Blogsnark: American Government Has the Authority to Promote Christianity in School
Such a position is doomed to failure because there is no simple "Christianity" which can be promoted by the government. There are multiple forms of Christianity and anything which the government promotes, endorses, or encourages would necessarily be just one form or set of traditions, excluding all other forms and traditions. I don't think that this bothers Christian Nationalists, though. They are willing to put the weight of the government behind Christianity alone so why not behind just one form of Christianity alone?
A recent case in Kentucky involving a public school that actively promoted Christianity is bringing such Christian Nationalists out of the woodwork:
The ACLU's lawsuit was filed on behalf of two Old Hickory parents, who said their son — a kindergartner last year — was exposed to religious events and messages that were "coercive" and "highly offensive."
The activities included a "Praying Parents" group that regularly met in the school cafeteria during school hours and dropped off fliers in classrooms to let children know they'd been prayed for, according to the suit.
And it says that the school observed "National Day of Prayer" by holding a competition for students to draw posters promoting the day, handing out stickers that said "I prayed" to students who'd participated and encouraging students to link up for the day with "prayer buddies."
Those students without a prayer buddy or a sticker stood out, "disfavored and isolated," the suit said.
ACLU attorney Eddie Schmidt said he did not object to religious events that took place on school grounds before or after the school day, as long as they did not involve the endorsement and promotion by school officials. Some of these events, however, did take place during school hours and established a pattern and practice of endorsing not only religion, but a particular version of Christianity, ACLU attorneys said.
Source: Ashland City Times
The Alliance Defense Fund claims that nothing more than private — and therefore protected — speech occurred. It's hard to look at the above list of acts and conclude that the government was not endorsing, promoting, and encouraging religion (and specifically Christianity). Even if we ignore that, however, at least some school officials have been quite honest enough to admit that their purpose is to promote religion:
"I know there is going to be some conflict and controversy about this … but I believe we need basic religion in our schools to teach children the way God would have them go," said Will Duncan, a member of the Sumner County Board of Education. "If we don't, somewhere down the line we are going to lose a whole generation of children."
Why does Will Duncan think that the government has the authority to pick which religion is "needed" by children and then to teach that religion to everyone's children using everyone’s tax dollars? Even if what he claims about the need for religion were true — and there’s no good reason to think it is — it would not justify using government schools and government money to pay for singling out one religion to teach to everyone. Notice, for example, that Will Duncan only seems to conceive of "religion" in the context of his particular God — basically excluding religions like Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and others which either don't recognize his god or even don't have any gods in the first place.
"Parents should be the ones to decide which religion, if any, they should expose their children to," said Rob Boston, assistant director of communications for the Washington, D.C.-based Americans United for Separation of Church and State. "When school officials step into that role and start promoting particular faiths, they are usurping parental rights."
Rob Boston is expressing the only sensible and legally appropriate position here. Schools should make room for private religious expression by students, but just as schools do not have the authority to single out religion for discouragement they also don't have the authority to single out religion for encouragement. These are two sides of the same coin — the same separation of church and state. According to the ACLU:
School administrators repeatedly disregarded the family’s requests and continued to promote and sponsor activities like “Prayer at the Flag Pole” and “Praying Parents,” whose members enter classrooms and tell students that they have prayed for them. Rather than taking the family’s requests seriously, the school administrators encouraged the family to withdraw their child from the school. ...
“Families have the right to decide for themselves whether to pray, when to pray, how to pray, and where to pray. It is the role of the family not the public school to make those very personal decisions,” added Weinberg. “By promoting their own personal beliefs, Lakeview officials are broadcasting a divisive message to the religiously pluralistic community of Wilson County.”
Unfortunately, some parents have moved to this area precisely because the public schools promote their religion:
Parent Cindy Davison told the Tennessean that her family moved to Mount Juliet partly because of the school.
"As far as the curriculum and the environment and the staff, it's as close to a private school as you can get," she said. "I believe that goes along with the Christian theme they have."
Source: Political Gateway
I wonder why Cindy Davison doesn't simply send her children to a private religious schools if that is what she wants — or doesn't just take personal responsibility for ensuring that they learn her religion instead of expecting the government to do th work for her. When did the secular government become responsible for teaching or preaching one religion above all others?
As a sign of just how bankrupt the school's position is, consider this attempted defense by Nathan Bradfield:
Let me provide the ACLU a Cliff’s Notes version of how they will be defeated in this case. The ACLU’s accusation of the school endorsing religion and even a particular kind of religion is, as the ADF commented, absurd. The school would have to be forcing children to believe in the tenets of Christianity in a classroom for that to apply.
No one can be forced to believe anything, though they can be forced to act like they believe something. That's probably one reason why what Nathan Bradfield articulates here isn't a real legal standard that has ever been used by any court or will ever be used by any court. Yes, the school didn't force any students to believe anything, but that's not the line which needs to be crossed before a school does something unconstitutional. Simply promoting, endorsing, or encouraging a particular religion is sufficient.
We can ignore that, though, and still conclude that Nathan Bradfield is just talking nonsense. Pay close attention and you'll see that he's saying that it's "absurd" to accuse the school of "endorsing" religion — or even a particular kind of religion — because that would require forcing children to believe that religion. Huh? Since when has "endorsing" something meant forcing people to believe something? That is not now and has never been the definition of "endorse." Nathan Bradfield is creating an impossible standard (force children to believe something) because it can never be violated and, therefore, nothing schools do would ever rise to a constitutional violation.
Praying students nor praying parents do not violate the First Amendment because no student is being forced to participate.
It is true that praying students and praying parents do not violate the First Amendment. The ACLU complaint doesn't claim otherwise, so Nathan Bradfield is simply using a Straw Man here to distract readers' attention from the real issue, which is the behavior of the school and school officials.
The school could easily get by with teaching creationism and Christianity in a classroom, as long as any “offended” child is not forced to believe.
Notice that Nathan Bradfield doesn't offer any legal arguments to support his claim, despite the fact that decades of court decisions state unambiguously that schools cannot teach religion — they can teach about various religions, but they cannot teach religion. Why? I'm not sure — there are no arguments which he can offer which would be convincing, but I'm surprised that he doesn't even bother to try.
In response to the question of whether it would be a violation for the school to teach Hinduism or Wicca, he responded:
The Constitution is NOT living, therefore we go with what it says and the context under which it was written. Not today’s context. Therefore, religion, to the Founders, was Christianity. I’ve already laid that out clearly. Since the First Amendment is only meant to prevent a specific denomination from being declared by the federal government, these other religions/cults you’ve mentioned would be rejected. They are not Christian - the obvious religion of the Founders.
Why does "religion" really only mean "Christianity" in the Constitution? Nathan Bradfield doesn't say. No explanation, no argument, no details, nothing — just a bare claim. We can dismiss Bradfield's claim very quickly and easily. First, the authors of the Constitution clearly knew about religions other than Christianity and there is nothing in any of their writings to suggest that they didn't normally use "religion" in the broad and standard way.
Second, if Nathan Bradfield's position had any merit, then the First Amendment protection for the "free exercise" of religion would only apply to Christianity. This would mean that Wiccans, Hindus, Jews, Muslims, and others would have no constitutional protection for their religious beliefs and activities.
If Nathan Bradfield believes this, then we can dismiss his interpretations generally as inconsistent with the Constitution because he follows illiberal, anti-democratic belief system which is incompatible with constitutional principles of liberty and democracy. We know that the authors of the Constitution weren't trying to create an authoritarian theocracy, but that's precisely what such an interpretation of the First Amendment means.
On the other hand, if he doesn't believe this, then his interpretation of the Establishment Clause should be dismissed as hypocritical because he's trying to use two different definitions of "religion" for the two different clauses of the First Amendment's protection of religion — even though they both use the same iteration of the word "religion." That wouldn’t just be hypocritical, it would be incredibly confused. It's just not possible to say that for the Establishment Clause, "religion" only means "Christianity" but for the Free Exercise clause, "religion" means "any religion."
Either way, his interpretation of the First Amendment must be completely rejected. With friends like Nathan Bradfield, who needs enemies?
Religion in Public Schools:
Comments
I’m not sure if I should be dumbfounded by Mr. Bradfield’s amazing confusion of the founders’ interpretation of religion, or angry at his attempts to distort the First Amendment.