Virginia school district delays Bible class after AU warning

Church & State, Sep 2000

A public school district in rural Virginia has delayed instituting a "Bible as History and Literature" course after Americans United warned that the move could spark a lawsuit.

The Surry School Board approved the Bible class in May as part of the system's elective offerings for the 2000-01 school year. The action was taken after community residents circulated petitions in local churches requesting that such a class be offered.

One month later the board backed down and voted to suspend the course indefinitely. Superintendent LaVerne Daniels complained that "outside meddlers" have spiked the plan, remarking, "We are a small, rural county. The private interest groups can fight longer and harder than we can."

Daniels was referring to Americans United. AU attorney Margaret F. Garrett wrote to the board June 12 after the organization learned that a Bible course published by the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools was under consideration.

Americans United does not oppose objective study about the Bible in school but believes that the National Council's curriculum is essentially a Sunday school course. The group, which has close ties to TV preacher D. James Kennedy, promotes a historically inaccurate "Christian nation" view of U.S. history and opposes separation of church and state.

In her letter to the board, AU's Garrett noted the National Council's track record and wrote, "I recognize that the Bible has considerable significance in Western literature and history, and that it therefore has a proper role in public school study. However, experience demonstrates that there are enormous risks inherent in offering an elementary or secondary level course that is devoted exclusively to the Bible (as opposed to the full diversity of the world's religions). I have even greater concern here because the organization behind the effort to have the course added to your curricula has a demonstrated agenda that is inconsistent with constitutional requirements."

The Becket Fund, a conservative, Roman Catholic-oriented legal group, offered to help the board craft a Bible course that it claims will pass constitutional requirements and vowed to defend the course in court if necessary.

In other news about religion and public schools:

U.S. Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) has urged the Democratic and Republican parties to add language to their platforms advocating the addition of a school prayer amendment to the Constitution. Byrd said he is discouraged by the Supreme Court's recent ruling striking down coercive prayers before public school football games in Texas. He called the ruling an "ingrained predisposition against expressions of religious or spiritual belief" and said it is "wrongheaded, destructive and completely contrary to the intent of the Founders of this great nation."

Public school officials in Chicago have removed a controversial abstinence program tied to the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church. Critics charged that the program, sponsored by the Pure Love Alliance, was medically inaccurate and based on fear tactics. Others charged that the program taught "absolute sex," a term found in Unification theology.

Robert Kittle, president of the Pure Love Alliance, denied the group teaches "absolute sex," though he conceded the term appears in some of its publications. Kittle, a Unification Church member, also said the program does not aim to proselytize or convert anyone. He blamed the decision to remove the program on religious bigotry.

Officials with the Alliance have kicked off a promotional tour featuring 300 teenagers who have taken vows of celibacy until marriage. The group says it hopes to have its curriculum in schools in all 50 states by next year.

An Alabama man who complained about religious activity in a local high school says he's facing economic retaliation. Greg Thomas of Hamilton, in rural northwest Alabama, is a convert to Judaism who protested an evangelical Christian rally that took place at Hamilton High School in April of 1999. During the event, a local evangelist prayed, "We are claiming this place for the kingdom of God, that Jesus will be exalted over Hamilton High School and Middle School." The event took place during school hours, but attendance was optional.

Thomas says after he complained, people stopped coming to plays he staged at the community theater, which also led to him losing his other job as a drama teacher at a local two-year college. He has decided to move out of town.

"I rocked the boat, and I guess that's the price you pay," Thomas told the Birmingham Post-Herald.

Religious groups in Chicago dropped plans to pass out book covers bearing the Ten Commandments on school property last month. Members of a group called Total Living Network had hoped to distribute thousands of the covers to children in front of Von Humboldt Elementary School. They agreed to move the event to non-school property after receiving a call from Public Schools Chief Paul Vallas.

Vallas made it clear he supports the distribution. "The Ten Commandments are a universal value system," he told the Chicago Sun-Times. "What's wrong with the Ten Commandments? Who has a problem with 'Thou shalt not kill?"'