The Rhea County Tennessee Public Relations Department is at it Again.



According to How Appealing, the same group of people that brought us the Scopes Monkey Trial, and last year voted to ban homosexuals, has just lost a suit on religious instruction - apparently that whole pesky separation-of-church-and-state thing really does prohibit religious instruction in the public school system. The opinion is here if you want to read the whole thing.



The facts: For several years the Board of Education allowed staff and students from Bryan College in Dayton, Tennessee to conduct a program known as the Bible Education Ministry in the county’s public elementary schools. Bryan College refers to itself as a Christian school, whose motto is “Christ Above All.” The BEM classes took place for thirty minutes, once a week, during the school day, in three county schools. The lesson plans included the following gems:



"[T]he objective of one lesson plan for second graders is to “Teach the children God’s commandments and that we should obey all of them.” A subsequent lesson plan expressed a teacher’s intention to “Teach them how God gives us the best and leads us where He wants us to go.” The lessons also seek to “teach the kids that God provides for us, even in the worst situations.” Moreover, in explaining “How I Plan to Help Students See the Truth,” one BEM teacher wrote, “Teach – ‘Read your Bible[,] pray everyday.’ ‘Jesus loves you.’ – (if acceptable)?” . . . In a lesson plan for first graders, dated November 7, 2000, the lesson objective was, “[To] reinforce how much God loves them [the students]; God wants to be their friend; You can be personal with God.” In a lesson plan for first graders, a BEM instructor planned to “Teach the children that God created everything and teach them which days He created certain things.” And in a lesson plan dated December 3, 2000, a BEM instructor stated, “[W]e will make sure that they know the true meaning of Christmas is. It was that God sent his son to the earth to be born as a baby; a baby who would [] one day die on the cross for our sins so that we can be saved. (We’ll make sure to tell them this in a way that is ok – so we don’t break any of the school rules).”



The plaintiffs, parents of two daughters in the school system who were required to attend the classes, sued as John Doe and Mary Roe. The county didn't like that, and appealed the order allowing them to hide their names.



The Court examined the standards for proceeding pseudonymously: "(1) whether the plaintiffs seeking anonymity are suing to challenge governmental activity; (2) whether prosecution of the suit will compel the plaintiffs to disclose information “of the utmost intimacy”; (3) whether the litigation compels plaintiffs to disclose an intention to violate the law, thereby risking criminal prosecution; and (4) whether the plaintiffs are children."



The Court noted the local pressures brought to bear on the plaintiffs:



"[I]n a letter to the editor of a local paper, one Nancy Rogers wrote: '[Y]ou are [] cowards because you won’t give us your name. You know the people in Rhea County would come up to your face and tell you what we think of you. I would love to come face to face with you because yes I would tell you what I thought of you and I would let my sons tell you too. You have hurt my sons and I will not let no one [sic] hurt one of my children. We might not know you but someone higher does [,] and yes you will answer to him.' . . . Indeed, in an article about the lawsuit, the principal of Rhea County High School stated that if he had known the person challenging the BEM, he 'would have tried to alert him . . . I’d have said: "Look do you want to cause your family trouble? This is a rural, conservative place, and very emotional about religion. Attack religion and crusades begin. But you need to follow your own conscience.”'"



The court found that the threats specific enough to warrant anonymity on the part of the plaintiffs.



That having been decided, it turned to the merits of the case. The Court examined the classes in light of the Lemon Test (Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602, 612-13 (1971)), which gives three factors to be considered when a violation of the Establishment Clause is alleged: "(1) whether the government practice has a secular purpose; (2) whether the principal effect is one that either advances or inhibits religion; and (3) whether the practice fosters excessive government entanglement with religion." The classes could not violate any of the three requirements, or they would be found unconstitutional under the test.



Rhea County argued that the classes a secular purpose: "to teach character development, as required of all Tennessee public schools. . . value-driven themes, such as responsibility and courage, which . . . instill positive morals in students attending Rhea County schools."



The Court found that even if the classes filled that nominally secular purpose, they still existed to teach the Bible as religious truth, and that such statements cannot be described as having a secular purpose. It also found that in viewing the program in its specific context, an objective observer in the same position as the children (the target audience of the classes) "would conclude that it communicates a message of government endorsement of religion, generally, and of Christianity in particular." Thus violating the second prong of the Lemon test. As to the entanglement branch of the test, the Court pointed out that: "BEM takes place on school premises, during the school day, with the explicit sanction of the Board of Education. . . the program’s administration – which seems to have been left entirely in the hands of the students of Bryan College – creates a “grave potential for entanglement,” Comm. for Pub. Educ. & Religious Liberty v. Nyquist, 413 U.S. 756, 794 (1973), by delegating a governmental function to a religious institution." It found the classes unconstitutional under all three branches of the test, granting summary judgment to the plaintiffs.



What I find astonishing is the disconnect between the different areas of the country. Los Angeles County removes a microscopic cross from its county seal just in case someone might someday be offended (though leaving untouched The Goddess Pomona - the goddess of gardens and fruit trees according to Eugene Volokh's article on the history and symbolism of the seal). Yet this area of Tennessee wonders why teaching Christianity as part of the public school curriculum could cause a constitutional problem and takes an obvious constitutional violation up the appellate ladder.