolers, while in reality, secular homeschoolers need not apply and Catholic homeschoolers are grudgingly tolerated. This flows into...

Then she didn't do her homework very well... This is one of several similar descriptions of the series from the website

Exploring Creation WITH ZooLoGY 3
Land Animals of the Sixth day

What separates people from apes? How can a Great Dane be related to a Chihuahua? Is there evidence that people and dinosaurs lived at the same time?

Apologia openly markets its material as advocating 7 literal days of creation about 6000 years ago and that Darwin was wrong. That is not something that they are hiding. If she missed that part, she may be out some money. She won't make that mistake again. I am not sure why this should make me indignant.

This semi-drift of the thread branched off because people were responding to the OP's AP article by defending fundie homeschoolers as either not that bad or not that dominant. What I'm arguing is just that:
1) homeschooling has come to be dominated by fundamentalists of both the Protestant and Catholic persuasions;
2) they're hostile towards secular/moderate society;
3) they use their mass in the homeschooling movement to deceive and to bully secular and moderate homeschoolers; and
4) they try to hide this, and it's valuable for people interested in homeschooling to see them for what they really are so as to know whom to avoid.

In other words, I'm backing up the observations made in the AP article versus the arguments of those who, unrealistically IMO, seem to believe that the majority of the US homeschooling movement is this happy hippy land where everyone wuvs each other.



Geez. As I said to i_luv_saber when he suggested I was arguing for "enforcement", no I am not arguing for censorship, book banning, etc. For the nth time, I'm just arguing that 1) the homeschooling movement is more under the sway of fundamentalism than the general public realizes (and I'm making this argument in response to those who doubted the depiction in the original AP article), and 2) that the well-being of moderate and secular homeschoolers would be well served by publicizing the true natures of the fundie movers & shakers in the homeschool movement, so some resistance can be more effectively mounted. I think the story Dale McGowan told of secular and moderate homeschoolers getting ambushed by the H.O.M.E. conference is tragic and infuriating -- and exactly what the fundies want.



Argh. No. I am not arguing this straw man you are proposing. Again for the nth time, I am arguing that fundie Christian orgs such as HSLDA and HOME falsely represent themselves as being innocuously moderate when in reality they have a very exclusive and extreme agenda. Their success in misrepresenting themselves has let them manipulate the support of the apathetic and incurious and hijack the leadership of the homeschooling movement to seduce and/or alienate any homeschoolers who don't hew to their agenda. Obviously they have the right to have conventions. But people should know them for who they are. That's all I'm saying. As for secular homeschooling associations, I have yet to see anything indicating that they rank up there in power and influence with religious ones, which is probably due to the fact that they don't have the numbers. That still doesn't justify fundamentalists claiming falsely to be moderate and then creating a climate of hostility towards seculars/moderates.



As someone with some passing familiarity with HSLDA I disagree with you that the website I suggested is "alarmist". Also, obviously someone who dislikes HSLDA has the right not to join them, but that elides the point that HSLDA has cornered the "market" of homeschooling advocacy under the false pretenses of concern for all homeschoolers. The reality is that they only care about homeschooling insofar as it promotes the political and social agenda of the late RJ Rushdoony.

I don't have time to deal with all of this tonight, but there is nothing stopping anyone within the HS community from starting either another legal defense association or more moderate support associations. The HSLDA sends out a newsletter that discusses its activities including many of the things on the site. If they were hiding their activities then I might feel differently. I also know that there are two sides to many of the "OMG! Can you believe this!" stories on that site. If HSLDA markets itself as serving the whole HS community and only really serves a segment, then they join a lot of other non-profit organizations... United Way, AARP, ...

Sure. We ran into plenty of people we didn't see eye-to-eye with while Homeschooling. Nothing forced us to deal with those people.

[Thierry]

Atheist: No evidence of existence is not evidence of non-existence

[dcmdale]

The reality is that they only care about homeschooling insofar as it promotes the political and social agenda of the late RJ Rushdoony.

Rushdoony was certainly an early advocate for Christian homeschooling. One of the dirty secrets of homeschooling is that while not all homeschoolers are weirdos, a lot of weirdos are homeschoolers. I don't know how many times while we were on homeschool mailing lists that we got blow-by-blow, inside-the-compound descriptions as the FBI surrounded them. People with very odd beliefs often choose homeschooling for obvious reasons. Rushdoony fits that bill.

I don't think that the HSLDA hides the fact that some (maybe all) of its staffers are Reconstructionists, although my observation is that most of their advocacy of reconstructionism is (properly) outside of their roles within the HSLDA. There are plenty of other resources within the homeschooling community that are affiliated with a particular denomination or belief system. I don't see massive numbers of people leaving their existing churches and beliefs and flocking to Rushdoony just because they send money to the HSLDA any more than I see people adopting utopianism because they bought an Amana washing machine.

I am well aware that an idea, even a really bad one, can have legs of its own. Reconstructionism is a really bad idea and I understand why you would be afraid of it. However, fear of it within the liberal community is probably more responsible for any publicity for it than anything that the HSLDA does.