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Tuesday, April 15, 2008


My Church, Your Cult


            The front page of today's Boston Herald contains a startling bit of religious bigotry that surely would not have made it past the editors had it been referring to a church other than Scientology: “Dollars For ‘Cult’ Scholars,” screamed the headline. “Hub charity gives $20G to proposed Scientology-linked school.” 

            What happened was that the “Cornerstone for Success Academy,” described in Dave Wedge’s sensationalistic story as “a proposed taxpayer-funded pilot school linked to an arm of the controversial Church of Scientology,” was given a modest grant by the Boston Foundation, a highly-reputed Hub private charity. Richard Stutman, President of the Boston Teachers Union – which is opposed to pilot schools generally because they outshine the public schools that are hobbled by the infamously dysfunctional BTU contract – obliged by charging that “The Boston Foundation obviously didn’t pay careful attention to  who [sic] they gave the planning grants to [sic].”

            Naturally, the educational authorities will investigate any applicant that wants to start a charter school. Religiously-linked groups are not excludable per se, as long as the school will be operated along secular, not religious, lines. This would be so regardless of whether it’s a Jewish, Christian, Islamic, Scientology, Mormon or any other group to which a proposed pilot school might  be linked. And indeed a spokeswoman for Applied Scholastics, sponsor of the school, recognized this when she told the Herald that “our organization is a secular organization” and that there is no “religious material in our programs.”

But what is disturbing about the Herald’s report is the treatment of Scientology as a “cult.” Consider the reaction if the paper had referred in this derogatory manner to, for example, the Mormon Church to which our former governor – and Presidential primary candidate – Mitt Romney belongs. And, of course, there’s no reason why an even larger religious denomination could not be referred to as a cult by those who find its practices mystifying or unpleasant. To a non-member or a non-believer, any church has practices and beliefs that could be described as cultish. (Disclosure: Some years ago I represented the Church of Scientology of Boston in defending, on First Amendment religious liberty grounds, against lawsuits seeking money damages for “religious fraud.”) The notion that one’s own belief is the only true belief, and that all others are fools, apostates, or cultists, is a very dangerous one, ending, historically, in the cemetery. That such intolerance graces the front page of one of Boston’s daily newspapers is disturbing.

 


4/15/2008 6:20:55 PM by Harvey Silverglate | Comments [1] |  



Saturday, April 19, 2008 9:23:50 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)
The term cult is not a contentless epithet that applies equally well or equally poorly to all organizations. Perhaps it doesn't apply in a technical sense to the Church of Scientology, but in a vernacular sense the term certainly captures some important aspects of the Church, as it has been portrayed in the media. In particular, the idealization of a leader, the ferocious intellectual insularity, the heavy financial expectations made on followers: these do not speak too kindly of the Church's apparent philosophy and methods. Notwithstanding these causes for concern, of course its adherents have every right to practice their religion (although I subscribe to the Sherbert test). But while its adherents should not be subjected to invidious discrimination or discourtesy, their ideas and behavior should not be arbitrarily free from criticism, particularly if they seem insulting to democratic values and intellectual rigor and generally harmful in practical effect. Organizations sometimes even benefit from criticism, a possibility any civil libertarian fond of saying the cure for bad speech is more speech should recognize.
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