GOP School Christianity Laws Facing Pushback in Red States

Republican leaders who have been trying to push Christianity into public schools are facing opposition on several fronts in red states, including from local officials and civil rights organizations who are threatening a legal fight that could reach the Supreme Court.

"What we're trying to do, honestly, is protect the religious freedoms of all of our students … from being improperly indoctrinated by teachers or by schools," Rob Miller, the superintendent of the Bixby Public Schools district near Tulsa, Oklahoma, told Politico.

He is fighting orders from state school Superintendent Ryan Walters to include the Ten Commandments and the Bible in schools, and said there is enough court precedent "to show that the separation of church and state has worked well for quite a long time," he said.

But Walters and other GOP officials, including Govs. Jeff Landry of Louisiana and Ron DeSantis of Florida, say they will fight legal challenges in their states, as they believe children will benefit from the return of Christianity to the classrooms.

Landry, defending his state law requiring the Ten Commandments be displayed in schools, told reporters in August that if schools "start from a moral perspective, then maybe we'd have a little bit more peace in our society and in this country."

He added that "many religions" recognize the Ten Commandments, "so really and truly, I don't see what the whole big fuss is about."

DeSantis, meanwhile, helped push through a new law in Florida to allow religious chaplains in the state's schools, claiming that "soulcraft" could make "all the difference in the world" to students.

But school boards are refusing to create the chaplain programs, saying they fear lawsuits if they restrict access to some organizations, such as the Satanic Temple, which the IRS recognizes as a religious group.

The Satanic Temple, which is fighting the inclusion of religion in schools, has threatened to bring chaplains into Florida's schools, which DeSantis has strongly opposed.

"The reality is you'll have to accommodate religious identities you may not agree with," Satanic Temple founder Lucien Greaves told members of Osceola County's school board on Aug. 27, when members voted 3-2 against implementing the chaplain program. "You will end up with Satanist chaplains."

Florida Education Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr. in August announced a proposal to keep organizations like the Satanic Temple out of the chaplain program. The plan would require chaplains to belong to a local religious organization and to have previous experience and a degree in either theology or counseling.

Meanwhile, the ACLU and other religious freedom groups have filed a federal lawsuit in Louisiana, calling to have the state's Ten Commandments law overturned on First Amendment grounds.

The state has produced posters that schools can use to comply with the law, and Republicans say the signage will solve a "lack of discipline" in schools.

"If those posters are in the school, and they find them so vulgar, tell the child not to look at it," Landry told reporters in August about the law, which will take effect in January, pending the court's actions.

In Oklahoma, Superintendent Walters said the Bible would be required "instructional support" reading for students in grades 5-12 and said that "immediate and strict compliance is expected."

However, critics said Walters does not have the legal authority to make the requirement.

"His memo is reckless grandstanding that school boards should ignore," said Annie Laurie Gaylor, a co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

• New La. Law on Ten Commandments Churns Old Conflicts
• Satanic Temple Seeks Its Place in Public Schools