James Talarico

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.

And so those Christians understood that once the government—

starts preaching your religion, starts making decisions about your faith, that that doesn't lead anywhere good.

And so we should be very suspicious of the state usurping the role of pastors and Sunday school teachers.

If you want to deepen your faith, we have churches on every street corner.

A lot of them don't have a lot of people in them, right?

We've got mosques and temples and synagogues that have a ton of room in them.

And so why would we have the government start to teach kids about or preach a certain religion when we have houses of worship that can do that?

Yeah.