Casteen Interview – Podcast March 20, 2023

Bigotry Under The Banner Of Religion. Karen McClelland welcomes Jeanne Casteen of Secular Coalition AZ. The organization is a lobbying group and watchdog for policies that erode the separation of church and state which is enshrined in the Constitution.

Article VI states “…no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” And the First Amendment begins: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Of course, that also means freedom from religion. Yet many still want to force their religious beliefs onto others.

Lately, Secular Coalition AZ has been particularly watchful of the Christian Nationalists who have been elected to public school boards and pushing for book bans and discrimination against gay and trans communities. Casteen says, “Folks that just got sworn in at the beginning of January have already come in and really tried to disrupt. What we’re seeing is kind of…it seems like a movement, a strategy to bankrupt the district through lawsuits. I’ve heard there are many districts throughout the state where superintendents are not renewing their contracts because the board situation is so volatile, And I’ve watched some of these meetings where these superintendents are really under attack. At this point we don’t just have a teacher retention crisis. We have a principal retention crisis. We have a superintendent crisis.”

“I don’t understand how religion is used to teach bigotry, but that’s what we’re seeing here,” she says.

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