I don’t have a ton to add to this topic but would like to say one thing I haven’t read yet. Unless or until you are a member of an extreme religious minority living in a community that is heavily dominated and influenced by a religious majority whose doctrine may include values that differ greatly from your own, you cannot understand what that feels like. Sometimes it is the otherwise loveliest people who do and say things that are unintentionally offensive out of ignorance, not because they are bad people. For that reason, people might pick a school, or the city its in, or even the state that its in where they might find less of that. It’s a comfort thing and it may not have anything to do with a required religious course which could even include a course in their own religion that would fulfill the requirement. Box checked but environmental concerns, the same.
I’ve lived both sides of this. I’d venture it is more of that kind of atmospheric concern motivating the clarification question with respect to school practices than something about a course requirement but I could be wrong.