There’s a general rule of thumb in these United States: If you’re a member of a county or local school board and people around the country know your name, that’s so seldom a good sign.
Sure, if you’re a state congressman or local mayor, maybe you’ve gained a modicum of fame for something good. Work further up the ladder — state education official, appointed officer, something to that effect — even more chance that we know your name because you’re doing your job well or did something laudable.
County school board member? No. That means you’ve 1) been arrested or 2) gone bananas.
Credit, then, to Cabarrus County, North Carolina, School Board of Education member Pamela Escobar, who has not been arrested. (Not that I know of, anyhow.) No, we know her because of the fact that she flipped her lid over the fact a fellow member of the board wanted an invocation to open board meetings.
Escobar’s response, in a viral rant? “How much prayer do you need? How much God do you need?”
There are two obvious answers to this. First, as much as you can get. Second, if you disagree with the first, at least a little more, for this woman’s mental state, which does not seem so hot.
The clip, which started going viral a few weeks after the April 14 meeting at which it happened, involved a request from board member Melanie Freeman — who, as Fox News notes, ran with her Christian faith as a foregrounded element — that the meetings start with a prayer.
“From the very beginnings, when the Puritans touched ground in the new world, prayer has been the bedrock of this nation,” she says in the video.
“Today, our U.S. Congress begins each opening day with an invocation before reciting the Pledge of Allegiance … I respectfully make a motion to include an invocation to our agenda and meetings moving forward.”
Should every public government meeting in America begin with prayer?
Melanie Freeman has neither been arrested nor is crazy, so you can forget her name for the rest of this story. Let’s refocus, then, on Pamela Escobar, who was Not Happy™ with the suggestion.
“Talking about tradition — so, you saw this meeting tonight,” she said, visibly piqued. “It’s beautiful … if you looked at our audience, they don’t look like us. They look like this community. We are diverse. We come from 92 countries, we speak 67 languages.”
“If you put prayer at the beginning of this meeting, I don’t think that’s a welcoming sign to the people who are in this room tonight,” she continued. “Every child belongs, and I would not want to do anything that says to this community, ‘You don’t belong in our school district.’”
I mean, except for ranting about Christians and their wacky prayer habits as weird, which she’s extremely willing to do.
“So this to me is very disturbing, because I think it sends the wrong message that we’re trying to communicate,” she said. “And frankly, we are not in the business of faith or religion!
“That’s not what we do. We teach. We empower, we inspire. And so, to do something that would be the opposite of that is disheartening.”
Yes, prayer is the opposite of teaching, empowering and inspiring to her. This just gets better and better.
“On top of it, this board prays. This board prays before every meeting if you choose to be part of it,” she said, citing a prayer group before meetings.
“How much prayer do you need? How much God do you need?” Escobar said. “This is exclusionary.”
“[School employees] come here to work. To dedicate their lives to children. They didn’t come here to pray with you,” she continued.
“If you want to pray with them, take them to church. You want to be evangelical and do that? Go for it. But not on my time, not on their time and not on this community’s time. We’re not in this business. This is not the time or the place. We’re better than that.”
If “this community” is like Pamela Escobar, oh no they’re not:
According to Fox News, she spoke no less than four times to try to get the invocation off the agenda, including noting how offended she was and about the possibility of opening the district up to a lawsuit.
“I don’t need to participate in that, and I don’t think you need to make the entire school board join you in your prayer. And if you do, then you have to be prepared for people to sue us because they have the right to religious freedom,” she said.
“I don’t know why you need prayer to take this job seriously.”
Apparently, the rest of the board did, because the motion passed 5-2 to draft a written policy regarding the invocation and then invite public comment — which Escobar will doubtlessly give plenty of.
Which is why, naturally, policies like this end up passing.
Here’s the deal, lady: First, we’re completely willing to risk offending some godless people so that we can beg Almighty God for his blessing. Be offended if you want, but offended you will be, and we won’t care.
Two, this was founded as a Christian nation, and we — as Christians — have as much right to defend that as you and your nihilist pals have to try to change it. So sit down and strap in, because you’re in for a fight.
Finally, the Constitution doesn’t provide you or anyone else protection from being offended. That’s a good thing for you, because your godless arrogance offends the rest of us.
Understood? Fair enough. Now, move onto getting this rant off the top of the results page for Google searches for your name, Board Member Escobar.
It’ll take a while.
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