Abusive Reform Schools Have Received Faith-Based Funding
Michele Ulriksen reads from her memoir
While the crowd may have been small, the message was anything but trivial. On Tuesday evening, the 25 Reedies in attendance witnessed Michele Ulriksen’s sobering presentation. Unlicensed, unregulated religious reform schools, many of which are notorious for abuse, not only exist in the hundreds in the U.S; they have even been funded under former President Bush’s Faith-Based Initiative. Some of these “treatment” facilities are even receiving federal subsidies to this day.
Leslie introduces Michele Ulriksen
And Michele Ulriksen, the survivor of Victory Christian Academy, an all-girls, unlicensed, Baptist reform school, witnessed firsthand the abuse in such schools for troubled teens. At her reform school, the girls were constantly berated by the Dean, Mike Palmer, told that their hardships were divine retribution for Eve’s sinning in the Garden of Eden, and were never even allowed to wear pants. But the abuse gets worse. The girls were starved, forced to eat their own vomit, and were even sexually assaulted. All in the name of Jesus Christ, the supposed Prince of Peace.
A cheese and crackers tray at the lecture
Although it is hard to believe that such facilities exist, Michele Ulriksen presented a clear timeline of the abuses at Victory Christian Academy. According to the ideas presented in ”The Perils of the Faith Based Initiative” lecture, the deregulation of religious institutions is dangerous. For example, under a Statute in Florida, such schools for troubled teens need only gain 501 (c) 3 tax exempt status, in lieu of actual government regulation. And those on the board which approves these schools need only be members of the existing exempt-from-regulation facilities.
A squirrel enjoys a catered cracker
The end result, Ulriksen explained, is that Victory Dean Mike Palmer was able to sit on the same Board that approved the Victory Christian Academy in Florida. What is even more frightening is that Americans’ tax dollars are supporting facilities that don’t even respect the basic rights guaranteed under the Constitution. While actually shutting down all such facilities in the U.S. may be impossible – citizens can speak out. And Michele Ulriksen’s presentation really inspired Reed Secular Alliance President, Leslie Zukor. “We have to do something,” she explained, “before another kid dies in one of these facilities.”
I think that these people who did these awful things were wolf’s in sheeps clothing. It’s easy to fake being a Christian. Not every one who claims to be Christian is. See the Unlikely Disciple on you tube. A young man faked being a Christian and went to a well known Christian college called Liberty. So as I am sorry this has happened to these people. Don’t mistake Jesus with fake people who claim to be his followers. Thank you.
–> the old “no true Scotsman” fallacy!
@ Melissa:
Everyone who is a Christian makes the situation in these schools possible. By maintaining the situation that has arisen insulating religious belief from critical scrutiny, you allow extreme behaviors in the name of the faith to be perpetrated.
This is why moderate Xtians and other believers need to get on board with the program of removing all state support from any faith-based programs. Only rebuilding and reinforcing the wall of separation between church and state will solve this problem.
“Not every one who claims to be Christian is.” This is nothing more than an attempt to apologize for this kind of activity, without doing anything to attack the root of the problem. It doesn’t matter whether they are ‘real’ Xtians or not. They are identifying themselves as such, and therefore are a problem that ALL Xtians must address. Failure to do so is identical to the moderate Muslims refusing to speak out and condemn terrorists who identify themselves as acting because of an Islamic faith.
Though a horrific and tragic event, I do not believe that all Christians are to blame for this. I have many Christian friends and they (obviously) condemn this type of behavior. Although the school’s dean may be Christian, he does not represent the community as a whole. There are people of the Christian faith that do not speak about their religion, they merely keep it to themselves. Though I am an atheist, I do find “good” in all religions, not necessarily in the fairy tales, but in the people. Jesus taught some good lessons and I take some of my morals from that, the same goes with Buddha, Mohamed, etc. Claiming that all Christians are to blame for this is not the way to approach this kind of situation. The reason some Christians are so hostile towards atheists/agnostics/humanists is because we are often arrogant instead of accepting, patient, and tolerant.
I really think it should be called the “No True Christian Fallacy,” since that’s the form in which I nearly always hear it. (Scotsmen seem to be a lot more honest about their group identity—also, they don’t seem to get in trouble as much!)
And saying there is good in religion because Jesus and Buddha had some a few moral insights is rather like saying that there is good in astrology because Newton was an astrologer, or that there is good in believing that beans have souls, because Pythagoras believed that. It’s just a non sequitur: people who have good ideas can believe in things that are absurd, and those beliefs remain absurd!
(I think you would be hard-pressed to find moral insights in anything Mohammad wrote. He was a bigot, a racist, a misogynist, a tyrant, and a narcissist; he also committed and condoned acts of genocide. Indeed, the pacifism and passivism of Jesus and Buddha are much overrated; “turn the other cheek” is not a sound political policy in the nuclear age.)
Moreover, I do not think Christians hate atheists because we are too aggressive; indeed, the most vocal Christians seem to hate atheists *qua* atheists, simply because we don’t believe in God, and would continue to hate us regardless of what we said or did. On the other hand, the Christians who would accept us if we were silent, but are offended by our strident words, don’t seem to understand, first, that our words are really no more strident than anyone’s, and often substantially less (Christian: “All atheist deserve to be punished in Hell eternally unless they turn to Jesus.” Atheist: “Christians are delusional, they believe false and immoral things.”); and second, that if we simply remained silent, we would be as complicit as they in the hatred and violence of fundamentalism.
For they are complicit, as is anyone who does not stand against fundamentalism. This means not merely saying (mostly to atheists, not to fundamentalists!), “They’re not REAL Christians,” but actually challenging fundamentalism wherever it is encountered, standing up to defend science—particularly on the modern evolutionary synthesis, embryonic stem-cell research, and anthropogenic climatology—standing up and saying “That’s WRONG; that’s FALSE; you shouldn’t say that, you shouldn’t BELIEVE that.” If all the millions of moderate Christians in the world did this, fundamentalism would have no power. But instead, they do nothing, and then complain when we blame them for doing nothing.