117. Ohio pushes for religiion in schools
There's been a push in recent years by Ohio legislators to accommodate religious education in public schools. We talk with Gary Daniels, lobbyist for the Ohio ACLU, about this movement.
Most recently, Republican state reps. Gary Click and Mike Dovilla introduced Ohio House Bill 486, also known as the Charlie Kirk American Heritage Act, which promotes teaching in public schools the positive impact Christianity has had in America.
“What it does is it removes the invisible shackles that often hinder a full transparency in the teaching of American history,” Click said during his sponsor testimony. “We are not inviting instructors to teach doctrine or to proselytize … we’re simply affirming what is already in the law that exists.”
Well, maybe, but it's if not as if these legislators are advocating to educate students about the positive impact of all religions or the negative impact of all religions. They'll deny it, but these legislators are promoting Christianity, which is prohibited by the First Amendment.
The problem is that legislators are pushing to promote only the positive aspects of Christianity, which means their message is not neutral, and if the message is not neutral, it means the message is promoting a certain religion, and that’s not permitted by the First Amendment.
The bill lists some 20 items that teachers should feel free to teach in their classrooms—all positive, nothing negative such as, how the Bible was used to justify slavery or indigenous children were taken from their families and raised in group homes where they were forced to adopt Christianity.
