OVERVIEW WITH Q & A RELIGIOUS VIEWPOINTS ANTIDISCRIMINATION BILL
OVERVIEW:
Schools are not
religion-free zones; school officials are not prayer-police;
religious students are not enemies of the state; and the Religious
Viewpoints Antidiscrimination Bill (also known as the
Schoolchildren’s Religious Liberties Bill) makes that clear. The
Bill provides much needed guidance for school officials who have
sometimes felt compelled to quash students’ religious expressions
for fear of lawsuits--even when such quashing itself is illegal.
The Bill pulls together Supreme Court rulings into a format that is
accessible to the public and easy to understand and apply. Houston
attorney Joe Reynolds, a 16-year member of the Texas A&M Board of
Regents, who has represented more school districts than any other
attorney in the United States, said, “This is the best piece of
legislation for school districts that has been introduced in the
past 50 years.”
The legislation
does not require or even suggest that any child ever express a
prayer or any other type of religious viewpoint, it just protects
them if they do. Furthermore, the Bill does not presume that there
will ever be a prayer or other religious viewpoint expressed by any
student.
The Bill is
anti-discrimination legislation protecting students’ voluntary
expressions of religious viewpoints, if any, to the same degree—no
more and no less—as students’ voluntary expressions of secular or
other viewpoints on otherwise permissible subjects and topics.
Religious children do not receive special rights, extra opportunity,
preferential treatment or extra protection, just equal rights, equal
opportunity, equal treatment and equal protection.
RECENT
EXAMPLES OF RELIGIOUS DISCRIMINATION IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS INCLUDE:
-
A
Superintendent announcing to the students that “if they prayed
they would be disciplined the same as if they had cursed.” The
school then published speaking guidelines that said, “Prayers,
blessings, invocations, and any reference to a deity are
prohibited.” A law suit ensued, a final judgment was entered
against the school district. (Ward v. Santa Fe);
-
In another
public school, students were reprimanded for talking about Jesus
during Easter;
-
One school
banned children from wishing deployed troops a “Merry
Christmas;”
-
One school
forbid children from using religious messages on gifts or cards
including references to “St. Valentine’s Day;”
-
One school
forbid children from bringing Christmas items to a school’s
“Winter Party” despite the acknowledgment of other faiths during
the season;
-
In another
public school, a teacher trashed two Bibles belonging to
students, took the students to the principal and threatened to
call Child Protective Services on the parents for letting their
children bring Bibles to school;
-
In
another public school, students were prevented from handing out
candy-canes, when other candies were permitted, because
candy-canes had a religious background;
[Coghlan is a Houston
constitutional trial attorney and author of Those Dangerous
Student Prayers. He has represented 159 students and parents as
amici curiae before the U.S. Supreme Court on faith-based
issues, obtained the first federal injunction preventing censorship
of a student’s voluntary public prayer in Ward v. Santa Fe I.S.D.,
and is the legal author of the Religious Viewpoints
Antidiscrimination Act. Website
www.kellycoghlan.com. The article’s contents are the personal
opinions of the author and are not legal advice, warranties or
representations]
ŠKC94-07
