Government Approved

A friendly exchange. . .

Even from across the yard, Susan could tell her neighbor was angry. She had thrown her newspaper down in disgust, and was walking around in an agitated state. Since she and her husband had moved in two months previously, Susan had been praying for an opportunity to talk with Kathy about the Lord. Maybe this was it. But maybe not.

They had been able to talk a number of times about “this and that,” but up to this point they had not talked about anything that really mattered. Nevertheless, Susan had picked up that Kathy was very liberal in her politics. It also looked like she needed to vent her feelings over what it was in the paper—she was headed over to the fence. Susan drifted over to meet her, and she was right. It didn’t take long for the subject to surface.

“Did you hear what the legislature just did?”

Susan laughed. “No.”

“They just passed a bill that would require record stores to put warning labels on any of their records with ‘objectionable content.’ And if they sell one of those records to a minor, they can be fined $5000!” Kathy sputtered to a halt.

Susan was thinking that she might be in over her head. “Will the governor sign it?”

Kathy was off and running again. “Yes! I can’t believe these mossbacks! What do they think parents are for?”

Susan had been frantically thinking about how to approach this, and decided to wade in from the shallow end. “But you think the government should make businesses put information labels on our food, and our medicine, don’t you?”

Kathy nodded. “Of course. But that is the kind of thing you can have some objective standard for. Scientist can tell us how much bran is in our cereal. But how can the government tell us how much ‘objectionable content’ is on our CD? Who are they to say?”

Susan and her husband had just been talking about this whole subject a few weeks before, and she was trying to think through exactly how he had responded to this. “So you think that the government should stay out of the whole area of ideas, morality, approach to life, and so on?”

“Exactly. If Don and I want to let our kids listen to some obnoxious group, then we will. If we don’t, then the government should stay out of that too. What business is it of theirs?”

Inside, Susan was praying, and mentally, she took a deep breath. “But, Kathy, don’t your kids go to public school?”

Kathy looked surprised. “Of course they do.”

Susan said, “Isn’t it inconsistent with what you are saying?”

Kathy shook her head. “I don’t know what you are getting at.”

Susan had been watching her closely for any indication that she should drop the subject. But Kathy appeared to be more baffled than upset, so Susan proceeded.

“Well, you don’t want your kids to have to buy ‘government approved’ art, music, and so forth. Right?”

Kathy nodded. “Yes, that’s right.”

“But then you send them to a ‘government approved’ school, with ‘government approved’ teachers, and ‘government approved’ textbooks. It seems to me that you don’t really want to keep the government out of the realm of ideas at all.”

Kathy had never heard anything like this. She was silent, so Susan went on.

“This ‘government approved’education goes on for twelve years, for eight hours a day. So it seems to me that if one of your kids wandered downtown after school and bought a ‘government approved’ CD, it should be no big deal.”

Kathy thought of something to say. “But we elect representatives to the school board. We control the schools—they’re our schools.”

“But we elect people to the legislature too. That doesn’t keep what they do from being ‘government approved.’ Fifty-one percent can still tell the rest of us what textbooks meet with their approval, and which ones do not.”

Kathy shook her head again. “You know, I have never thought about it this way. Don’t think I am agreeing with you, though.” With this, she laughed, although it sounded a little nervous.

Susan also laughed. “I know, I know. But if you want to practice in thinking this way, you could do what my husband does.”

“And what is that?”

“You could stop calling them public schools. They are ‘government approved’ schools. Or government schools for short.”

Kathy shook her head. “I hear what you are saying. But it setill seems kind of simplistic to me.”

Susan smiled. “It seems simplistic because it is consistent. It doesn’t make sense to demand that the government stay out of approve the music my kids listen to, and then insist that they approve the music appreciation textbook—along with the teacher.”

“Well, of course, it is all very easy for you to say all this. Your kids are both preschool. What are you going to say about this in a couple years?”

“John and I haven’t decidedwhat we are going to do. We may homeschool the first several years, or we may enroll them at Covenant. But we have decided what we won’t do.”

“Which is? As if I didn’t know.”

“We won’t be bringing up ‘government approved’ children.

Originally published in Credenda Vol. 5, No. 1