Theodore Bernard Croft

Theodore Bernard Croft was born on 2009 April 18th Saturday at 19:20. He weighed 7 pounds 8 ounces.

Sham

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the moment of silence law is constitutional. Their conclusion states:

While we cannot allow a "sham" legislative purpose, we should generally defer to the stated legislative intent. Here, that intent was to promote patriotism and allow for a moment of quiet contemplation. These are valid secular purposes, and are not outweighed by limited legislative history showing that some legislators may have been motivated by religion.

This ruling cites as evidence of secular intent the fact that one of the sponsors of the bill stated, "for purposes of legislative intent, this is not a prayer bill". This ruling permits any religious law to be passed so long as the legislators deny that the intent is religious while simultaneously presenting a sham secular purpose.

I have posted the ruling on my Moment of Silence webpage along with links to news covering the ruling. Some of those news stories erroneously state that we launched the lawsuit because a schoolteacher told my son's class that the moment of silence was a time for prayer. The correction is that we had already decided to pursue the lawsuit before we discovered what the teacher had said. The teacher merely stated what everyone already knew.

Appeal Trip

I went to New Orleans earlier this month. On February 3rd, our attorney Dean Cook argued before a three judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals 5th Circuit for our moment of silence case. You can listen to the recording of the oral arguments. I posted links to the news stories covering the event on my Moment of Silence webpage.

Illinois Heroes

My congratulations to high school student Dawn Sherman and her father Rob Sherman for getting the moment of silence law in the state of Illinois struck down as unconstitutional. In response, Illinois legislators are already maneuvering to again amend the law to remove the word "prayer" from the statute in the hope that the court will no longer conclude, as Judge Gettleman did in his recent ruling, "that the amendment has no clear secular purpose, and that the stated purpose is a sham."

Whether the text mentions prayer or not, everyone knows that moment of silence laws in this day and age in America are about getting state-sponsored prayer into public schools. To state otherwise is analogous to claiming that the primary purpose of poll taxes just after the Civil War was to increase revenue to the States.

As far as our moment of silence case here in Texas goes, our attorney Dean Cook is headed to Louisiana in a couple of days to present oral arguments to a three judge panel as part of our appeal. A story covering the details of the case including an interview with Mr. Cook is currently featured on the website Texas Lawyer.

Previously I uploaded appeal briefs written by Mr. Cook. Today I uploaded to my Moment of Silence webpage the appeal brief presented by the State.

Optihumanist Holidays

I have put together a list of Optihumanist Holidays.

My family and I have successfully transitioned to celebrating HumanLight instead of Christmas. You can listen to a recent National Public Radio (NPR) audio report on this new holiday, HumanLight: December's Secular Holiday.

Appeal Reply Brief

I have uploaded a reply brief written by my attorney Dean Cook for our Moment of Silence case appeal. Oral arguments are tentatively scheduled for the first week of 2009 February.

Antitheism

I finished reading god Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens. If you are looking for a book that enumerates the sins of supernatural-based religions, this is it. Keep a dictionary handy when you read it.

Along with Dawkins, Dennett, and Harris, Hitchens is considered one of the New Atheists. In watching the first DVD of The Atheism Tapes, however, I noted that one of the interviewees described himself as an antitheist. This struck me as more descriptive and I read now that Hitchens has used that term to describe himself in the past.

Pledge Excusal Letter

At the beginning of each school year, we submit a letter to the teachers of our school children excusing our children from standing for the pledges to the U.S. and Texas flags. The letter cites the appropriate section of the Texas law that permits parents to do so. I have provided a template version of the letter at my State Pledge webpage for parents to download and reuse.

During the recitation of pledges in our public school classrooms, you will see some students choosing to remain seated while others stand. What does this mean to our one nation indivisible? It means religious laws divide us.

Optihumanist Quiz

Find out if you are an Optihumanist by taking the Optihumanist Quiz.

Roku Rocks

A year and a half ago, I raved about Vongo, the online service that for a flat fee of just $10 a month would let you download videos to watch on your laptop. Now I have discovered something better.

When you subscribe to the $9 a month plan from Netflix, not only do you get unlimited DVDs one-out-at-a-time snail-mailed to your home, you also get access to their "Instant Play" library to stream to your laptop or your Roku. Roku is a small box that connects to your home wireless Internet allowing you to watch the Netflix "Instant Play" videos on your television.

Roku is family-friendly. As a parent you login with your username and password to the Netflix website from your laptop and then select movies to add to the "Instant Queue". Without having to login, your children then use the Roku remote to scroll through the Instant Queue list on the television. Parents can add hundreds of videos to the Instant Queue for their children to choose from.

In addition to movies, cartoons, and toddler shows, my children have been enjoying the television series A-Team, Astroboy, Incredible Hulk, and Knight Rider. I have enjoyed Dilbert, Heroes, Tick, and The Life of Mammals.

You and your family members can flip between several videos and Roku remembers where you left off watching on each. Unfortunately Roku does not support captions so you have to use your wireless headphones with the volume turned up when the family is sleeping. The other issue is that you cannot power it off without unplugging it so it will dominate the auto-select on your composite audio/video selector switch until you do.

Since Roku uses a wireless connection to your Internet, it is easy enough to move and reconnect when you want to use it in another room but we are considering buying a second. For a one-time cost of $99 for each, the price is not bad, but you then need to upgrade to the two-out-at-a-time Netflix plan of $14 a month.

I highly recommend Roku, especially if you have kids. It has some quirks but it gives you thousands of videos to choose from to stream direct to your television for a small monthly flat fee.

Moment of Silence Appeal

On May 27th, our attorney Dean Cook filed our appeal on the Moment of Silence case. Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AU) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed an amicus brief supporting our appeal. I have uploaded the legal briefs and posted links to the AU and ACLU press releases on my Moment of Silence webpage.

I renewed my membership in the AU and the ACLU recently. If you support the separation of church and public school, I encourage you to do the same.

Pledge Briefs

My attorney Dean Cook filed a brief requesting a motion for summary judgment regarding the new law adding "under God" to the Texas state pledge. I uploaded it to my State Pledge webpage along with a brief from the state attorney general in opposition and our follow-up response.

I had a chance to read the briefs recently and I found them to be interesting as they contain the legal arguments pro and con. If you read the included excerpts from the legislative debate transcripts, you will note that some of our elected officials saw this law as unconstitutional from the beginning. State representatives of different faiths, a Quaker, a Jew, and a Baptist, took deliberate steps to ensure that the non-secular purpose of the bill was recorded in the legislative history. It is clear from their lines of questioning of the sponsor of the bill that they were cleverly laying the groundwork during the debates for a future separation of church and state lawsuit even though it was a certainty that the bill would garner enough votes to become law.

Speaking of clever heroes, I was pleased with what Mr. Cook wrote on our behalf in his briefs and I think he is persuasive. The next step in the case is that the judge may hear oral arguments or he might just make a judgment based on the written briefs.