The ACLU has decided to sue the Wilson County school system for “School-based religious activities” at Lakeview Elementary in Mt. Juliet. RightMinded’s Glen Rose, in all his intellectual dishonesty, leaves off the “school-based” part to further his erroneous conclusion that the ACLU is “against Christianity”. Was the ACLU against Christianity when they joined the lawsuit supporting a New Jersey second-grader’s right to sing “Awesome God” at a talent show, or when they joined the fight of a student who’s entry had been deleted from the yearbook because it contained a passage from the Bible?

The Establishment Clause of our Constitution, also known as the First Amendment, prohibits the federal legislature from making laws that establish a state religion or a preference for a certain religion. In other words, Congress cannot declare a national religion nor can they set a preference of one religion over another, or religion over nonreligion.

Public schools (the operative word here being “public”) come under the jurisdiction of these federal laws. The answer, therefore, is a simple one. Instead of standing around the flagpole each morning holding a morning prayer to Jesus, have a moment of silence instead. Then all God’s children can, in their own way, worship as they choose. This answers Rose’s argument that “if you want to argue the establishment clause, then I will argue the free exercise clause.” A moment of silence gives students the time to freely exercise religion, silently, and in their own way.

And for those who belives that secularism is taking over the country and that there’s a “war on Christianity“, let me remind you that The Supreme Court decided that private prayer in public schools is acceptable but that school sanctioned religious assemblies, for instance, are not.

There are compromises to be made in this area that are not served by reactionary hyperbole about “the secularism that pervades public school system” or the ACLU is “just against Christianity.”

This post was written by Mary Mancini