ABSTRACT
Few Americans admit to being secular humanists. Yet the ideology they allegedly hold is blamed for society’s ills. “Most of the evils of the world today can be traced to humanism,” says Tim LaHaye, a Southern California pastor, in his book Battle for the Mind. “It is destroying our culture, families, country—and one day, the entire world.” Mel and Norma Gabler of Longview, Texas, agree. They operate a textbook monitoring service to search out ideas that “undermine patriotism, the free enterprise system, religion, and parental authority.” Most textbooks, they told New York Times reporter Dena Kleiman in 1981, are written from the perspective of “secular humanism, which permeates every aspect of contemporary society and teaches youngsters to lie, cheat, and steal.” “Humanism is the religion of public schools,” say the Gablers, who refer to public schools as “government seminaries.”
