Legal Blasphemy

It seems that with the religious right being in control of our government it gives the theists of local communities more courage to put their private religious beliefs into the public square.

Brunswick County Board of Education is trying to enact a polity that would allow religious groups to hand out scripture to high school students. Jennifer Rudinger, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of North Carolina, and Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation are working together to show the school board how illegal this is.

Rights groups lobby board
Religion in schools vote raises concern

Source: http://www.stateportpilot.com/stories/bibles0419.htm

- By Hilary Snow, Staff Writer

The Brunswick County Board of Education may have acted on faith earlier this month by moving forward with a policy to allow religious groups to hand out scripture to high school students.

But leaders of two politically active civil rights groups believe the board has committed something akin to legal blasphemy.

During a meeting earlier this month, a divided school board disregarded board attorney Joseph Causey’s advice and adopted the first draft of a religion in schools policy that could potentially give the board the right to pick and choose which faiths can be allowed in county high schools.

Board members Ray Gilbert, Jimmy Hobbs and board vice-chair Shirley Babson voted in favor of the policy; chair Scott Milligan and member Willie Gore voted against.

Before final approval of the policy is considered in May, both Jennifer Rudinger, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of North Carolina, and Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, hope board members know if they open the door to religious groups, they may also open the school district up to lengthy and costly legal battles.

“We’re really hopeful they will pass a different policy,” Rudinger said Tuesday. “Hopefully just one person will consider why the Supreme Court has ruled over and over again against government involvement in religion.”

Rudinger said the school board is walking into dangerous territory by even considering a religion in schools policy.

The problem for the ACLU, which has sent numerous warnings to the board, is not that board members want to expose area teenagers to religious materials, she said. The real issue is a government body “taking sides” by creating one set of rules for religious handouts and another for all other free literature.

“The Equal Access Act of 1984 says if a school is going to allow clubs or organizations to come in, it has to allow all. The government must remain neutral, it has to be hands-off,” she said. “The board’s policy remains problematic. They have one set of rules for religion and one for everything else. That’s not neutral. All materials should be treated the same. That’s what is best for religion in a pluralistic society.”

Rudinger said she would “applaud” the board if it decided to stick closely to a policy modeled after a Fourth U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals case, Peck vs. Upshur County Board of Education, as Causey has repeatedly advised. The case upheld a West Virginia school district’s right to give out any outside materials — religious or otherwise — in a passive manner one day a year.

“I would applaud a Peck policy. It applies equally to Bibles, to plays, to civic opportunities. As long as the same set of rules applies to all literature, it is more free speech that schools can have, and that is not a bad thing,” she said.
While she cannot speculate on the ACLU’s next move, Rudinger said the Brunswick County Board of Education is not alone in its consideration of a religion in schools policy. The ACLU of North Carolina recently sent letters addressing the same issue to school boards in Columbus and Forsyth counties.

“Brunswick County is not the first and it will not be the last,” she said. “It seems that every semester we are communicating with school boards on the exact same issue because of outside groups wanting to give out materials. We have not yet had to go to court, though. We try to describe what the law is and communicate with them.”

‘Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s’
Like Rudinger, Gaylor hopes the Brunswick County school board will reconsider its push for a religion in schools policy.

But unlike the ACLU, Gaylor’s Freedom From Religion Foundation will not be satisfied with any school policy that allows faith-based groups into schools.

Discussion of changing the school’s religion policy was spurred by a local chapter of Gideons International, who sought permission from the school board last year to give New Testaments to high school students.

Gaylor said the minute the Gideons, or any other religious group, is let into Brunswick County high schools, Freedom From Religion Foundation plans to take legal action.

“(The school board) is pushing the envelope and pushing parameters,” Gaylor said Friday. “The intent is to placate or promote the Gideons. That is reversing a prior board decision to keep religion out. The Gideons deserve a great deal of criticism. ‘Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s,’ right? Well, they are taking it upon themselves to force this issue. That doesn’t look very virtuous.”

Gaylor said there have been two U. S. Supreme Court cases — one in Indiana and one in New Jersey — against Gideons International in the last 50 years. In both instances, courts ruled in favor of keeping Gideons out of public schools.

“The Supreme Court stands behind us on this,” she said.
Gaylor warned Brunswick County school board members not to “get in the business” of religion.

“They’re choosing religion over non-religion. There is no shortage of Bibles anywhere in this country. If you can’t find a Gideons Bible at the local Motel 6, you can go to the library. The school board is showing favoritism to religion in general,” she said.

And Gaylor believes the law is on her side should Freedom From Religion Foundation move forward with a suit against the Brunswick County Board of Education. The group won a similar case against a school district in Tennessee in 2004.

The case involved the Rhea County, Tennessee, school board’s policy to allow students from Bryan College to promote the “teaching of religion to public school children” in grades K-12. The ruling overturned a 50-year tradition of Bible classes in public schools.

While the Brunswick County school board is seeking to establish “passive” distribution of religious materials in a neutral area outside the classroom, Gaylor said the board’s actions are still in violation of the separation of church and state as outlined in the U. S. Constitution.
“They say passive, but those groups will have a captive audience in the schools,” she said.

In the Sixth U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals case, Freedom From Religion vs. Rhea County Board of Education, Gaylor said Freedom From Religion Foundation was awarded its attorney fees. Fighting a similar losing battle, she said, could prove costly for the Brunswick County school board.

“We were awarded our own attorney fees, which were between $120,000 and $150,000 at both levels. Plus, (Rhea County Board of Education) had their own attorney costs,” she said. “(Brunswick County school board members) should be ashamed of themselves. They are endangering taxpayer money and they won’t gain anything but egg on their faces.”

Testing the waters
Should the Brunswick County school board choose to adopt the revised religion in schools policy during its monthly meeting on May 6, it will have some, but not total, control over free material distribution.

In the draft policy approved earlier this month, the school board must allow all faiths into high schools, “with the exception of those works which defame other religious faiths.”

Causey has warned board members that once they let one religious group in, they will have to let in all. Both Hobbs and Gilbert have said they do not plan to keep any faiths locked out of high schools.

“When I made the motion to adopt this last month, it was to break down the walls of discrimination, not to allow one group and then not allow another,” Gilbert said.

Llewellyn Worldwide, a company that publishes New Age books on metaphysical studies, mysticism, witchcraft, astrology, paganism and Wicca, among others, is ready to hold board members to their word.

Steven Pomije, a publicist for Llewellyn, recently sent a letter to Milligan requesting the school board consider allowing free distribution of the company’s books to students. Pomije also offered to arrange for pagan organizations in the state to visit county high schools.

In an e-mail interview, Pomije said as a rule Llewellyn only distributes books at trade shows and festivals. But after reading about the Brunswick County school board’s discussion of allowing religion in schools on Witchvox.com, a leading pagan website, Pomije took another route.

“I initially sent the inquiry as an educational opportunity for the people on the school board, a reminder, if you will, that there are indeed other recognized and legitimate religions in this country other than their own.”

Pomije has since contacted several pagan churches in the Triangle and Charlotte areas — Sacred Spiral Coven, Church of the Earth of North Carolina, the Universal Trinity Church and the Sacred Circle of Wiccan Fellowship — to ask if they would be interested in taking donated books from Llewellyn that they can then hand out to Brunswick County teens.

“I think we’ve made our point and now we will proceed in that direction without further communication with the school board,” Pomije said.

But Pomije is not the only one. Both Rudinger and Gaylor said their organizations publish materials directed at youths.

Rudinger has already notified the board of the ACLU’s interest in distributing pamphlets on students’ rights.

Freedom From Religion Foundation has two books for kids — one which compares a belief in God to belief in Santa Claus and another, “The Born-Again Skeptics Guide to the Bible.”

“What’s to stop us from handing those out, theoretically?” Gaylor asked.

Milligan said he has not yet read the letter from Llewellyn but he has received numerous letters and e-mails from secular and religious groups across the state and nationwide.

“These are not just local groups. This has stretched outside the state,” he said.

And he would hate to say, ‘I told you so,’ but the influx of requests from state and national groups is just what he was worried about when he voted against the policy.

“My whole issue with this policy is not the Bibles, it is about all the other things parents aren’t going to appreciate their kids bringing home. These are the kinds of topics I was concerned about,” he said. “These requests coming in just validate my statement that when you open the door to one, you open it to all. We are going to have some difficulty saying, ‘No,’ but it’s too late. We’ve already taken the fence down.”