Does your child go to a religious school?

 Does your child go to a religious school?

 

Since 1962 the Supreme Court has bared prayer in the public schools.   In the not so good old days, kids read from the bible and said the Lord’s Prayer as part of the opening of school each day.   Whether it was the protestant or Catholic version depended on the politics of the region.   Then came Madeline Murray, a Marylander who also happened to be an atheist.  She resisted and out of that resistance came the Supreme Court decision.  Although not a party to the case, her reasoning that prayer in public schools violates the first amendment to the religious establishment clause of the Constitution became part of the decision.

Now come the new found religious conservatives.   Legislators in Tennessee, Texas and Louisiana have passed legislation that would require the 10 Commandments to be displayed in every public school classroom in the state.   In 1980, there was a similar law in Kentucky and it was struck down by the Supreme Court as a violation of the Establishment Clause.

Recently, Louisiana thought it might give the idea a chance.   But the federal appeals court struck down that law.

But hey, nothing succeeds like “let’s give this another try”. The effort is very appealing to the conservative religious right.   Sorry, last week the Appeals Court also struck down a new Tennessee law for the same reason.  Do these folks even pay attention?   Because days after the Tennessee law was struck down, the Texas Governor signed an almost identical bill requiring that the 10  Commandments be displayed in every classroom in Texas.   More than likely opponents of the legislation in Texas will also raise the issue of the Establishment Clause and separation of church and state.

So why do these bills keep passing if they are consistently struck down?  The answer is pandering to the conservative base.   The governors of these states and their legislative majorities knowing full well that what they are doing violates the US Constitution can tell their constituents that they tried.  The can blame the left wing courts that struck them down.  Thing is the courts in these states could hardly be called left wing.

Religious schools are a good thing for those who want to send their children to a school with those belief systems.   Folks sending their kids to public schools, for whatever reasons, need to know that they did NOT chose a religious school and their taxes shouldn’t be supporting one.   Says so in the First Amendment.