08/26/2004: "A parent who needs to go back to school "

Geoff McKee is the principal at Boca Raton High School in Florida. He's apparently in trouble with folks because when he refers to God at school, he doesn't use His name as a profanity or a verbal placeholder. He actually means to refer to God. This has got various bowels in an uproar, but one of them, from a parent, is particularly ridiculous:

He also tried to start a class this year called Introduction to the Bible. The class is approved by the state, but he canceled it because of a lack of student interest. He said he might try again next year.

Parent Vickie Capitena complained to McKee about the course and has since been monitoring his performance. She said she asked him why he thought it was important that public-school students learn the Bible.

"He said it was the greatest book ever written and, to me, that shows some prejudice," said Capitena, a Roman Catholic. "I'm not anti-religion in any way. But if I wanted my children to have a religious education, I would have sent them to Pope [John Paul II High School]."

So let me get this straight: a Catholic parent who doesn't understand the seminal importance of the Bible to the formation of Western civilization complains about a course that the state approves. She then asks why public school students should learn the Bible, and when told by the principal that it's the greatest book ever written�certainly not a unique or idiosyncratic opinion, even among secular literature teachers�thinks the principal is "prejudiced" (she no doubt would have thought the Koran deserves that title, or maybe I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings). She then expresses the opinion that a course on the Bible approved by the state, and therefore certainly secular in approach, would be a "religious education."

This is where the reflexive, unthinking secularism of the late 20th century has led us. And I think the RC Bishop of Palm Beach may need to look into the need for some remedial religious ed in Boca, too.