This week, Cooper and Laura go on the Today Show<\/em>. Fun! Also, makeup. Also, gender normatively! Also, ideation of Laura.<\/p>\n Cooper had goes through these paces five or six times by now and had adjusted to the idea of wearing makeup, so long as they removed every vestige of it as soon as he stepped out of the studio.<\/p>\n \u2026 Laura\u2019s artist pronounced her \u201cnearly perfect in every way\u201d before she started, just needing a little powder here and there.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Fun!<\/p>\n The door to the green room opened, and they could see the back of a woman with light brown hair in a green silk suit who was engaged in friendly conversation with another person. Her head turned toward the sound of the opening door, and Jody Easler smiled her warmest and friendliest smile.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n But who was the other person??<\/em><\/p>\n Awkward smalltalk commences.<\/p>\n Cooper was saved from having to think of what to say next by the young woman with the clipboard.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Was she<\/em> the other person?? I must know!<\/p>\n This is some seriously awkward writing.<\/p>\n Cooper and Laura are moved along to the set, where they are joined by the\u00a0Today Show<\/em>\u2018s Jared Andrews, Rev. Matt Manilow of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and, of course, Jody Easler. Cooper ends up seated between Jody and Laura.\u00a0Awkward.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cShould children\u2019s Sunday school classes be regulated under the new United Nations children\u2019s treaty?\u201d Andrews intoned, in the manner that had brought him to the top of a profession that valued more the ability to project concerned winsomeness than to show actual intelligence.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n We now know what Farris thinks of the\u00a0Today Show!<\/em><\/p>\n After a bit more introduction of the case, Jared turns to Laura.<\/p>\n \u201cMs. Frasier, I think that everyone in America wants to know why you think it is necessary to teach that other religions are wrong. We certainly understand everyone teaching their own faith tradition. But, why does your denomination insist on telling young children that people who follow other faith traditions are going to hell?\u201d<\/p>\n Laura\u2019s ears burned. She had had no idea she was going to be attacked like this.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n First, yes, I get that everyone has bubbles, and I get that that some (liberals and conservatives alike) can end up having little personal contact with those outside of their own circles\u2014but really?<\/em>\u00a0I very much doubt that Jared would be so out of touch as to claim that\u00a0everyone in America\u00a0<\/em>is shocked<\/em> by a religion teaches it is the only way to God.<\/p>\n Second, I find Laura\u2019s perception that she is being attacked interesting. She responds that she teaches that because it\u2019s the truth, but what Jared said was the truth too\u2014i.e., Jared accurately describes what Laura teaches. Jared\u2019s words are perceived as an attack because of their tone:\u00a0\u201cHow in the world could anyone actually believe this??\u201d<\/em>\u00a0Jared asks.<\/p>\n Farris writes that Andrews was not prepared for Laura\u2019s answer\u2014that she teaches what she does because it is the truth. I find this somewhat odd too. Are there \u201ccoastal elites\u201d who are this<\/em> isolated from what evangelicals believe? Maybe\u2014but I\u2019m not convinced.<\/p>\n When Andrews reacts with stunned silence, Matt Manilow steps in:<\/p>\n \u201cHere you have a perfect illustration of the dangers of fundamentalist thinking. We are right; everyone else is wrong. It is this kind of assertion that has kept the world at war over religious questions for centuries. I am sure that Ms. Frasier here means well, but at some point in time we have got to stop the bloody feuds over religion.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This does not sound to me like something someone with Americans United would say. More on that later.<\/p>\n Moving things along, Jared turns to Jody. He introduces her as follows:<\/p>\n \u201cAmbassador Jody Easler is with us this morning. Dr. Easler is a world-renowned expert on children and is the American representative to the UN at Geneva. She also serves on the official Committee of Ten for the implementation fo the treaty.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.\u2014as Jody keeps being called\u2014would not serve on the Committee of Ten for the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.<\/p>\n I just found a list of members of this committee from 2001 to 2003 (members are elected for two-year terms). One was deputy minister of education in his home country; another was a judge specializing in juvenile law. One was a pediatric doctor with a focus in disabilities; another was a former cabinet minister responsible for children and youth. One was a professor of human rights; another was the a Finnish ambassador to other countries (not to the U.N., which tends to be a bigger job, and not concurrently with her work on the committee).<\/p>\n Farris does not know nearly as much about how the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child is implemented\u2014or how the treaty responsible for overseeing it functions\u2014as he thinks he does.<\/p>\n This book is set in 2005, six months after the 2004 election, which, in book world, ushered in a Democratic Senate which then ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. When the book begins it is March, so the ratification of the treaty\u2014despite Farris\u2019 discussion of very public hearings and media attention\u2014had to take place between January 20th and March 20th (when Nora Stoddard visited Laura\u2019s Sunday school class).<\/p>\n In 2003\u2014after the book was published but before it is set\u2014the committee of ten was expanded to eighteen. This committee has elections every two years. The election relevant to this book was held in February, 2005. That\u2019s an awful tight treaty ratification timeline. Furthermore, the election process actually begins four months prior, when states\u2019 party to the treaty are contacted for nominations.<\/p>\n The only way Jody could be a member of the committee is if the U.N. decided to disregard its rules. Would they do that? I suppose they might\u2014but I rather suspect that they wouldn\u2019t. Sure, the U.S. is an important and powerful country, but the U.S. has also been ass-backwards in not ratifying the treaty for decades. I can see the U.N. making the U.S. wait in line for its representative like everyone else, almost to make a point.<\/p>\n How does Jody respond to her question? With this:<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we teach a child that one\u2019s religion is truth, I think everyone benefits. Faith is such a noble thing. But when we teach children that their religion is the only truth, an insidious change takes place. Such children learn to look at others as lesser in value. Such ideas lead to disharmony, and potentially conflict, and ultimately violence.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Curious about this, I found a Pew Forum survey<\/a>\u00a0on the topic from about a decade ago:<\/p>\n Around 29% of Americans believe that their religion is the only true religion that leads to eternal life. 65% of Americans, in contrast, believe that many religions lead to eternal life.<\/p>\n Pew asked those who said many religions lead to eternal life which<\/em> religions lead to eternal life. The results are tabulated here:<\/p>\n Around half of these respondents said that Hinduism and Islam lead to eternal life, while half said they do not. A quarter of these respondents said Catholicism does not lead to eternal life; a quarter said that Protestantism does not. This even the roughly two-thirds of Americans who say that many religions lead to eternal life do not believe that all<\/em> religions lead to eternal life; at least half believe that only some<\/em> religions lead to eternal life.<\/p>\n In other words, over half of Americans believe that at least some<\/em> religions do not lead to eternal life.<\/p>\n Next Cooper gets a question. He replies with this:<\/p>\n \u201cIf parents are foreclosed from teaching their children the truth in the name of political correctness, then we have lost the fundamental rights and values that have made this nation.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Political correctness? What?<\/p>\n This is not about political correctness.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n While I do not want to see Sunday school content regulated by the government\u2014intrusive much?\u2014Jody laid out specific reasons for her position, none of which had to do with being politically correct.<\/p>\n Matt responds to Cooper\u2019s statement as follows:<\/p>\n \u201cThere they go again,\u201d he groaned. \u201cYou can\u2019t have a conversation with a fundamentalist without him whining about the Founding Fathers.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Cooper did not mention the founding fathers.<\/p>\n Matt goes on:<\/p>\n \u201cLet\u2019s face facts. The founders were deists not Christians. And simply put, we are not locked in a time warp of 1789 1776, or whatever year Mr. Stone thinks it is. This is 2005, and it is high time we recognize the nasty reality that that fundamentalism is a danger to us all. We are being nice to simply ask parents to refrain from teaching a small portion of their traditional hate-based doctrines to their children. We should probably think long and hard about doing more.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n From 1992 to 2017, Rev. Barry Lynn was the executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. It\u2019s not a stretch to guess that Matt is meant to be patterned after Lynn. And frankly, I don\u2019t see him saying this.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/166\/2018\/09\/Screen-Shot-2018-09-07-at-7.49.06-AM.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/166\/2018\/09\/Screen-Shot-2018-09-07-at-7.44.57-AM.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n