Language and Violence

Language and Violence

EVOLUTION AND THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS

The debate on evolution captured public attention when the Kansas Board of Education adopted on 11 August 1999 a new science curriculum that removed requirements on teaching evolution. Although local school boards can still permit the theory of evolution to be taught, questions on evolution—especially as they relate to human origins—will not be included in state assessment tests. Teachers with limited class time and boards with tight budgets will be less likely to teach a subject for which students will not be held accountable. Efforts to promote "scientific creationism" began in the 1960s. Creationists argue that much of the physical evidence that has been explained by Charles Darwin's theory of evolution can better be accounted for by a "scientific" but still literal interpretation of the Bible. Thus, when a 1968 Arkansas law forbidding the teaching of evolution was struck down by the Supreme Court, Louisiana tried to circumvent the consitutional problem by requiring that teachers who discussed evolution give "balanced treatment" to scientific creationism. This too was struck down in 1987 in Aguillard v. Edwards. Thus the Kansas Board of Education neither forbade the teaching of evolution nor required the teaching of creationism, but simply left the subject out of the curriculum altogether. This action sparked similar efforts in other states. In Kentucky, officials moved to replace the emotionally charged word "evolution" with "change over time." In New Mexico, however, the Board of Education made a countermove, effectively excluding creationism by limiting the state-wide science curriculum to the teaching of evolution as an explanation of human origins.

Source:

Stephen Jay Gould "Dorothy, It's Really Oz: A Pro-Creationist Decision in Kanasas Is More than a Blow against Darwin,: Viewpoint. 154 (23 Aug 1999).

Increasing Concerns

The debate about "political correctness" begun in the 1980s continued in the 1990s. There were increasing protests about racism and sexism, particularly in humor and popular music. Some forms of visual and aural entertainment used violent images; some advocated violence against specific kinds of people. For decades there had been concern about a possible connection between violence shown on television and violent behavior, but the focus widened to include words and not just visual images. Violent lyrics became big news in 1992 when the rapper Ice-T (Tracy Morrow) recorded "Cop Killer" on his Body Count album. Although Ice-T said the song was about a character's avenging Rodney Glen King's beating by shooting Los Angeles policemen, but not an endorsement of the act itself, many felt that giving this character a voice could lead to the violent actions he described. Law enforcement officers and others protested until Time Warner released Ice-T from his contract and reissued Body Count without the controversial song. As far too many schools dealt with students who shot, and sometimes killed, their classmates and school personnel, the possibility of a cause-and-effect relationship between popular culture and violence was explored more deeply. This inquiry raised questions concerning First Amendment rights: when, if ever, is the right to say what one pleases superceded by fears that this speech could lead others, whom the speaker might not even know, to commit violence?

Abortion

Abortion had been a controversial issue since the Roe v. Wade (1973) decision by the Supreme Court. Several clinics that offered abortions were bombed in the 1980s as Catholic and evangelical Christians, among others, maintained an intensifying campaign for the sanctity of unborn human life. Abortion-rights activists, both secular and religious, argued that women had a fundamental right to control what happened within their bodies. With no room for compromise, both abortion-rights advocates and opponents tended to demonize their opponents. Beginning in 1993, however, a murderous dimension was added to the already-violent issue when on 10 March an antiabortionist killed Dr. David Gunn at a Pensacola, Florida, clinic that performed abortions. Several other abortion providers were also murdered during the decade. In 1994 there were twelve attempted or actual murders, as well as twelve additional attacks on clinics by bombs or fire. Michael Frederick Griffin, who murdered Gunn, claimed at his trial that he had been brainwashed by John Burt, an antiabortion activist and member of the Christian prolife organization Rescue America. Griffin did not prove his claim and was sentenced to life imprisonment, but it did raise the question of the influence that Christian protesters had on those who used violence to stop abortions. There was even an Internet website known as "The Nuremberg Files" that compiled dossiers on medical personnel who performed or assisted with abortions and judges who protected them; information offered included family photos and home addresses. The site featured photographs of bloody fetuses and whenever an abortion provider was killed or injured, it would be reflected on the list. Spokespeople for both Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion Federation considered the sponsors of the site responsible for antiabortion violence; a federal court agreed and on 2 February 1999 shut it down. Many abortion foes, however, pointedly argued against using violence to end abortion. A "Pro-life Proclamation Against Violence" was endorsed by more than thirty pro-life groups (not including Operation Rescue). Others did not consider their language to be too extreme in such an important cause. Michael Bray, convicted in seven clinic bombings in the 1980s, saw prolife evangelicals as at war against a foe "comparable to Nazi Germany"; this struggle therefore justified violence against the enemy. Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue, spoke of Supreme Court justices Harry Andrew Blackmun and John Paul Stevens as "enemies of Christ" and said that "they're going to be remembered with Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin." Paul Jennings Hill, a minister who murdered Dr. John Bayard Britton on 29 July 1994, wrote on Brays Capitol Area Christian News Internet website that "the joy I felt after shooting the abortionist, and still feel today, is the joy of having freely obeyed Christ after long being enslaved to fearful obedience to men."

Intolerance of Homosexuality

The demonizing rhetoric found in the abortion controversy also surfaced in some Christian references to homosexuals. Pat Robertson described gays as indistinguishable from Nazis and Satanists on the 21 January 1993 edition of The 700 Club. When Matthew Wayne Shepard, a young gay man, was murdered in October 1998, in Wyoming, his funeral was picketed by members of Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas, under the leadership of their pastor, Fred Phelps. They carried signs saying, "Matt's in Hell" and "God Hates Fags" and put up a "Westboro Baptist Church's Perpetual Gospel Memorial to Matthew Shepard" Internet website featuring a picture of Shepard burning in hell, along with the count of how many days they believed he had been there. Part of its Internet address was "godhatesfags." On 4 November 1999 Benjamin Matthew Williams, who was jailed for shooting a gay couple to death in California, said he was not guilty because homosexuality breaks God's law. In words similar to those used by Hill, the antiabortion activist who murdered Britton, Williams proclaimed: "I'm not guilty of murder. I'm guilty of obeying the laws of the Creator."

Sources:

Gary Delson and Sam Stanton, "Invoking God's Name to Justify Killing," The Sacramento Bee, 6 November 1999.

Douglas Frantz, "The Rhetoric of Terror," Time, 145 (27 March 1995): 48-51.

Paul Hill, "The Defensive Action Statement," Internet website.

Mark Juergensmeyer, "Christian Violence in America," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 558 (July 1998): 88-100.

Melissa Manning, "Bathroom Rhetoric Hurts Debate," The Daily Tar Heel 6 April 1999.

B. A. Robinson, "Violence 8¢ Harassment at U.S. Abortion Clinics," Ontario Consultants on Religious Toleration, Internet website.