Oklahoma parents and teachers sue to stop top education official's classroom Bible mandate

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: CNN US/AP

Published 10:08 AM EDT, Sat October 19, 2024


OKLAHOMA CITY AP — A group of Oklahoma parents of public school students, teachers and ministers filed a lawsuit seeking to stop the state’s top education official from forcing schools to incorporate the Bible into lesson plans for students in grades 5 through 12. The lawsuit filed Thursday with the Oklahoma Supreme Court also asks the court to stop Republican State Superintendent Ryan Walters from spending $3 million to purchase Bibles in support of his mandate.

The suit alleges the mandate violates the Oklahoma Constitution because it involves spending public money to support religion and favors one religion over another by requiring the use of a Protestant version of the Bible. It also alleges Walters and the state Board of Education don’t have the authority to require the use of instructional materials.

“As parents, my husband and I have sole responsibility to decide how and when our children learn about the Bible and religious teachings,” plaintiff Erika Wright, the founder of the Oklahoma Rural Schools Coalition and parent of two school-aged children, said in a statement. “It is not the role of any politician or public school official to intervene in these personal matters.”

The plaintiffs are represented by several civil rights groups, including the Oklahoma chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, the Freedom From Religion Foundation, Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the Oklahoma Appleseed Center for Law & Justice.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/19/us/oklahoma-lawsuit-bible-mandate-schools/index.html

[Aristus]

1. This is encouraging to see in blood-red Oklahoma.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

2. Fascists use religion to groom and program more fascists.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

3. Good.

And parents of children of other faiths should sue for their "Holy Books" to be taught also.

[slightlv]

7. All or none. And then, the children will grow up

only educated in religions of the world, and won't be able to do math, chemistry, or pick out South American on a map. I swear, other than teaching the other religions, this is what these christo-fascists want.

Back in the 80's, a friend and I in chat mode on my BBS predicted this is what would happen if we didn't beat back these moral majority loons. We didn't, and here we are...

[iluvtennis]

4. Awesome news! n/t

[mdbl]

5. I thank them for their courage

and hope they and their families are well protected.

[Pacifist Patriot]

6. I knew it was inevitable. Best of luck to them!

[eggplant]

8. Trump only cares about getting the $3M, not that they actually get used. n/t

[AZ8theist]

9. Exactly.

...Plus his tariffs would raise the price of his Chinese-imported bibles by a factor of 10x...

And his spineless sychophants would happily grab their ankles and spend every taxpayer cent on him if they could.

[mysuzuki2]

10. I don't object to a Bible in the classroom

It is an enormously important historically and culturally. But who’s Bible. King James? Doey? Revised Standard Versian? The Hebrew Scriptures? The Samaritan scriptures? Whatever you chose is an establishment of religion

[happy feet]

12. Separation of church and state

You don't need Bible to teach about religions of the world as history, only. These are public schools.

[Retrograde]

13. Douai, not Doey

or even Dewey.

I can understand a King James bible in a course on American literature, but it doesn’t fit most of the curriculum. (What happens in math class when you have a book in the room that says pi = 3?)

I spent 12 years in Catholic schools and there was only one religion class that used a Bible and that was a class specifically on the Old Testament

[republianmushroom]

11. They could also teach it and show how many so called 'Christian' don't follow it,

but still call themselves 'Christians'.