Religion in Schools
Religion should remain separate from schools. Laws with religious requirements should not be passed.
319 U.S. 624
Texas S.B. No. 797
In 1942, the West Virginia Board of Education required public schools to include salutes to the flag by teachers and students as a mandatory part of school activities. The children in a family of Jehovah's Witnesses refused to perform the salute and were sent home from school for non-compliance. They were also threatened with reform schools used for criminally active children, and their parents faced prosecutions for causing juvenile delinquency.
Texas passed a law requiring public schools to display donated “In God We Trust” signs. Church and State separation advocate Chaz Stevens protested by following the letter of the law, but flipping it in a way that might spark opposition from the law’s supporters by writing the nation’s motto in Arabic.
Stevens is well aware he’s relying on Islamophobia to provoke conservatives but he’s also hoping teachers can use his signs to discuss faiths other than the nation’s dominant religion in public schools. However, any signs donated in different languages or used rainbows and fun colors, were rejected.
“In God We Trust asserts our collective trust in a sovereign God.” - Senator Bryan Hughes on education in schools
"Under God" was added to the pledge in 1954 by President Eisenhower after hearing a sermon by Rev. George Docherty. The following quotes are pulled from a service in honor of Lincoln’s birthday.
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"To omit the words ‘under God’ in the Pledge of Allegiance is to omit the definitive factor in the American way of life”.
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“An atheistic American is a contradiction in terms”
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“If you deny the Christian ethic, you fall short of the American ideal of life.”
Religion should remain separate from schools.
Laws with religious requirements should not be passed.
“Students of all faiths, and no faith, should be able to attend public school without experiencing government indoctrination or being used as “political footballs in our society’s culture wars,” - William White