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DURHAM, N.C. (RNS) This month we have marked the Jewish Passover and Christian Easter, and Muslims will soon end the holy month of Ramadan with the feast of Eid al-Fitr a religious convergence that many celebrate as a sign of Americas robust religious diversity.

But in my purple state of North Carolina, Republican lawmakers have proposed another expansion of charter schools, a movement that has as one of its premises that parents ought to have the right to separate their evangelical Christian or Catholic children from Jewish and Muslim children and those of other faiths.

The topic of school choice has caused a fever here since last year, when the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals deemed that charter schools specifically one in Brunswick County, near Wilmington, that demanded girls wear skirts are state actors. This designation would prevent the state from approving religious charters publicly funded private faith academies as unconstitutional. Charter school advocates in at least 10 states are now seeking a reversal from the Supreme Court.

Attacks on public schools are hardly restricted to the right. A decade ago, the Gates Foundation funded a piece of propaganda called Waiting for Superman to persuade progressives that racial solidarity excludes support for teacher unions.

But in the past few election cycles, the anti-public school wing of the Republican Party has ramped up its use of religious freedom arguments to mobilize parents and convince voters that public schools are too progressive,too secular, too compassionate. The old arguments against public schools had it that teachers werent competent to teach. Today they are accused of being too good at brainwashing our kids.

The only cure for this, charter school backers say, is to redirect money for our public schools to charter schools, private schools, parochial schools any institution where privilege and exclusion can operate freely. They appeal to non-Christian and minority parents by offering them vouchers for, say, Jewish academies or by pointing to inner-city charters that build character and empowerment.

But as Ronit Y. Stahl wrote recently, these appeals are a fig leaf used by white evangelicals and a majority Catholic court to bolster a white, conservative Christian agenda.

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten has named the escalation: Attacks on public education are not new. The difference today is that the attacks are intended to destroy it. In North Carolina, coalitions are seeking to counter these attacks and preserve public schools, but their funding is mere drops in a bucket compared to the rights water cannons.

A key moment was the trifecta of doom handed down by the Supreme Court last June. The Dobbs v. Jackson abortion decision, decided June 24, was bracketed by two decisions on religion and public education. In Carson v. Makin, decided June 21, the court prohibited a state from choosing not to fund religious schools with public funding. Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted in her dissent: Today, the Court leads us to a place where separation of church and state becomes a constitutional violation.

In Kennedy v. Bremerton, decided June 27, the majority of the court went in from the other door, ruling that public-school officials are, in Sotomayors words, required to allow one of its employees to incorporate a public, communicative display of the employees personal religious beliefs into a school event. She continued, Government neutrality toward religion is particularly important in the public-school context given the role public schools play in our society.

This moment was decades in the making. The list of briefs on both cases shows that foundations committed to the privatization of public goods in the name of religion, and the use of public funding for religious endeavors, had invested heavily in the results.

The destabilization of public schools has an even longer pedigree, however. James Davison Hunter is the evangelical Christian sociologist at the University of Virginia credited by The Wall Street Journal with coining the phrase culture wars in 1991, the year before Pat Buchanan. In Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America, published that year, Hunter borrowed the term, he explained, from the German kulturkampf of the last decades of the nineteenth century. In Germany, culture wars were a battle to preserve the religious content and character of public education.

Hunter, through his Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, established the conceit that the battles over education and children required a religious people versus secular humanist formula. He understood that the quickest way to portray public schooling itself as a problem was to paint public school proponents as enemies of religious freedom.

The Cato Institutes amicus brief in the 2022 Carson v. Makin case draws almost directly from his 2000 book, The Death of Character: Moral Education in an Age Without Good or Evil.

Indeed, secularism in public schools has become akin to a state-established religion: the secular values that the state promotes conflict with deeply and sincerely held religious beliefs, so classroom conflicts often arise. Maine unjustly alienates religious individuals, treating them as second-class citizens in the context of school tuitioning for merely living as their faith demands.

Sotomayors minority dissent comes from a core conviction shared by the majority of U.S. citizens. In North Carolina, polls show a majority of citizens want more funding for public schools, not less, and even deep in the conservative heart of Texas, rural residents have rejected plans for vouchers. Public schools have support across partisan and religious lines. It is a public good that people across faiths share, recognizing that integrated and well-funded public schools deserve our vocal, interfaith support.

Amy Laura Hall. Courtesy photo

(Amy Laura Hall is associate professor of Christian ethics and of gender, sexuality and feminist studies at Duke University. She is the author, most recently, of Laughing at the Devil: Seeing the World With Julian of Norwich. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of Religion News Service.)

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How school choice drives America's people of faith apart - Religion News Service

There are several different issues arising for the Citizens Assembly on Drug Use doctors should contribute to each one, writes Dr Brendan OShea

Apologies for the melodramatic title, but this is a very exercised topic. Cannabis use is prevalent in most practice populations, particularly so among the young and middle-aged. Evidence suggests that availability of unregulated cannabis is tending towards more potent forms. Across some societies, the commercialisation/commoditisation of cannabis is proceeding energetically.

As registered medical practitioners, we can keep our heads buried in the sand for long periods at a stretch, but inevitably cannabis will intrude, either in the context of our individual patients and their families, in calls for the legalisation of medical uses of cannabis and/or the regulated availability and commoditisation of cannabis, raising the prospect that it somehow may, in time, even flourish on a scale similar to tobacco and alcohol.

Beyond our personal views, and our clinical practice, we are likely to be called on at a societal level to attempt to inform the public debate (er.bunfight..culture war??) as our Postgraduate Training Colleges and other miscellaneous professional organisations are requested formally and informally to comment to the Oireachtas, Ministerial Reviews, RT, Newstalk and whatnot.

Tobacco and alcohol were well established deeply as cultural and social phenomena long before there was reliable evidence of their harms. This is not the case regarding cannabis.

In all of this, what can and should we usefully do as medical practitioners? There is a clinical imperative to be aware and alert to instances where individual patients are consistently using cannabis and the consequences of this, for the care we are providing, and for their own wellbeing.

We will be asked from time to time regarding legalisation of cannabis for medical use, and for a spectrum of guidance on legalising cannabis for recreational use, ranging from decriminalising for possession of small amounts for personal use, up to the full licensing for the commercial sale of cannabis, and indeed the blessing of society for the development of this, as a substantial taxable part of mainstream culture and economy.

In practiceIn practice, it is reasonable to admit that doctors do not see the proportion of people who regularly use cannabis with no apparent medical consequences; we see those with problems. What is the proportion of users who experience problems ? This question was at the heart of a decent systematic review by Janni Leung and colleagues from Queensland in 2020, since which I would guess that cannabis consumption has only increased. They included 21 studies in their review, and concluded that prevalence of Cannabis Use Disorder was almost one in five among regular cannabis users, and that almost one in 10 regular users have evidence of cannabis dependency.

As clinicians, we need to be able to respond to individual cases, and also to keep the epidemiology in perspective. Were a car manufacturer to apply for a licence to manufacture and sell a new model, where they could confidently assert that the risk of harm to drivers of the new model (and nearby pedestrians!) was as high as one in five, no government would licence the sale of such a vehicle.

Closer to home, should a pharmaceutical company wish to licence the sale of a new drug, the use of which was associated with a substantial harm in as many as one in five of those using it long term, it would be highly unlikely that it would be made generally available for broader use.

Elsewhere the evidence strongly indicates that the criminalisation of cannabis use at the level of the individual is not a successful strategy, is expensive, punitive, is a waste of a range of resources, and does not help the individuals affected. Thus, one might support a reform of our own approach through the Irish justice system.

But this is a very different issue from enabling the commercialisation and wilder availability of cannabis in our communities. Resources inappropriately consumed thorough the justice and law enforcement systems would be far better spent on earlier and more consistently available therapeutic services, including greater capacity for earlier brief interventions in primary care, and paying more attention to the factors which drive younger people into all forms of substance misuse, and/or who rely on the pharmacological effect of cannabis, alcohol and nicotine as unsafe psychological supports for their journey through the considerable anxiety of adolescence and early adulthood.

Many of us in general practice (c4,000 GPs) have our own dozen or so of (mainly) young men, whose lives are adrift in anxiety, intermittent depression, purposelessness and social withdrawal. In many such instances, problem drinking and cannabis use are a recurrent feature. The findings of Leung et al absolutely ring true at the practice level. In my view, and informed by years in practice, the impact of cannabis, alcohol and other illicit substances on the life trajectory of many younger patients is real and significant; opening up the supply, and putting a strong profit imperative behind it all sounds very alarming and quite counter-intuitive.

Before leaving the clinical space, there is the issue of availability of cannabis for medicinal use, particularly in pain management, and refractory mental health diagnoses and progressive neurological conditions. I use the BNF to inform and support my prescribing; there is a vast plethora of pharmacological agents there already, and I would greatly value additional time with my patients, more talking therapy time for them, life-coaching, better social supports for them and their beleaguered households, rather than yet another drug. Medicinal use of cannabis is a much smaller issue for society than broadly opening the floodgates and selling cannabis for profit as a mainstream activity.

The public debateOf course, is it even a debate? In this era of burgeoning social media, the ubiquitous, restless and all pervasive always on media cacophony, the braying of populist politicians, and growing expression of verbal aggression, trolling, unabashed subjective personalised commentary, click-bait culture, and incessant sensationalism, are we ever to have a debate on anything ever again?

It is likely that we will, even as societies struggle with the restless emergence of always on social media. In this debate, it will be better perhaps, if we as clinicians have the best current scientific knowledge to hand, and where there are remaining uncertainties, admit to these honestly, and/but always refer back to who are the most vulnerable in all of this, and take the decisions and best judgements with those primarily in mind.

The public debate on this, in my view, is best used to be clear about the toxicology of cannabis, and to advocate for better social capital at the community level, for sane systems of work, decent housing and investment in education, targeting deprived neighbourhoods.

We can look forward in confidence to the outcome of the Citizens Assembly on drugs use, bearing in mind that the Assembly has arguably been a very effective source of reflection, guidance and political direction on issues which are complex, important, emotive, and not well suited for deliberation by the usual rough and tumble of adversarial electoral politics. Due to report to the Oireachtas before the end of the year, we medics would do well to consider our position, individually, and through our own professional organisations, in the year ahead, should any of us find ourselves at the Assembly, in front of a Minister or on Newstalk Radio! Anything could happen.

AuthorDr Brendan OShea is on the Educational Governance Council at the ICGP, and is an ICGP Lead for GP Nursing.

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The cannabis culture wars rage on... mildly - Irish Medical Times

The politically liberal enclave of Berkeley, California became the first U.S. city to adopt a ban on natural gas in new homes and buildings in 2019, which started a climate change-driven effort in dozens of other cities and counties thats morphed into a heated debate about the future of gas stoves.

On Monday, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco sided with the California Restaurant Association to halt the citys effort, saying it violates federal law that gives the U.S. government the authority to set energy-efficiency standards for appliances.

The ruling has drawn criticism from Berkeley officials and environmentalists, although it's unclear what kind of impact the decision will have on climate advocates' fight to go electric, given its narrow scope and the possibility of an appeal to a broader panel of judges. Berkeley banned the installation of natural gas piping in new construction, which the judges said turned the energy use of an appliance to a quantity of zero.

Berkeley City Councilmember Kate Harrison, who authored the 2019 ordinance, said she doesnt know how the city council will respond, but noted that a ban on natural gas or effort to curtail the use of natural gas has spread to 70 communities in California, and even to Seattle and New York City.

This is a movement that cant be stopped, she said. Theyve conflated a 1970s regulation about the efficiency of appliances with what kind of materials can come into our house. We did not change appliances, we changed the source of fuel that can come into new buildings.

Gas stoves are in the spotlight in Americas culture wars, as more Democrat-controlled cities move to limit their use, citing indoor pollution concerns and climate policies that aim to phase out fossil fuels in favor of carbon-free electricity.

In January, comments from the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission that any option is on the table to regulate gas stoves sparked outrage from conservatives who said it amounted to government intrusion in peoples homes. The White House has said that President Joe Biden doesnt support a ban on gas stoves.

The ruling in Berkeley Monday does not affect the majority of cities and counties that have already banned or curtailed natural gas through building codes that meet certain federal requirements and are allowed by the decision, environmental groups said. Other municipal policies to regulate gas distribution and air emissions are not impacted either.

About two dozen cities may be at risk because they are constructed similar to Berkeley, according to the Building Decarbonization Coalition, a nonprofit aimed at eliminating fossil fuels. They include San Francisco, Los Angeles and Oakland.

But not all agreed the ruling negated their city's ordinance.

San Franciscos ordinance differs from Berkeleys and remains in effect," said Jen Kwart, spokesperson for the office of City Attorney David Chiu.

Judge Patrick Bumatay wrote in the 3-0 Ninth Circuit ruling that a local ordinance that bans appliances such as gas stoves impacts the quantity of energy they consume, which is under federal regulation. The ruling overturned the decision of a judge in a lower court in 2021, dismissing the case because city officials were not trying to regulate energy efficiency for appliances but only the fuel they used.

One likely next step is to seek a rehearing with a larger panel of 11 judges on the appellate court that might lean more liberal, said Josh Blackman, a professor at South Texas College of Law Houston.

The three judges in Monday's 3-0 ruling were selected at random, and include Bumatay and Judge M. Miller Baker, who is visiting from the U.S. Court of International Trade. Both are appointees of former President Donald Trump, and the third, Judge Diarmuid OScannlain, was appointed by former President Ronald Reagan.

The panel was a very strange trifecta, thats just a matter of statistics, Blackman said.

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals includes California, Washington state and seven other states in the western region, and helps set legal precedent on some of the country's biggest issues, including gun control and labor. Trump made gains in adding more conservative judges to the historically liberal court, although it still has more judges appointed by Democratic presidents.

Last year, the California Air Resources Board voted to ban sales of new gas furnaces and water heaters in 2030. Last month, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District adopted rules to phase out and eventually ban the sale of gas water heaters and furnaces.

Kristine Roselius, a spokesperson for the air quality management district, said attorneys are reviewing the ruling but it has regulated air pollution for decades and that its rule is different from that of Berkeley.

Continue reading here:
Court Tosses Berkeley Gas Ban, But Wider Impact Is Unclear - NBC Bay Area

A bill to ban divisive concepts from certain public entities, including state agencies, local boards of education, and public institutions of higher education was given a favorable report in committee last week, with white legislators voting yes and Black lawmakers voting no.

HB7 is another front in the so-called culture wars to eliminate public discussions of race, sex and religion to purify the nation of diversity. It also points to a desire for a cultural revolution.

Our state and nation have a fault line regarding racial inequality and sexual orientation that laws like HB7 hope to stamp out by pretending they dont exist.

Is there any reasonable individual who believes the solution to a serious problem is to ignore it? Isnt the first key to solving a problem admitting it exists, and the second step discussing it?

What if, rather than banning divisive concepts, the state encouraged open and frank, age-appropriate education with the goal of understanding and perhaps even finding a way out of the present dilemma?

Perhaps expecting pragmatism from policymakers is too much to ask since it seems the art of governing is identifying the wrong problem, applying an incompetent remedy and declaring victory.

Divisive concepts are code words for Critical Race Theory, which is merely a boogeyman to divide the nation and state for political gain.

During her recent re-election campaign, Gov. Kay Ivey said the state had banned the teaching of CRT in grade schools, and, in practice, she was correct.

In August 2021, the State Board of Education banned CRT from being taught in classrooms across the state. After the passage of the resolution, Ivey said: As Ive said many times, CRT doesnt belong in Alabama schools.

CRT currently isnt being taught in Alabama classrooms, and Ive previously called on the Alabama School Board to keep it that way, the governor said. We need to focus on teaching Alabama kids how to read and write, not hate.

If CRT or so-called divisive concepts are not being used in grade schools or public institutions, why is there a need for a law? The sponsor of HB7 Rep. Ed Oliver, R-Dadeville doesnt seem to know what a divisive concept is or offer a coherent reason why it needs to be purged.

At the recent public hearing, Oliver said the law is designed to prevent racism in schools and state agencies. He had a different take on the bill when asked about it last year. Ultimately, the reason that the left wants to push CRT amongst little kids is simply they want to sexualize them, Oliver said.

They want to racialize them at an early age to make them easy to manage, pure and simple, he said. I hate to say a way to create more left-wingers that are woke and will do the things that the left wants them to do, but thats exactly what it is, to divide people. To make groups fight each other, so theyre easier to manage.

So is it about sex and the procreation of more liberals, or about banishing racism? Was Oliver lying in December 2022, or is he lying now? Or could it be that the bill itself is vague to the point of dangerousness and absurdity?

The fact is HB7 is a lemming law that follows behind other red states that have passed similar legislation, and it is not surprising as Alabama seems to be in a constant race to restrict individual choice and freedom of expression unless it aligns with a narrow orthodoxy.

The proposed legislation is not about education or state agencies in the sense of improving the outcome for students or citizen services; it is about control.

Dominating education is fundamental in an authoritarian society. In the 1930s and 1940s, Germany used education to instill values in children, which led to World War II and the extermination of six million Jews. The Soviet Union likewise did the same. Mao Zedongs Cultural Revolution in the Peoples Republic of China led to mass incarceration, re-education camps and wholesale murder of academics. The list is long and not unprecedented.

The Cultural Revolution in Iran expelled Western and non-Islamic influences from the state, leading with its universities. The Committee for Islamization of Universities carried out the task by ensuring an Islamic atmosphere for every subject from engineering to the humanities.

Have no doubt there are forces within Alabama and the United States that would carry out such cleansing if the door is opened wide enough by small bills like HB7.

Be not deceived like those who believed Roe v. Wade was stare decisis every liberty is constantly threatened.

For now, HB7 is part of a slow-moving coup gaining momentum. Revolutions to turn back modernity have a singular goal of total state control. Whether Berlin, Moscow, Beijing, Tehran, or Montgomery, legislation and the barrel of a gun are the devices used to wrestle a free society to subjugation.

The divisive concepts legislation is just the latest gambit to reorder the state and nation to fit the liking of a few individuals who seek power first.

There is no mistake that the divisive concepts bill is an effort to create a foothold to welcome more restrictive legislation to the end of one ideology dominating public education, public discourse and public life.

The state spends billions to create a pro-business image to attract business and generate good jobs for Alabamians bills like HB7 undermine those efforts.

HB7 seems like petty legislation, but it is a fifth column toward an imperious, illiberal cultural revolution.

The first step to resolve a problem is to acknowledge it is real.

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Opinion | HB7 and a cultural revolution - Alabama Political Reporter

Rights and protections for transgender students are constantly evolving, as the culture wars play out and politicians, lawyers, families and students themselves grapple with what it means to be transgender in different contexts, particularly sports.

Recently, two federal actions brought some clarity to policies and laws related to the right of transgender students to play on sports teams that align with their gender identity. The decisions, by the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Supreme Court, are not the final word on trans athletes, but they are important milestones in the debate.

Heres a guide to those decisions and where the law stands now for young people who want to play on the single-sex teams that they believe match their gender identity, rather than the team that matches the sex they were at birth.

What do the new U.S. Department of Education guidelines say?

The new guidelines, issued April 6, state that schools, colleges and universities cannot bar students from a sports team simply because theyre transgender. But the guidelines also give schools the flexibility to prevent athletes from playing on a team that matches their gender identity in certain competitive situations or where there is a risk of injury. For example, a transgender athlete who was born as a male but identifies as a woman may be blocked from joining a womans team in some cases.

Schools would not be permitted to adopt or apply a one-size-fits-all policy that categorically bans transgender students from participating on teams consistent with their gender identity, the guidelines state. Instead, the Departments approach would allow schools flexibility to develop team eligibility criteria that serve important educational objectives, such as ensuring fairness in competition or preventing sports-related injury. These criteria would have to account for the sport, level of competition, and grade or education level to which they apply.

The guidelines are an update to Title IX, the 1972 law banning sex discrimination in schools or other programs that receive federal funding.

What happens if a school violates the order?

Schools that violate Title IX risk losing federal funding.

What was the Supreme Court ruling?

The Supreme Court ruled on April 6 that a 12-year-old transgender girl in West Virginia can participate in her middle schools girls cross-country and track teams, at least for now.

The case stems from a 2021 West Virginia law that prevents boys from competing on girls sports teams. Lawyers representing the girl, identified as Becky Pepper-Jackson, sued the state, saying the law discriminates against transgender girls. A federal judge ruled against her, saying that athletes who were born male do have an advantage when competing against girls.

The girls lawyers appealed that ruling, and a federal appeals court agreed that the girl could continue to play while the case moved forward. The Supreme Court upheld that order.

The ACLU cheered the ruling.

We are grateful that the Supreme Court today acknowledged that there was no emergency and that Becky should be allowed to continue to participate with her teammates on her middle school track team, which she has been doing without incident for three going on four seasons, as our challenge to West Virginias onerous trans youth sports ban makes its way through the courts, the organization said. This was a baseless and cruel effort to keep Becky from where she belongs playing alongside her peers as a teammate and as a friend.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented. West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrissey said he was deeply disappointed in the courts decision.

What do these federal actions mean for transgender athletes?

Both are at least partial victories for trans athletes, providing clarity on a much-debated issue thats been at the center of the culture wars. The rulings are especially meaningful for transgender athletes in elementary and middle school, where sports teams are rarely competitive, and for transgender athletes in states that previously barred their participation on teams that align with their gender identity.

It should go without saying, policies that fully include trans women and girls on sports teams with other women and girls harm no one, according to a statement signed by eight LGBTQ organizations.

Nobody should be denied the opportunity to be part of a team just because of who they are, said Kasey Suffredini, vice president of advocacy and government affairs for the Trevor Project, a nonprofit that advocates for LGBTQ young people.

Where does California stand on this issue?

At least 20 states have laws that prevent transgender students from playing on teams that align with their gender identity, but California isnt one of them. California schools already allow transgender students to play on the sports teams that they choose. Assembly Bill 1266, passed in 2013, requires schools to allow students to participate in any school program, including sports, and use any facilities, including bathrooms and locker rooms, that match their gender identity.

The California Interscholastic Federation, which governs high school sports in the state, affirms this in its bylaws and in a gender diversity toolkit, providing guidance for coaches, teachers, students and families.

Transgender students are entitled to and must be provided the same opportunities as all other students to participate in physical education and sports consistent with their gender identity, the state Department of Education states.

Even though Californias guidelines go further than the proposed change to Title IX, the state would not have to roll back its protections to be in compliance.

What about college sports?

The guidelines for college sports are more complicated and vary by sport. The National Collegiate Athletic Association recently aligned its policy to match the International Olympic Committees, which requires transgender athletes to submit testosterone documentation before competing. The standards are determined by the governing bodies overseeing each sport. The U.S. Tennis Association, for example, states that male-to-female transgender athletes can compete on womens teams if hormonal therapy appropriate for the assigned sex has been administered in a verifiable manner and for a sufficient length of time to minimize gender-related advantages in sport competitions. Someone who tests with too much testosterone, for example, might not be allowed to play in female competition, regardless of gender identity, in some cases.

We are steadfast in our support of transgender student-athletes and the fostering of fairness across college sports, said John DeGioia, former chair of the board of the NCAA Division I Committee on Academics and current Georgetown University president. It is important that NCAA member schools, conferences and college athletes compete in an inclusive, fair, safe and respectful environment and can move forward with a clear understanding of the new policy.

These guidelines apply to community colleges and most public and private colleges and universities.

Who is considered transgender?

Transgender is a general term that refers to a person whose gender identity differs from the sex they were assigned at birth, such as someone who identifies as male but whose sex on their original birth certificate was marked female, according to the California Civil Rights Department.

Is this the end of the debate? What are the next steps?

Its likely not the end of the debate, especially in states with more restrictive policies. The proposed change from the Biden administration offers schools some flexibility in competitive situations, which is likely where the next disagreements will arise. Its also unclear what competitive means at the high school level, which could potentially lead to further court rulings and federal decisions in the future.

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Whos on the team: A guide to the latest federal actions about transgender athletes - EdSource