Two moms in Mercer County, West Virginia, have sued a public school district for offering a voluntary Bible course for elementary and middle school students.
The school district has offered Bible classes for over 75 years, according to the nonprofit Freedom From Religion Foundation, a church/state “watchdog” based in Madison, Wisconsin. Atheist parent “Jane Doe” and her kindergarten child “Jamie Doe” sued over the course.
“The kids love it ,and the ones who don’t participate aren’t made to feel left out.”
The parent “wishes to raise her child without religion,” the lawsuit states.
The school district holds a weekly 30-minute Bible study course for elementary school students and a 45-minute course for middle school students; both classes take place during the school day.
Jane Doe does not want her daughter “ostracized by other students or staff because of Jamie’s non-participation.”
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As her daughter prepares to enter the first grade next year, “Jamie will either be forced to attend Bible indoctrination classes against the wishes and conscience of Jane Doe, or Jamie will be the only or one of only a few children who do not participate,” the lawsuit alleges.
The lawsuit was originally filed January 18 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia; the atheist group Freedom From Religion Foundation amended the suit on March 28 to include an additional parent and child.
Agnostic parent Elizabeth Deal, who joined the lawsuit, says students bullied her now fourth-grade daughter “Jessica Roe” for not participating in the Bible course. Consequently, her child felt excluded, according to the lawsuit.
“They taunted her about it,” Deal told CBS News. “They told her that she was going to hell, that I was going to hell, that her father was going to hell.”
“During third grade at Bluefield Intermediate School, Jessica was sent to the computer lab during Bible classes,” according to the Freedom From Religion Foundation.
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“There, Jessica read books on her own and was not permitted to use the computers.”
Deal removed her daughter from the school system and now sends her to a neighboring school district. “Deal felt that she and Jessica were second-class citizens at the school,” the lawsuit states.
The parents have sued the school board, district, and superintendent, along with a school principal.
Freedom From Religion Foundation Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor claims the school hosts “illegal religious instruction.”
Since 1986, the county Board of Education has administered the Bible course, according to the lawsuit. “This program advances and endorses one religion, improperly entangles public schools in religious affairs, and violates the personal consciences of nonreligious and non-Christian parents and students,” the lawsuit asserts.
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Yet other parents disagree with these two moms and the “freethinking” group backing the lawsuit.
“The program is overwhelmingly popular locally; parents and community members help to raise nearly $500,000 a year to pay for the classes,” Fox News reported. “Almost every child attends.”
“The school district is simply trying to follow the law.”
A separate corporation funds the course and pays the teachers for it.
“The school district is simply trying to follow the law,” said Jeremy Dys, senior counsel for First Liberty Institute, according to media reports. The law firm represents the school.
“Mercer County school administrators say they plan to offer an additional voluntary class on the Bible next school year to Mercer high school students, using [a] highly regarded curriculum [known as] The Bible and Its Influence,” according to First Liberty.
First Liberty Institute filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit on April 19.
The Bible class is “not teaching religion, but it teaches character and respect and how important it is to tell the truth,” Courtney Tolliver, 26, a teacher in the district, told The Washington Post. Tolliver has her own children, aged seven and four.
“The kids love it, and the ones who don’t participate aren’t made to feel left out,” Tolliver said.
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