Thursday, December 1, 2005

Like it or not, you're funding Right-wing Rock

This makes me sick to my stomach, but I can take it. From Think Progress under "Radical Right-wing Agenda".

Another "educational" conservative band, Junkyard Prophet, has been busy touring high schools across the country. But these rockers aren't stickin' it to the man - they're being funded by him. The band apparently receives about $1500 per appearance - an amount that several schools have paid out of their drug-free schools funding from the Department of Education. (Junkyard Prophet says it helps students resist peer pressure and "understand the value and beauty of the moral absolutes on which their country was founded.")

Our sister site, CampusProgress, has details:

The Des Moines Register reported that after one 2004 performance, Junkyard Prophet handed out CDs to a few random students that bore this message: "the death sentence [is] on you due to your sins! The very evidence of your sin will be your death! It is appointed to you to die and after that you will be judged according to your ways! His judgment is so thorough every thought will be brought to the light. When all your sin against God is exposed, how will you escape the damnation of hell?" [...]

[Prophets frontman Bradlee] Dean has also told students that "there is nothing in our Constitution or founding documents about separation of church and state" and criticized the theory of evolution.
According to the band's website, it has appeared at over 220 schools over the last few years. (Experience Junkyard Prophets for yourself - their music videos are here.) In some instances turned up by CampusProgress, students were told that attendance at the assembly was mandatory and that they would be suspended if they skipped out.

One of the comments says a mouthful:

Must suck to be a Young Republican. No wonder they drink so much.

I'd rather my tax money went to buy 'em enough booze to drink themselves to death.

This whole deal is an unconscionable and illegal use of public funds being filtered through school boards for religious purposes.

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