Politics
Tuesday May 13, 2008
New Online Video Details Suppression of Any Mention of Christianity in Texas Public Schools
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By Michael Baggot
TUPELO, MS, May 13, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A new program from the American Family Association (AFA) revealed on Saturday what Texas has done to address the widespread suppression of Christians' right to religious expression in public schools.
"Lone Star Justice," the sixth episode of AFA's "Speechless…Silencing the Christians" series, outlined the numerous violations of religious liberty Christians have endured in the state's public school.
Hazel Pattison Elementary School student Kendall Pounds recounted being admonished for mentioning Jesus when asked about the meaning of Easter.
Kendall's mother Dawn reported her alarm when her daughter's school prohibited participants in its "Winter Party" from wishing one another a "Merry Christmas."
Dawn was told that the country was not founded on Judeo-Christian principles and that the school needed to remain neutral regarding religion, even though the school allowed students to color images of Kwanzaa, Ramadan, and Hanukah.
Another parent recounted how the daughter of a local associate pastor was told to "tell daddy to keep his job at work" after she shared a poem about Jesus in class.
Christian persecution in Texas extended beyond Pattison.
Students in the Plano school district were told that they couldn't write "Merry Christmas" in letters sent to troops overseas. Another Plano district student had his "Jesus loves you" pencils confiscated when he tried to pass them out after the school day was over.
In a one meeting with the community, the Plano superintendent even admitted to plans to "shut down religious speech" in school.
The program went on to attribute the suppression of religious speech to an unconstitutional notion of the separation of church and state used to prohibit Christians from expressing their beliefs in the public square.
As the program noted, the phrase "separation of church and state" is not found in the US Constitution, but instead originated in a 1802 Thomas Jefferson address to Baptists meant to quell fears that the US government would impose a single religion on its citizenry.
In response to attacks on religious speech in public schools, Texas became the first state to pass a law devoted exclusively to protecting students' freedom of religious expression.
Last June, Governor Rick Perry signed the Religious Viewpoint Anti-Discrimination Act (RVADA), also Schoolchildren's Religious Liberties Act, to protect voluntary expression of religious viewpoints of the state's 4.5 million public schools students.
The RVADA outlines students' rights to express their religious viewpoints in homework, art, school speeches. The act also protects students' right to organize religious extra-curricular activities with the same access to school facilities as non-religious activities are afforded.
"Schools are not faith-free zones, and teachers shouldn't be asked to be prayer police. Rather, schools are required to ensure a level playing field in treating student's voluntary religious expression the same as all other expression. This bill settles the issue once and for all," stated religious liberties advocate attorney Kelly Coghlan.
Each episode of the "Speechless…Silencing the Christians" series can be accessed for free on the SilencingChristians.com after its initial Saturday airing.
View "Lone Star Justice" and learn more about the series:
http://www.silencingchristians.com
Learn about protecting religious expression in your state:
http://capwiz.com/afanet/issues/alert/?alertid=11352286
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