Act Makes Texas Public Schools Church Annexes

The Express-News has an interesting piece up about the “Religious Viewpoints Anti-Discrimination Act,” which might also aptly be called an act to merge the ________ (insert name of your favorite denomination here!) Church with every public school district in the state:

The Religious Viewpoints Anti-Discrimination Act, passed May 1 by the Texas House and expected to pass the Senate possibly this week before being signed into law by Gov. Rick Perry, would require Texas public school districts to adopt policies specifically allowing spontaneous religious expression by students.

The provision would create a “limited open forum” — an opportunity for students to speak about religious issues on the same basis as they’re allowed to speak about other topics.

It states that if a student speaker at a sports event, a school assembly or a graduation ceremony elects to spontaneously express a religious viewpoint while speaking on an otherwise permissible topic, school officials must treat the religious content the same as it would secular content.

It also would require policies that allow religious expression in artwork, homework or other assignments and allow religious clubs or prayer groups to meet in school facilities on the same basis as other students groups use them.

Now, I don’t know about you, but if I was in high school learning about, say Shakespeare or calculus or whatever, I’d be pretty pissed if my instructional time was wasted because one of my fellow classmates got up to read his paper which espoused religious views. And, I personally don’t want my tax dollars used to allow *any* religious organization to meet in a public school.