All this talk about this weekend's opening of The DaVinci Code has gotten the media talking about Religion. So far the discussions have been pretty fair, but I think it's only to get ratings from the controversy.

It's made me think more about what I said yesterday and I realized that I have more to say. Pat Robertson gives Christianity a bad name (which, in turn, dirties the name of Religion in general). What I finally put together is that the growing number of people who give their professions a bad name seems to be increasing. Or, at the very least, if it isn't increasing it's surely being given more weight.

Staying in the realm of Christianity, Priests now have a reputation for child molestation. You don't think so? Would you be willing to leave your child with a priest you don't know without that nagging thought in the back of your head?

In the realm of Education, some teachers have done stupid things, like the man with whom I did my student teaching who is now behind bars for some sort of sexual misconduct with a student. Or there's the example of that teacher who had a child fathered by her 13 year-old student. These are bad acts, for sure, and parents have been using acts like these (and far more minor ones) to undermine the legitimacy of the teaching profession.

However, I think it's important that we separate the acts from the profession. The saying goes "One bad apple spoils the bunch", but I think we're taking that too far. Parents are second-guessing the teachers; A teacher will send a note home saying "Jimmy is being disruptive in class" and instead of the parent sitting down with Jimmy and either 1) finding out what's going on or 2) disciplining the child, they call the school board and complain that the teacher is wrong. The kid then sees this and feels empowered because they know that they now have control over the teacher via proxy through their parents.

I hate it when people say "In my day....", but I'll say it anyway: When I was little, if a teacher said I did something wrong, you best believe that I was gonna hear about it when I got home! Today, we're so convinced (incorrectly, IMHO) that the schools are bad - and therefore the teachers incompetent - that we blindly stand up for our children when the children are the problem (Or the parents in many cases).

Likewise, just because some priests are perverts or some Christians (I'm talking to you, Pat) are dorks doesn't mean that the whole of Christendom is worth nothing.

Now I just wish we could hold our politicians to the same impossible level of acceptability that we hold religious leaders and teachers...