Virginia lawmakers are considering a bill in the 2019 General Assembly session that would require high schools to offer an elective that would teach students about biblical texts. The Republican-led measure has a history in the statehouse, which was most recently vetoed by the predecessor to Governor Ralph Northam (D).
S.B. 1502, introduced by Senator Charles Carrico (R-Grayson), would require local school boards to offer an accredited course on the “Hebrew Scriptures/Old Testament of the Bible or the New Testament of the Bible or a combined course on both.” The course would be appropriated as an elective in grades nine through 12.
The bill also requires the Virginia Board of Education to develop curriculum guidelines for the purpose to “introduce students to biblical content, characters, poetry, and narratives that are prerequisites to understanding contemporary society and culture, including literature, art, music, mores, oratory, and public policy.”
Moreover the legislation “prohibits students from being required to use a specific translation of a religious text when taking the courses and provides that such courses shall maintain religious neutrality and shall not endorse, favor, promote, disfavor, or show hostility toward any particular religion or nonreligious perspective.”
The bill is scheduled to be taken up by the subcommittee on public education within the Senate Education and Health Committee.
In 2014, Senator Carrico also sponsored, along with three other Republican senators, S.B. 236, which “codified” the right of students to voluntarily pray or engage in religious activities or religious expression before, during, and after the school day in the same manner, and to the same extent, that students may engage in non-religious activities or expression. The bill provided that the organization of prayer groups, religious clubs, or other religious gatherings was allowed, also permitting students to wear clothing, accessories, or jewelry that displayed religious messages or symbols.
The legislation stated that each school division was required to adopt a policy to permit a student speaker to express a religious viewpoint at any school event at which a student is permitted to publicly speak – as long as the school division did not endorse any religious viewpoint that may be expressed by student speakers.
Then-Governor Terry McAuliffe (D) vetoed the bill, stating in his amendments that “although proponents claim that S.B. 236 is needed to protect the religious freedom of Virginia’s public school students, the bill actually infringes on students’ right to be free from coercive prayer and religious messaging at both voluntary and required school events.”
“It is firmly settled in law that the Establishment Clause of the United States Constitution forbids school-sponsored prayer and religious indoctrination, as well as any school initiative designed to endorse payer or sponsor a particular religious viewpoint,” he wrote, adding that “the federal Equal Access Act already requires high schools to allow students’ religious clubs the same privileges afforded to secular clubs.”
Referencing the “Guidelines Concerning Religious Activity in the Public Schools” developed by the Board of Education and the Office of the Attorney General in 1995, McAuliffe reiterated the opinion based in the U.S. Supreme Court case Illinois ex rel. McCollum v. Board of Education (1948). The court held in an 8-1 decision that “the use of tax-supported property for religious instruction and the close cooperation between the school authorities and the religious council violated the constitutionally-required separation of church and state” as defined in the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause.
The board, in their guidelines, declared that public school officials should be familiar with the “dangers sought to be avoided” in allowing, what both McAuliffe and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) called, “government-sponsored religious speech at public schools and religious coercion of students.”
Although it seems that some Democrats believe that high school students just conversing about their faith is threatening, it also seems that some discrimination based on expressing faith is warranted, which is, as some could say, quite heretical in the birthplace of religious freedom.
Written by then-Albermarle County Delegate Thomas Jefferson in the late 1770s, the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom – although not enacted until 1786 with the help of then-King George County Delegate James Madison – disestablished the Church of England in Virginia and guaranteed freedom of religion to people of all religious faiths, also serving as the precursor to the Establishment Clause.
“Whereas, Almighty God hath created the mind free…”
“Be it enacted by General Assembly,” the statute reads on, “no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced…”
Most importantly, “…restrained, molested, or burthened [burdened] in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief, but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of Religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge or affect their civil capacities.
For legislators, lawmakers, officials, authorities, or anyone whom holds the power – whether elected, appointed, or otherwise – to change the way in which the Commonwealth of Virginia – or indeed any locality, commonwealth, or state across the United States, or the nation as a whole – and the citizenry thereof is governed, especially on the grounds of religion or the practice of any religion, the last passage in the statute dictates what no one, regardless of what authority they hold, should ever engage in:
“And though we well know that this Assembly elected by the people for the ordinary purposes of Legislation only, have no power to restrain the acts of succeeding Assemblies constituted with powers equal to our own, and that therefore to declare this act irrevocable would be of no effect in law; yet we are free to declare, and do declare that the rights hereby asserted, are of the natural rights of mankind, and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present or to narrow its operation, such act will be an infringement of natural right.”
Governor McAuliffe was wrong in his veto in 2014. The bill was not congruent with any policy that favored one religion over another.
We, as Virginians, and as Americans, understand there is a natural, God-given right to the free exercise to either worship or express religious beliefs, as well as the freedom to not partake in such activities. Schools throughout the Commonwealth can and should offer elective classes – which are non-obligatory – that engage “Hebrew Scriptures/Old Testament of the Bible or the New Testament of the Bible or a combined course on both.”
So, will Governor Northam veto it?