For over four decades American has been in a state of moral decline. Even more disturbing, as the moral conscience of our society is steadily eroded, people increasingly are less able to sense the totality of that moral decline and resist any suggestion regarding what our moral standards should be.
Leading the way in this decline is a government-run public school system. While much has been said and written about academic standards and testing results that are among the worst in the developed world, virtually nothing has been said about the failure of public school graduates to discern the difference between right and wrong in matters of morality. Instead, public school students have been taught that there are no moral absolutes; they must not be judgmental; every action can be rationalized; and they must be tolerant. Such concepts open the door to all kinds of mischief and corrupting behavior.
As a consequence, the moral decline of America is not limited to the sexual revolution. This decline permeates our entire social, economic, financial, entertainment, business, legal, and political order.
The State Against Religion reveals that the core philosophy of America's public schools is based on John Dewey's 1933 "Humanist Manifesto." Thirteen instances in that manifesto define Humanism as a religion that has no respect for a supreme being or a moral authority. In 1960 The U.S. Supreme Court also acknowledged that Humanism is a religion.
Through a process of legalized theft, U.S. governments confiscate $350 billion a year from U.S. taxpayers to fund a government-run elementary and secondary school system that espouses the religion of Humanism. This school system functions as a giant adversary against God-fearing religions. Concurrently, the U.S. government denies the right of parents to share in those funds in order to enroll their children in the spiritual and moral environment of schools that do respect a supreme being.
This book documents that, as a result of this coercive and discriminatory policy, U.S. governments violate the First Amendment, the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and the states' rights provisions of the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The author indicts public schools as morally bankrupt and beyond redemption. He concludes with a powerful argument on behalf of vouchers. In a voucher environment, parents would have the right to share in funds that belonged to them in the first place in order to send their children to the school of their own free choosing—public, private, secular, or parochial.
"The State Against Religion" is must reading for everyone concerned about the future of our nation and our posterity.
Gus R. Stelzer is a retired senior executive of General Motors (GM) Corporation. In his last year with GM, 1976, he had total responsibility for more than 1,000 GM dealers, with 35,000 employees doing $2 billion in sales in 1976 dollars.
Since retiring, he has been a member of the World Affairs Council; the Institute of the Americas, San Diego campus of the University of California; the Advisory Council of the School of Education at The University of San Diego; Rotary club president; and many community organizations. Simultaneously, he has maintained a constant study of economic and social affairs and current events.
He is the author of 133 articles that have appeared in the public press, plus two prior books, "Free Trade and the Constitution" (1987, 1989, 1991), and "The Nightmare of Camelot: An Exposé of the Free Trade Trojan Horse" (1994).
He has appeared for one to three hours on more than 130 radio and television talk shows, participated in 140 talks and debates before audiences as large as 800, and frequently receives standing ovations for timely and enlightening views and presentations.
Gus Stelzer was born in St. Louis in 1915 and now lives in Mill Creek, Washington, with Lorraine, his wife of 60 years.
