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Shrider column: Vegas has priorities straight
| Friday, Oct 12 2007 9:45 PM
Last Updated: Friday, Oct 12 2007 10:16 PM
He's done it again.
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Kern High School District trustee Chad Vegas whacked a hornet's nest with his proposal to hang posters bearing the phrase "In God We Trust" in every classroom, a suggestion that has his critics and even some of his supporters questioning his motives, his intelligence and even his sanity.
Granted, his subsequent comments about unpatriotic liberal secular atheists who hate God and prefer communism were unkind and earned him a much-deserved rap on the knuckles. Even I was irked with Vegas for dredging up the debate until a recent conversation with a couple of liberal friends reminded me why it was important he do so.
I told my friends, both about 15 years younger than me, how saddened I was when, some 30 years ago, copies of our country's greatest historical documents -- the U.S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights, among others -- were systematically removed from local schools in the name of political correctness.
In response, I got a shrug. And a dismissive shrug at that.
I was reminded then, that in this age of moral relativism and multiculturalism, the number of liberal secularists we can trust to pass along America's Protestant Christian history to future generations is probably very, very small. So those who care must.
Attempts to deny our country's faith-based beginnings are ludicrous, yet to say so is to ignite a firestorm of controversy.
Assumptions about the motivation behind Vegas' proposal still pass as news two weeks after he first introduced the policy change. One editorial sniped it's "no secret" that Vegas "has designs on elective office," though Vegas, a pastor, says he's too busy with his new church to consider a run for higher office.
Other reports practically have Vegas in bed with the American Family Association, the conservative Christian group that prints the posters in question. Vegas says he never even heard of the group until he was approached by City Councilwoman Jacquie Sullivan about promoting the posters in schools.
Critics also blasted Vegas for the time he's wasted on the poster issue, saying it was time better spent on academics and raising test scores.
So I asked Vegas exactly how much time he spent on the In God We Trust issue.
"The proposals at the board meeting took about 15 minutes," he says. "The vote will probably take about an hour."
Wow. A whole 75 minutes, the big slacker.
His critics' main complaint, naturally, is that posting the nation's motto in the classroom is unconstitutional, though according to the First Amendment -- where there's no mention of the words "church," "state" or "separation" -- that just isn't so.
Michael Johnson, senior legal counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund, says the Vegas proposal is well within constitutional limits.
"It would be hard to imagine any court in this country invalidating the posting or recognition of our national motto in classrooms," he says. "What they're doing is defensible, though if there were going to be a legal challenge it would be best if it weren't in the 9th (U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals) district."
No argument there. But the Protestant Christian words on which our system of laws and values is based have been etched in stone, printed on parchment and inscribed into law for hundreds of years. It's appropriate that they hang in our schools.
Did Vegas overstep his authority as trustee? Hardly. Should the proposal pass, it will only return what should never have been taken in the first place.
Marylee Shrider's column appears Saturdays. Reach her at 395-7474 or mshrider@bakersfield.com.