tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-606201113344523885.post68523099459114569..comments2024-03-28T13:08:26.494-04:00Comments on Religion & American Law: How Much Freedom Is Too Much Freedom In Schools?Brantley Gasawayhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02894338478934982958noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-606201113344523885.post-11818421043234467022016-02-16T23:14:22.654-05:002016-02-16T23:14:22.654-05:00Schools quite often operate outside the normal rea...Schools quite often operate outside the normal realm of constitutional authority, so the bill may seem redundant to some, but it in fact it is necessary to guarantee these rights to children. However, the school setting should be irrelevant; children should be able to freely express themselves with regards to religion anywhere. A school child proclaiming their faith in Jesus provides no basis for state establishment of religion. The dissenters illustration of the scenario of a child handing in a creationist answer in a science homework is a completely fallacious argument. The bill grants rights to express religious views in homework, but nowhere stipulates that the teacher must agree and give a good grade. If I have deeply held political beliefs and a politically opposite teacher, I'm going to hand in homework that appeases them because I don't want to fail. Handing in that homework doesn't inherently change my political belief, so too should the child's education not interrupt their religious belief. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-606201113344523885.post-78255887979399432622016-02-16T23:04:41.549-05:002016-02-16T23:04:41.549-05:00This bill is very interesting, and encompasses sev...This bill is very interesting, and encompasses several parts some of which I agree with, others that I do not.<br /><br />I completely agree that including ones religious beliefs in homework assignments is troublesome. What if a student did not know the answer of a homework assignment so instead she or he based her or his answer on something random, and said that was what her or his religion believed the answer to be? How can these assignments be graded? On scientific belief or religious belief? This is putting both the student and teach in a potentially awkward situation and thus I think religious belief should be removed from homework assignment completely. <br /><br />In terms of the teachers being able to teach lessons on morality, while I believe a teacher should not teach based on his or her own definition of morality, I believe morality can be taught more generally, based on a wide variety of definitions of morality. Thus, I find the topic of teachers having classes on morality to be less problematic than including religious freedom to have a place in homework assignments. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18302745607127414159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-606201113344523885.post-4469916443191688962016-02-16T22:02:49.156-05:002016-02-16T22:02:49.156-05:00The arguments behind this bill make sense. For ins...The arguments behind this bill make sense. For instance, I think it is true and remains in the framework of constitutionality that a student gets authorized to show his or her affiliation with a religious community just as he or she is authorized to show his or her love for a music band. A separationist point of view on the matter would be stricter though, saying that private beliefs altogether belong to the outside world and not to the realms of public schools. I find your explanation of the “slippery slope” counter-argument really well made, with the example of the biology class (“that goes against the point of the unit”). I would like to add that it appears dangerous to put religious education at an equal level with secular education inside the secular public education system itself. The goal of this system precisely is to give the students a common ground of knowledge and even of values, a process which could be made difficult by such a bill. Caroline Vauzellehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04281850222585333809noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-606201113344523885.post-59202405224904463182016-02-16T21:11:20.716-05:002016-02-16T21:11:20.716-05:00I would agree that the bill is redundant, but redu...I would agree that the bill is redundant, but redundancy is not unconstitutional. Freedom to express one's religious beliefs are protected under the First Amendment, however, students can still face persecution for their religious beliefs. Obviously the State of Ohio believed that the protection guaranteed by the First Amendment was not enough in some situations. I do not think that anyone would argue that freedom of religious expression is not a positive thing, so any bill that reinforces that ideal seems to be a force for favorable change. As for the argument that students would hand in assignments with creationism as the answer, that student would be marked incorrect. School's have educational standards that they have to follow, and evolution is is accepted in competent academic circlesThomas M.https://www.blogger.com/profile/17469738457252523662noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-606201113344523885.post-62403591365566562822016-02-16T21:09:39.280-05:002016-02-16T21:09:39.280-05:00This comment has been removed by the author.Thomas M.https://www.blogger.com/profile/17469738457252523662noreply@blogger.com