A Stupid Article by Midge Decter

Midge Decter’s beautiful article on children and religion, “The ACLU’s Next Target,” is well written and almost believable. About halfway through the reading, I started to wonder what it was that gave her the right to write such an abomination to Me. I began my search for something to assure me that she indeed had something to back up her tall tale of boys and their love for their country and God. I wanted to know what right she had to be coming into my head with such ridiculous thoughts. It was almost as if she thought she had the right to control me from the inside like a huge Megazord, battling another one of Rita’s giant monsters. It wasn’t long before I noticed a note at the bottom of a column of the article that assured me she had previously written a book on the subject, Liberal Parents, Radical Children (29). Once it clicked in my head that this was the only thing she had been credited with, I became infuriated. I began screaming and thrashing my arms and legs, nearly breaking my computer. By the time the firefighters got me settled down, I had decided I really liked the article after all. Mrs. Decter may not be any Zordon, but she sure does know how to brainwash and destroy.

In her scrumptious little article, Mrs. Decter mentions something I’ve never heard before. She mentions not only the will of people to ban the use of God in schools, but also the flag:
Ambitious as they are, however, none of these efforts to divert him from the course of bad mental and physical habits can compare in reach to those that would shield him from any untoward love of God and country. Both of those malign affections have been banished from his school, where–to cite only one of the more colorful examples–the upcoming five-hundredth anniversary of the discovery of America is to be spoken of as the celebration of a crime, and where God may not be spoken at all. (29)
The biggest issue I find with this is the part where she claims the child is shielded from country. Based on what I have experienced in my own life and what I know of her life, I am not able to take what she says seriously. This article was written in 1991. I was just starting school about that time. I remember learning how to say the Pledge of Allegiance, and not once was my life threatened by anyone after mentioning something about my country. The part of this segment that I find to be almost equally as bad is the mention of God. I feel that Christians of this sort, at times, like to blow things way out of proportion to prove a point. I’m not saying Christians are the only group who do this, but I am saying it in this case to prove a point. Call me a Christian. But my point is, magnifying a problem to the size she presents it in takes away from everything else she says. If I know she isn’t being completely honest about one thing, then I’m probably going to be less inclined to believe other things she says. When she says the presence of God in society is viewed as bad, and I completely disagree, then that leads me to disagree with her entirely. I now hate her for what she has done.

Later in her article, Decter mentions that the scouts exclude “homosexuals from membership and especially scoutmastership” (29). Not only do I agree with this statement on the position of homosexuals in the scouts, but the last word in the sentence should be split in two. Yes, leave it to Midge Decter to tell us something we already know and use it to trick us into seeing things her way. You see, by telling us something she thinks we already know, she will trick us into thinking she has said something marvelous; therefore making us praise her every thought. Yes, we should praise her. Praise her and her doctrine in trickery. I’m not falling for it, and I hope you can say the same for yourself.

One of my biggest, most trusted beliefs is the one about how people should have the right to do and believe what they religiously believe is right as long as it’s not something crazy, like eating dead people. Decter shows us in small detail, stories of kids suing people. The first is of and eight year old suing for something which is unclear in the article. The second is about twins suing the scouts for kicking them out when they wouldn’t go along with their Christian traditions (30). I agree with Decter’s stance on this topic, but not for the same reason. I believe that if these kids should have a right to believe what they want, the organizations they come from should be able to have their beliefs and be allowed to follow them accordingly. I am not sure why someone would want to be part of something he or she doesn't believe in anyway. Maybe they should just find someone else to hang out with.

Overall, I’d give this article an F for a source I would use. Not only does it go against the point I’m trying to make with my paper, but it does a crappy job of saying what it has to say.

Works Cited

Decter, Midge. “The ACLU’s Next Target.” National Review June 1991: 29-30.




B-