would you say that your teachers actions were unique to him ie motivated by
purely personal interest or was it what he was part of a church or a group that
had this ethos of indoctrinate early spread the word you know this kind of
thing he's also a youth pastor right from a Baptist Church in our town so
that does say a little bit but I'm never one hundred percent sure of what what
motivates them to do it but I do know that it's very important now to you know
get them young you know make sure it make sure they get it now because they
don't want to be challenged when they get older well one of the things my
teacher actually said during class and one of the things that's on the
recordings is that he was given an example and he said if if my if my kid
is age 12 and he's telling me dad I appreciate what you've done for me but
I'm going to stop going to church after I break his backside we're going to have
a little attitude adjustment and he's going to go to church that's enough me
great so I mean it shows what he thinks but then on the other hand he also told
another student not to listen to his parents about his religious beliefs just
listen to me just that to me even though even though if your pet if you deny your
parents you should uh way in the Bible and get you know just laughs you're
getting a lot of trouble if you deny your parents well right and so it's very
it's very clear that that you know the religious right in general wants to get
them wants to get them young and if they do challenge it they want to I don't
know if they're all in favor of you know physically beating to get them into
submission or not but he seems to be but yeah that they don't want them to
challenge and the easiest way to do that is bring them up in a way that they're
not supposed to challenge and unfortunately schools support that idea
in general even if it's not about religion even if it's about just
listening to what your teacher and I experienced that in multiple ways
not only dealing with this particular situation but other ways as well in high
school so speaking of getting them while they're young there's a lot of pressure
over here to build more faith schools which take a lot of public money and
have a unified ethos what do you think of that well I when I first heard about
it I thought well it's good that we want to give money to students who want to go
to a different school other than other than a public school because I don't
know if it works the same way here but essentially if you live in a certain
general area you either go to the public school there or you go to a private
school and usually the private school is affiliated with one particular religion
or another and so in that sense I thought it was good originally but then
I realized if the government is giving money to a school that is based in a
particular religion you're are then supporting a religion essentially and
unfortunately that's what's it seems is going to happen we're starting to happen
in the states as well that's something Barack Obama it seems to be in favor of
is giving government money to religious schools through the faith-based
initiatives which I think yeah was started by george w bush so it's a it's
really interesting to watch their there are decent arguments on both sides but i
think it's most important that we make sure that that governments really aren't
sponsoring religion and paying for it i just don't think it's a good idea yeah
and in the US the separation of church and state is less polarized than in the
UK believe it or not there seems to be a sort of agreement sometimes between
atheist groups and some religious groups that it's best to have a place neutral
public arena in certain areas right but over here it's not so much yet um what
do you think UK campaigners can learn from the US if anything well I think
that's one of the most important things you know it's it's unfortunate because a
lot of times even organizations that agree with each other on basic
principles will end up going against each other for
particular reason or another and I think you can do you can do the best job
possible when you're facing any situation when you have multiple groups
working together for a common goal that's what you know that that's what I
ended up happening in the states with with slavery you know different
different people from different groups and particularly you know with with
Martin Luther King and John F Kennedy and all of that there were there were
whites or blacks there were everybody working together on one common goal and
I feel like that's the way that we accomplish so much so I hope we can
continue that but it gets very very very delicate on on the topic of religion
very delicate it's hard to find a middle ground recent very right but luckily we
do have we do have some who actually are willing to do that which is great to see
but I wish we could have I wish we could have more just keep building I don't
know I've noticed but just watching the european version of God TV a sort of
creeping evangelism coming over from the states and being replicated here and
what battles do you think we can expect if that does get a foothold it's so hard
to tell yeah it's so hard to tell i mean you know that there are so many things
that are unpredictable about the future i mean imagine living 50 years ago you
know in the states and now we have we have Barack Obama's president you know I
mean things are just so unpredictable but I think it's going it's it's
certainly going to be a challenge that that you're going to have to face here
but we certainly have to face it as well i mean it's it's an issue that's been
that's been spreading i think in a sense it's it's very strange because i noticed
that in some polls people will say that you know they are they identify
themselves as a particular religion like they'll say you know sixty percent of us
say that we are Christian and then you ask how many believe in God and
sometimes it'll be a smaller number and so does it'll be a larger number so it's
a but those kind of numbers and those kind of of different different people
and different eyes it's very hard to tell where things are going to go and
things are getting change yeah for some people Christianity seems to be a little
bit suddenly jumped to the church and meet people and socialize right and and
some of that some of that is is is good in the sense i mean you know you go to
some I've been to different churches i went to i think i might be wrong in this
i think i went to a unitarian church for a little while in in new york city just
to see what different things were like and it was fun you know i mean everybody
was having fun there was sing a song i just it was it was a fun environment and
you got to talk to people need to be with people and that's great but then
this other stuff comes in with you know you have to you have to believe in God
and you know know the story of Noah's art and some of those things like that
that I personally think our Foolish in a way and you know that's that's where I
feel like things go go off course but that's something I think that that all
people can learn is that that kind of stuff is useful the fun and the cheering
and the songs non that's great but right so let's keep that right because that's
useful but I'm not so sure about how effective the rest is and finally what
does the future hold for Matt LeClair do you think that you will continue with
some form of activism or was this just one person the right place the right
times to count for the issue of the day I guess a little bit of both I mean at
none of this could have happened if my teacher and my entire school system
didn't screw up so badly I mean it really was one awfully dumb thing after
another constantly so I happen to be in the right place at the right time but
there were apparently a lot of students that were in the right place at the
right time but just didn't do anything about it for me personally I think I'm
probably going to continue doing things like this I already have I actually
challenged an inaccurate textbook in my next year of high school that that ended
up going nationwide and that was that was the story too so I feel like that's
something that I'm probably going to continue but I'm not going to look for
it you know if something if something happens which
things always do then if I can do something about it I will but as you
know as far as what I'll do as a job or anything I don't know yet maybe
journalism maybe law but they all kind of involve I guess a little bit of
trying to trying to talk about things that that may be going wrong so I think
that's something I'll probably like to continue that's great thank you so much
talking to thank you been great all right thanks
you