If they systematically hit their own small, weak children, mortify their flesh when they have an independent thought or expression on their baby faces,and call that godly and good government of the private sphere, what do you think they'll use the power of real government to do to you and YOUR kids if you don't slap on a smile and fall into line?

Yesterday was National Spank Out Day 2007, which I'll say more about in a minute and you can read about it here too. But more urgently, I just learned today is National Loyalty Day and Thursday is National Prayer Day. I learned this not in the public marketplace of ideas but in a dark corner of ritualistic beliefs and practices -- from homeschool parents who pray (and urge each other to whack their kids early and often.)

I cross-posted the following at Snook this morning and I've been getting strong reactions all day. Read on down for an update at the end of the post and please do comment here or there, or both. The time has come to at least talk openly about it:

RANT WARNING!

I grew up here in Florida and know the stories, speak the native languages.

Not Spanish. I mean idiomatic dialects like Goldwater Republican. Metaphorical Methodist. Southern Democrat. Spring Break Speak. Hiassen. Government in the Sunshine. Even PublicSchool Speak.

For a while our National Tourism slogan was "Florida-- the rules are different here!"
It encouraged folks to dream of our white-sugar beaches and sunshine as the Promised Land, to plan idyllic pilgrimages here with faith they would be welcome as if to heaven, however they got here and however long they wanted to stay and live it up.

But the rules here aren't so different anymore.

Not sure when it happened, that the Trinity of God, Government and Guns took over again. I have been slow to notice, with all this gentle, loving, respectful and mannerly pretense that religious education is a private non-governmental realm of the spirit, not the State.

National Day of Prayer State Capitol Rally Thursday, May 3, 2007 Homeschoolers are invited to take part in this important day of prayer for our state and nation and participate in the children's prayer walk. If older youth would like to help stamp prayer passports, please email -- Volunteer time is from 10:30 am - Noon, report to the tent in the courtyard

Children's Prayer Walk
Location: Capitol Courtyard
Time: 11:00 am-Noon
Emergency Response & Military Vehicles will be on display in the Courtyard as part of the Prayer Walk.
Each child will be issued a prayer passport to take to each stations and pray for the personnel. They can tour the vehicles as well.

National Day of Prayer Rally
Location: Capitol Courtyard
Praise & Worship: 11:30 am
Prayer Rally: Noon-1:15 pm
Governor Crist, Lt. Governor Kottkamp and other leaders will be taking part in the service.

We did have Easter at the Governor's Mansion this spring-- a very important holiday, said Governor Crist -- but at least in the newspaper, his Easter Bunny gig played as secular hospitality for a few Florida kids who might or might not have been Christian, a ceremonial family occasion and photo op, not associated with the state sausage-making of the Legislature down the street nor with public prayer walks on the Capitol Plaza.
And nothing to do with home education at all.

But now comes a special day for masses of children where the Governor himself will stamp prayer indelibly onto home education "passports" to reward kids for playing on the military hardware and making friends with the warriors, and not on a weekend at his home but on a legislative workday at the Capitol, in front of all the lawmakers, not in a bunny suit but in his official governing suit and tie. Prayer flanked with tanks and guns for real action, followed by ambulances to mop up all the blood and waste, the way elephants are followed in parades. Talk about Power of Story!

God, government and guns. No wait, that's not the sponsors' exact slogan, let me get it just right, oh here it is: Governing Florida with Prayer and Action" which isn't tricky to translate -- "governing Florida" is plainly the dominion that their version of god's will (prayer) commands them to exercise over the secular State and all our laws. And how will this be accomplished? ACTION. The spiritual realm translated into physical reality, warfare on every front in this world and time.

Resistance is futile?
I personally prefer this version but I digress . . .

The point is I get the meaning of the purpose and method. Dominion through warfare. But when it comes to the education this all represents, I have knotty translation problems. Does mixing home education with military might -- bringing the kiddos along to get their draft cards stamped, whoops I mean "prayer passports", the better to learn how God wants them to govern Florida -- just chill me to the bone? You betcha, particularly the same week as the much more directly child-protective lessons of National Spank Out Day! (which needs prayer and action too, but these folks had no Capitol rally for THAT, didn't even acknowledge its existence. I doubt the Governor noticed either, or prayed for the kids against whom god is being invoked as commanding their punishment.)

Does this mean child beating has become both corporal and capital punishment?

Whatever happened to peace vigils and humble candlelight, praying for strength to endure, for guiding hands to heal, not hurt? This sounds like state-sponsored prayer for the strength to fight and win and take over!

And what about teaching citizenship and constitutional separation of powers as important, in the system these kids will someday operate and defend (hopefullly with their good minds, not just their gods and guns!) Do we not have that rule any more?
This isn't a Sunday church prayer picnic and it's not a school or state holiday of any kind, please note. It's a lobbying show of strength on the steps of MY state capitol, at the high-drama, high-stakes end of session, while real laws with real force are being passed and everyone's life, liberty and private pursuits (not to mention money and identity) are at major risk.

Never mind school reform and the protection from school conquest we homeschoolers thought we were fighting for; these lessons have nothing to do with "school and state." What will this teach kids about CHURCH and state, prayer and government? And what will this teach lawmakers about homeschooling?

Is there really nothing wrong with this, not even a little off-sounding, to these conservative Christian homeschool parents? If it's really a prayer day then it doesn't belong in the middle of the secular government identified with legal "home education" and conversely if it's a home education lobby, for the legislative presence and show of strength and solidarity, then it isn't about prayer and religion; those are constitutionally separated for good reason.

The other Christian kids are still in school this time of year, folks, so this rally will be rightly (pun intended) perceived as primarily homeschooling kids.
Wonder if "we" will be sponsoring a State Purity Ball to follow? The warfare weaponry will already be all polished up and onsite, kinda silly to waste it once we have the girls and dads all rounded up to put on a show and the lawmakers paying attention. . .

UPDATE - I wrote our local homeschooler discussion list to advise the mostly-Christian parents in deadly earnest that "the reluctance that has kept many of us quietly deferential to religions we did not share and believed to be of no threat to our own families, is about as dead as the dodo. Believe it or not, we all will have to learn to reckon with that new reality in our own ways."

I got back (chilling) confirmation of my worst fears. Read response from the organizer, about how the civic concerns of an independent homeschooler like me are of zero concern to them as homeschoolers; this has nothing to do with education, you guys, much less HOME education. It is militant iron-fisted dominionism married to the gentle velvet glove of what most of us were taught to believe is non-secular Christian love and peace.

homeschoolers…you chose (sic) what you want to do this Thursday, May 3…. we will be asking God to protect our youth, our military, give guidance to our state and national leaders and to heal our lead. (sic)

And yes, the name of J-E-S-U-S will be used, it is not a dirty name…although in our politically correct society we certainly get upset over prayer, God, Jesus and government being uttered in the same breath.

You better stay home then on Thursday because all those politically incorrect words will be uttered.

*Please* stand WITH evolved homeschoolers rather than against us, as we stand against this insidious threat to our whole secular nation. There are more of you than of us, by far, and we can't fight you too. One easy way you can help is to look directly at the prayer and politics and punishment in a family, if you want or need to know how dangerous they are to our civil liberties and national defense. Never again assume that the particular education method preferred for their children can tell you if they are "on your side", as some sort of handy litmus test.

This has nothing to do with home education; we're just here on the front line. Not unlike the Islamic terrorists (yes, I meant to compare them) the prayers of religious homeschoolers are for power and winning, the unholy power of the trinity -- God, Government and Guns -- and the winning of their own tribes. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be . . .I am now a Believer, that this is in fact warfare, for dominion over the earth and all its creatures.