The Misguided Mission of “Mission: America”

A weekly commentary by Hemant Mehta, adapted from his blog "The Friendly Atheist."

For HumanistNetworkNews.org
Jan. 6, 2010

Linda Harvey is the founder of Mission: America, an organization whose objective is "to equip Christians with current, accurate information about cultural issues such as feminism, homosexuality, education and New Age influences."

When someone like her says she's spreading "current, accurate information," that's just code for "I'm going to tell you lies and say it's in the name of Jesus so you won't call me out on it."

Harvey has a list of The Top 10 Ways to Make Kids Truly Safe in 2010. Here are a couple of particularly offensive samples from it:

1. Allow-no, welcome-Christianity back into the American public square… in schools, in community groups, in city council meetings, in the Senate, on city streets, in the courthouse square, in the media, in college lectures. Laugh at the ACLU. Elect judges who agree. Don't elect presidents who think we are no longer a Christian nation.

2. Get all pro-homosexual and pro-promiscuity programs, literature, teachers, and counselors out of every school now. Remove "gay" clubs, Planned Parenthood at health fairs, and GLSEN-PFLAG-SIECUS activists. Cease all condom demonstrations, abortion referrals, on-site birth control dispensing, sexual orientation affirmation, and messing with children's hearts, minds and bodies. Demand that schools uphold the traditional value of heterosexual identities, teach abstinence-until-marriage, and celebrate male/female gender differences.

This goes way beyond anti-gay religious beliefs. Harvey wants any teacher who believes in equal rights for gay people fired.

Remove "gay" clubs? What does that mean (with the quotation marks)? Get rid of the Drama Club? Presumably, she means groups like the Gay-Straight Alliance… how dare students voluntarily support other students regardless of sexual orientation! They should be killing them like the Bible says.

And I think she wants to remove the birth control vending machine from our schools (?!)…

Number One is just a bad idea and no Christian should be supporting it, either. It's the type of idea that only comes from people who have no regard for the rights of other people and minds small enough to think they know what's best for every other human being on the planet.

Separation of church and state is as good for Christians as it is for the rest of us.

The rest of her list is just a collection of GOP talking points and anti-Islamic sentiment.

You know what I'd like to see in 2010?

I want to see Christians openly, vocally, and frequently going after people like Harvey who bastardize their faith. Do it in church, do it on your blogs, talk about it with your family. Don't just sit back and let your friends, family, and congregations get swayed by these ideas.

About Hemant Mehta, The Friendly Atheist

(Hemant Mehta is the Chair of the Secular Student Alliance (SSA) Board of Directors. He has worked with the Center for Inquiry and is also an SSA representative to the Secular Coalition for America. Hemant received national attention, including being featured on the front page of the Wall Street Journal, for his work as the "eBay Atheist." Hemant's blog can be read at FriendlyAtheist.com and his book "I Sold My Soul on eBay" (WaterBrook Press) is now in bookstores everywhere. He currently works as a high school math teacher in the suburbs of Chicago.)