Number 92:  January 28, 2007

Tuesday was Religious Freedom Day. I didn’t know a day was needed to remind us that the founding fathers of our country had insight into what religious tyranny was like. They had lived under it in Europe and knew first hand of its disastrous and controlling influence over one’s personal freedom.

Religious Freedom Day was designed to celebrate the constitutional right that 300 million Americans enjoy. President Bush called on all Americans to “commemorate this day with appropriate events and activities in their schools [gasp!], place of worship, neighborhoods and homes.”

The Supreme Court noted in 1969 that public school students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.” Despite what you might have heard about “separation of church and state,” the expression of religious beliefs remains a constitutional yet protected right, even in the public schools. Many school officials need an education on this point.

The US Department of Education sums up students rights this way:

Students can pray, read their Bible or other religious books and talk about their faith at school during school hours.

Students can organize prayer groups and religious clubs and announce their meetings. Students can express their faith in their class work and homework.

Teachers can organize prayer groups and Bible studies.

Students may be able to go off campus to have a Bible study during school hours. Students can express their faith at a school event, including graduation ceremonies.

Many of these individual constitutional rights are being violated. We hear of the student or teacher being denied the right to speak freely and it is generally heralded as good for separation of Church and state. Actually, it is the seizure of more of the individual rights to worship as one pleases which is guaranteed by the constitution.

Most papers or newscasts do not report that attorneys from the American Center for Law and Justice send letters to schools correctly informing them of the student’s constitutional rights, not state or school privileges.   

If we have to have a Religious Freedom Day to remind ourselves that this country was build on freedom of speech, freedom of press and freedom of religion, then the Socialists who want to destroy these freedoms may be winning. Feel free to speak up about your beliefs, even if you are in a public school.