Joan DelFattore

This book details the history of religion in public schools in America, and the fight to remove it, followed immediately by the fith to restore it. The author makes a concerted effort to present the cases side by side, but there is no secret that she is an advocate of separation. The book has a lot of good, solid research, but there are some weaknesses that could have been fatal in a lesser book. For instance, she tends to present things that are being said about American history and the founders that are incorrect without correcting them; in fact, she seems to accept at face value that the founders would have been OK with establishing a generic Judeo-Christian sort of civil religion, but she argues that this has changed in the face of current diversity; the biggest problem with this is that she acknowledges the source that is being used is someone who was born about the time the war with England was being fought. As a scholar, she should know that the founders own words on the subject would be much better reference points than someone with a specific agenda who wrote years after they were dead. Another interesting weakness is the near absence of atheists in this book. WIth the exception of a chapter on Madalyn Murraly-O'Hair and two paragraphs on Michael Newdow, atheist groups are almost totally silent, though they have been anything but silent within the many years of battles. In addition, she presents such a clinical picture that her argument is weakened; it appears as though these cases were filed and decided in a nice, TV drama sort of way with Perry Mason and Hamilton Burger offering up polite barbs. The extreme amount of ugly nastiness that has characterized one side in this battle is actually such an important part of this story, I can't believe it wasn't even mentioned. Since many of these instances have actually been used as arguing points in the court cases to maintain separation and keep prayer out of schools, used to demonstrate the extreme divisiveness and sheer terror that can come from disagreeing with the dominant majority, it's very surprising she doesn't even give one word to this argument, even as she is discussing whether there is a coercive element to the "opt-out" clauses that could potentially subject children to bullying and worse (it seems that "this has happened" is presenting a more accurate argument in this case than "this could happen".) Overall, a good introduction to the topic, and not just covering the same old ground, but what she chose to leave out was a clear indictment of the moderate religious voice in this country, since many writers are aware that they will not sell as many books if they are perceived as giving aid and comfort to atheists (to give her full credit, she does mention atheists as a class of speech that exists and is protected, and she includes non-believers in the people that are in need of protection. She is not hostile; she just leaves out the important contributions of a class of people that have been vital to this battle).… (meer)