Bill either unconstitutional or unneccessary
In a 1963 case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a required reading of Bible verses in public schools violated the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment. But the ruling in Abington vs. Schempp went on to say objective academic study of the Bible was permissible in public schools....
But Kentucky has its own constitutional language regarding the separation of church and state, and Senate Bill 142 may well trip over it.
Section 5 of the state constitution says in part: "No preference shall ever be given by law ... to any particular creed, mode of worship or system of ecclesiastical polity." And one definition of "creed" in the Random House Webster's Collegiate Dictionary is: "an accepted system of religious or other belief."
One could argue then that any public school system in Kentucky offering an elective course "on the Hebrew scriptures and the New Testament of the Bible" must also offer elective courses on other accepted systems of religious belief, such as Islam's Quran.
But even if the state constitution doesn't preclude teaching the Bible in public schools, we see no valid reason for enacting this bill...
3 comments:
I do think we could benefit from a course on world religions. How could it hurt our kids?
But this Bible class? I do think it's an attempt to get Christianity adopted as our state religion. How embarrassing for the Commonwealth!
It would be smart if a group of a educators, principals and professors wrote a letter-to-the-editor (That's transactive writing for you educators) protesting this move to give preference to the teaching of Christianity in Kentucky's public schools.
Our schools can't promote one religion over another. Does anyone in the blog get this? Does anyone care about this bill?
The bill's authors should rememeber: it's about all kids. Not just Christians!
...one definition of "creed" in the Random House Webster's Collegiate Dictionary is: "an accepted system of religious or other belief."
In my view, evolution is a belief in how people came into being. This is not to say that I believe that evolution shouldn't be taught in public schools, but some equality should be seem between all beliefs so as not to favor one belief over another.
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