More on More

I have received a surprising amount of requests from people asking me to clarify my objections to the Thomas More Law Center. It seems that some people think that I have a problem with Christians in general and they can't understand why. Interestingly most of these folks are self-identified Christians, but nevertheless I want to clarify things a bit. Mostly I'm going to pull pieces from the responses to comments I left on the actual post, and from an email that I sent to an associate.

In my ten years as a homeschooler, I met many people who are Christian. I found most of them to be lovely people and at one point even tried to participate in one of their support groups. However, through my experiences I have gained the understanding that many have a fundamental inability to separate anything they do from their belief that they are their god's servants; everything they do comes from a perspective of trying to serve him, spread his word, and bring him more followers.

Despite that, the reason for my "hard position" regarding Thomas More is not because they are Christian, but because their mission statement clearly states that their Christianity defines everything they do: "The Law Center’s purpose is to be the sword and shield for people of faith... We achieve this goal principally through litigation, seeking out significant cases consistent with our mission... The Law Center also defends and promotes faith..." and because they clearly state that they are a "ministry"; their whole purpose for existing is for religion.

On my original blog post I wrote "...we should actually avoid sending people to that website, unless of course, we know in advance that they are Christian and share all of the values that Thomas More does." So I completely agree that More's values will resonate with some people. But I can say that one of the things that I witnessed during all my homeschooling, is that religion can be very divisive. And until one has dealt directly with people whose religion is integral enough to who they are that they refer to themselves as a ministry, one cannot understand the depths of what that means.

Because of their religious viewpoint, the More Group will fight for liberties at the expense of others' liberties; they tout themselves as "...the leader in the effort to overturn Roe v. Wade..." and seek to fight the right of gay people to marry.  Please read their Wikipedia profile for a better and well referenced explanation of what they stand for: "The Thomas More Law Center is active in controversial social issues and cases..."

Because of their religious viewpoint, it would be very unlikely that they would take up a case, for example, where a teacher was reprimanded or written-up for expressing to their administrators that things like Common Core, extended day, or disciplinary issues with students are creating problems, if that teacher was openly gay or Wiccan.

I completely agree that "its easier to accomplish a daunting task when we as individuals set aside our differences and work together". But Thomas More will not set aside their differences; their religion is too integral to who they are, and they are therefore incapable of it.

I understand that wanting to have lawyers to back up parents for free would be wonderful. Totally. But I do not feel More is working for free; I believe the cost of their services is the exposure their help will get them. As they say on their website "The Law Center also defends and promotes faith and family through media and educational efforts."

So just as with homeschoolers facing improprieties with the schools, or in the case of parents of special needs kids whose schools are not doing right by them, parents who meet push-back from their school districts regarding testing refusals and other educational issues may need to pay a lawyer. And we do have Deborah Stevenson, who stays on top of all of this, if that becomes necessary.

The bottom line in all of this is that Thomas More Law Center is not irrelevant because they are Christian, it is irrelevant because they do not contribute to the conversation regarding Common Core in Connecticut.

But that may change if the Christian leaders of CT Against Common Core decide it's worth alienating the infidels who work with them. Only time will tell.