I know many parents in Madison County are upset with the school board’s decision last night to eliminate the Biblical verses on a donated monument in front of the high school football field.
In a unanimous vote, the board agreed to follow the law, which means the verses will either be removed or covered.
The use of the overtly Christian references and Biblical citations drew protests from two groups, the Freedom from Religion Foundation and the American Humanist Association, both of which warned the Madison school board the monument violated the law and could provoke a legal challenge.
This is my question to parents: Are you sending your children to public school for religious training or academic instruction? Do you want district funds -- at a time when schools are nearly broke -- diverted to fight this losing battle?
If folks are going to rally and urge their schools to spend money, shouldn’t it be on behalf of higher standards, quality instruction and effective teachers?
I don’t get it. My parents valued religious instruction. So, I went to 12 years of Catholic school. I send my kids to public schools, and I don’t want or expect them to get religious training there. I want them to learn calculus. I want them to learn Spanish. I want them to learn physics.
Religion is not the job of the schools. And when the schools in Georgia make it their job -- as a surprising number do -- they violate laws designed to respect and protect religious differences. Monuments, such as this one, amplify and highlight those differences.
Students are in school about 1,000 hours a year. There are nearly 9,000 hours in a year – surely parents who want their children exposed to religion have plenty of non-school time in which to do so.
According to the Madison Journal : (Please go to the newspaper site and read the full story as there are some great quotes.)
As soon as the announcement was made, there was a mass exodus of the 150 — 200 people who had showed up for the meeting, most in favor of the monument. Many mumbled and shook their heads as they left the high school cafeteria where the meeting had been relocated to accommodate the expected large crowd.
Earlier, in the meeting's "teachable moment" segment, school board attorney Cory Kirby of Harben, Hartley and Hawkins, outlined what he said he saw as the board's three possible options for the situation – to do nothing, modify the monument or move it off of school property. Kirby told the crowd that nobody can interfere with a person's practice of religion, but that the school board, as a publicly subsidized entity could not legally take any action to advance or prohibit the practice of one religion over another.
Anyone else notice it's always football and religion? I am looking into the role of "team chaplains" right now who counsel players from the sidelines and it's always at high school football games, never tennis or girls' volleyball.
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