ACLU: Tennessee ‘religious freedom’ law would turn public schools into ‘Sunday schools’

[rug]

By David Ferguson
Wednesday, March 26, 2014 11:37 EDT

Legislators in Tennessee passed a law on Tuesday protecting the rights of religious students in the state’s schools to discriminate against others so long as they are doing so for reasons of faith.

The New Civil Rights Movement blog reported Wednesday that the “Religious Viewpoints Antidiscrimination Act” enshrines students’ right to use religion in any way they choose, even if that means expressing condemnation of their classmates, such as LGBT students or atheists.

The bill arrived on Gov. Bill Haslam (R)’s desk Wednesday and awaits his signature to be ratified into law.

David Badash at NCRM wrote, “The bill states ‘a student may express beliefs about religion in homework, artwork, and other written and oral assignments free from discrimination based on the religious content of their submissions. A student would not be penalized or rewarded on account of the religious content of the student’s work.’”

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/03/26/aclu-tennessee-religious-freedom-law-would-turn-public-schools-into-sunday-schools/

http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/1-tennessee-passes-bill-allowing-lgbt-students-to-be-bullied-in-the-name-of-religious-freedom/news/2014/03/25/84801

https://ssl.capwiz.com/aclu/issues/alert/?alertid=63110936&type=ST

[ladjf]

1. How would a student express their religious views in algebra, geometry, trig, physics, biology and

chemistry? Not to mention geography, drivers ed, physical education and a few other courses. Education is a serious and difficult task.

How will anyone be able to learn in an environment where the students are free to spend class time mouthing about whatever they
imagine they think about religion, atheism, politics and sexual orientation.

[el_bryanto]

2. That's pretty messed up

It seems likely that it would not survive a court challenge, so waste the time and money passing it, and then the time and money defending it?

But even if it would, it seems worded so broadly that it could be used for any number of bad things from Shenanigans like "Why God made 2+2=4" to obscene cruelty like "Why our friend in the fourth row is going to hell and should probably be executed."

Messed up.

Bryant

[cbayer]

3. Can't wait for the unintended consequences of this one.

Whenever they pass crap like this, they seem to think it will only apply to christian students and are shocked when they find out it applies to everyone.

Glad the ACLU is all over this, though. When I read about it yesterday I didn't really see how it could be used to discriminate. This article gives me some clarity in that regard.

[Rob H.]

4. Knowing Haslam, he'll allow this to become law without his signature

just like he did with the "Monkey Bill" two years ago.

Tennessee ‘monkey bill’ becomes law
A second US state lets schools ‘teach the controversy’ surrounding politically charged topics in science.
Helen Thompson
11 April 2012

The governor of Tennessee has allowed the passage of the 'monkey bill', giving public-school teachers licence to teach alternatives to those mainstream scientific theories often attacked by religious and political conservatives.

Nicknamed after the ‘monkey trial’ of 1925, in which Tennessee prosecuted high-school science teacher John Scopes for violating a state law against teaching evolution, the new measure allows public-school teachers to “help students understand, analyze, critique, and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories”. Biological evolution, global warming, the chemical origins of life and human cloning are listed as examples of such theories.

...

But opponents say that the real goal of the bill is apparent from the list of subjects it singles out. “HB 368 and other bills like it are a permission slip for teachers to bring creationism, climate-change denial and other non-science into science classrooms,” says Eugenie Scott, director of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) in Oakland, California.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Association of Biology Teachers have also denounced the measure, as have 4,400 Tennessee residents — many of them scientists — who on 5 April submitted a petition asking Haslam to veto the bill. The bill’s critics see it as a classic ‘academic-freedom’ measure aimed at giving teachers licence to treat evolution as a matter of scientific controversy. In recent years, the Discovery Institute, an intelligent-design advocacy group based in Seattle, Washington, has championed this approach as a strategic way around a prohibition on promoting religion in US public schools. That barrier, based on the separation of church and state in the US constitution, has thwarted previous efforts to mandate the teaching of creationism-like alternatives alongside evolution but it has not yet been tested against an 'academic freedom' law. The Tennessee measure is only the second such law to be passed in the United States — Louisiana enacted the first in 2008 — but ten states have considered them in the past two years.