limon

I fail to see what is so horrifying about learning about religions. I fail to see why "teaching" Christianity, or Judaism, or Islam, is a crime. What's the alternative? "Okay kids, today we're going to discuss the political situation in Israel." "Sir, what do the Muslims believe?" "Well, Johnny, you have to let your parents explain that to you. See, it's not a part of your education. And really, it IS possible to learn about this without understanding the religion behind it. Trust me."
"Sir, why is there a conflict in Ireland?" "It started with the split between the Catholics and Protestants -" "Sir, how are they different?" "Well, Johnny, I'm afraid I can't tell you. That would be brainwash."

emeraldkity4

My daughters third grade teacher discussed winter holidays with the class so that they could have a winter party. Otherwise a winter party wouldn't have been part of the curriculum! Other teachers in the school didn't have parties for any reason, no Valentines, no Halloween no winter celebrations :-(
This teacher presented holidays in a pretty straightforward way I thought, although he was heavier on the "Christian" religous celebrations around the world than secular or other religious holidays. Still we didn't call it a "christmas" party, or exchange presents although there was lots of food!
I think it is a fine line though, I have know teachers who don't present things in a nonbiased manner but are very biased one way or the other no matter what the actual material consists of. So you basically have to present a paper showing that you ( agree with) understand the material.

athlonmj

Wow, we have hit a new low.

Half the literature we read in AP English deals with God or some higher being. Why don't we just ban that as well.

Anybody else find the irony in title of this post?

Thank God California Has Gotten Rid of God in the Classroom

iplayoboe

Are we not to learn about Rome? Henry VIII, the Catholic Reformation? Martin Luther, Plymouth, Salem, St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, Henry of Navare, WWII, Russian Revolution, Saudi Arabia, The Medicis, the crusades, ... are these all to be forbidden topics because they deal with religion? this decision leads down a VERY slippery slope.
the Founding Fathers guaranteed the freedom of religion and pracitce of religion, they never guaranteed the complete freedom FROM religion. just as the freedom of speech gives on the right to say whatever they want regardless of who finds it offensive, it carries the responsibility to guarantee everybody else the same right no matter how offensive you find their opinions. The freedom of religion allows you to believe whatever you want, but you also have to respect the rights of others to do the same. It is impossible to learn about the history of America without mentioning religion, it is even more impossible to learn about the history of the rest of the world and excuse the topic of religion from it entirely. Banning religion bans huge amouts of knowledge from being taught. Im not advocating prosilization by any means, but so long as the teacher doesn't condem or condone the religion in anyway and discusses it objectivley, how can you ban religion?

NorthWestLover

What's so bad about learning about religion anyway? I don't believe in any religion, but it's still fun to learn. I'll be reading Bible (King Translation) as a literature in my English class this year, but what's so bad about it? Since I haven't read bible, I think it's good time to read it, and understand why a lot of people in US believe this religion. We shouldn't be FORCED to believe in one religion, but I'm completely fine with learning them.

slipstream99

“The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.” - Article XI of the Treaty of Tripoli which was authored by American diplomat Joel Barlow in 1796, the following treaty was sent to the floor of the Senate, June 7, 1797, where it was read aloud in its entirety and unanimously approved. John Adams, haven seen the treaty, signed it and proudly proclaimed it to the Nation.


And about them all being Christians, many of them were, in fact, Deists. I acknowledge that this is disputable information, but the overwhelming majority of historians qualify many of these men as Deists.
http://www.sullivan-county.com/news/ffnc/
http://www.postfun.com/worbois.html

RaboKarabekian

Ben Franklin was a deist. Jefferson too, I think.

destinypath

There's a difference. I did not say the U.S. was founded on the Christian RELIGION, I said that most of our principles/laws/ideas from the founding came from the Christian religion. Big difference, one between establishing a state religion (christianity), which the founders emphatically did not want to do, and recognizing that America was mostly made of people from Christian persuasions.

Also, your first source talks about seven founders as not being Christians, three of which I'd dispute and the other four being rather universally well known as deists/non-Christians. But that's four founders out of (taking a random number sample) 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence.

hayden

Couple of points: As many people point out, the phrase "separation of church and state" does not appear in the Constitution or the Declaration. However, it was first stated by a founding father. I believe it was Jefferson, but not 100% sure. So the separation was very important. The fathers saw too many wars over religion, and wanted the government to stay out of the religion-supporting business.

Second, an earlier poster said the quoted news article gave the full story. That's not true, if you happen to actually read it. It gives the allegations that are part of the teacher's suit. This presents only one side. The school declined to comment. I don't know the full story either. But, reading between the lines, you see that the school had already put this teacher under watch. He says it was because he was a Christian. Do any of you really think the school only had one Christian employee? I have a hunch that what was happening was that this teacher, under the guise of teaching history, was really trying to proselityze (oops, can't spell that word worth a darn). So the school tried to restrict his activities.

I'm a committed Christian myself, and I am sometimes pressured by my church to try to use my position at work to bring employees to Christ. But I don't believe that someone in a senior position should try to impose religion on people. It's not, shall we say, Christian ?

uc_benz

I never said ALL in any of my sentences referring to the people or the citizens. I know that not all of the citizens of the US are Christians, but the overwhelming majority are. I know that not all of the founding fathers were Christians, but many of them were.

And hayden, who cares what Jefferson said? The only stuff that matters is the stuff that is in the Constitution. If he really would have cared about it that much he would have put it in the Constitution. If stuff that politicians said was always true, then John Kerry would be President, there would be world peace, North Korea and Iran wouldn't have any WMD, HIV would be eradicated, blah, blah, blah. Do you get the point?

hayden

People who think of "blah blah blah" as inciteful commentary rarely get the point themselves.

The reason stray people, such as supreme court justices, et.al., care about what "politicians" like Jefferson said is because you have a good chance of understanding the words they wrote, if you have a sense of what those words meant to them, and in what contexts they used them elsewhere. The words of the Constitution stand by themselves, but such writings as the Federalist Papers help clarify what their words meant.

"If he really would have cared about it that much he would have put it in the Constitution." Why do you assume the founding fathers didn't put it in the Constitution? 200 years of Supreme Court justices happen to think they did.

uc_benz

They didn't seem to care about it enough to strike down a ruling on the Pledge of Allegiance, which is almost identical to this case.

hayden

No - the supremes just refused to take the case, on a technicality (i.e., the father was not the custodial parent, and therefore did not have legal standing to bring the case). That's how they simply don't rule one way or the other. It's the legal equivalent of "no comment".

uc_benz

Everyone knows that they would have ruled that "under God" could stay.

NorthWestLover

Damn people from 200 years ago.