Imposing Religion on Schools

What is an "activist" judge? The Christian Right likes to toss around the term so much that it's lost any meaning it might have had, but if it were to mean something wouldn't it refer to a judge who told a school district that they have to favor one religious position over others?

TalkLeft reports on a federal judge who has blocked a school's tolerance curriculum that addressed homosexuality:

U.S. District Judge Alexander Williams in Maryland evidently believes that teaching tolerance of homosexuality advances governmental support of religions that accept (or at least tolerate) homosexuality over religions that condemn it. But sexuality is not an intrinsically religious issue. Religious organizations take competing positions concerning sexual practices and education about sexuality in general, but religious organizations take any number of competing positions about all sorts of things. By Judge Williams' logic -- and maybe this is where it's leading -- a school could not teach evolution because it would be advancing a particular viewpoint to the detriment of a competing religious (albeit unscientific) viewpoint. Nor could it teach any fact of history (like the probable age of the planet) that is contradicted by a religious belief.

Apparently the curriculum discusses what various religions think about homosexuality. Is that a problem? Not obviously — and conservative Christians certainly shouldn't think so, given how much they complain about the way religion is ignored in school lessons. I'll bet they wouldn't mind if a science class included a few minutes to explain how some religious groups oppose evolution while others accept it, so why make a fuss about this?

Now, if the school lessons teach that certain religions are bad for not being tolerant of homosexuality, that would be inappropriate. That would be taking sides in a manner that the government simply shouldn't do. If the lessons simply explain that different religious groups in America have different perspectives (and give examples of who thinks what), then that sounds exactly like what teaching is supposed to be.

Read More:

• Gay Rights, Gay Marriage
• Evangelical Christianity & Homosexuality
• Catholicism & Homosexuality