James Talarico

Young people are growing up without the structure of faith, whether it's the Christian faith or Islam or Judaism or Hinduism, whatever it may be.

Students are just less religious than they once were.

People are less religious than they once were.

We know that's a fact.

And so this rise in mental health issues, anxiety, depression among young people, there are folks out there, and I would even put myself in this camp, who say it's that children are growing up in an incoherent universe.

There's not a tradition, a story that helps them make sense of their lives in a profound, almost cosmic way, which is necessary for human beings.

I mean, no matter who you are, you need that structure and that meaning in your life.

And so I recognize that as a problem, but...

But what I firmly and passionately believe is that the government forcing teachers to put up a poster actually makes that problem worse.

Because I think, and again, I was a middle school teacher before I became a politician, so I know students.

They have the best BS detector around, right?

I think this bill will create a whole new generation of atheists.

who think that my religion, my faith tradition, that means everything to me is more about power than it is about love.

And they already kind of think that.

I mean, young people already think that about religion.

I think this is just going to confirm just the worst, people's worst inclinations and impulses about organized religion.

Well, and the staunchest defenders for the separation of church and state throughout American history were Protestant Christians, Baptists in particular, right?

I mean, the letter Jefferson writes where he first uses that phrase, a wall of separation between church and state, was to the Danbury Baptists.

Because, I mean, these Protestants were fleeing Europe as religious minorities, right?

I mean, this is kind of essential to the founding of this country was religious freedom.