More than 100 chaplains signed a letter urging local Texas school boards to vote against putting chaplains in public schools, calling efforts to enlist religious counselors in public classrooms “harmful” to students and families.
The letter was issued just days before a bill allowing public schools to hire school chaplains becomes law in Texas, the first state in the country to pass such a measure. The legislation, which had been pushed by activists associated with Christian nationalism, gives the state’s nearly 1,200 school boards until March 1 of next year to vote on whether to employ chaplains.
The letter was organized by the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty and Interfaith Alliance as well as the local advocacy group Texas Impact.
The chaplains who signed the letter, released Tuesday, bemoaned the lack of standards for potential school chaplains aside from background checks, contrasting it with the extensive training required for health-care and military chaplains.
“Because of our training and experience, we know that chaplains are not a replacement for school counselors or safety measures in our public schools, and we urge you to reject this flawed policy option: It is harmful to our public schools and the students and families they serve,” the letter reads.
Although chaplains who operate in multifaith environments are generally barred from proselytizing, the Texas bill, SB 763, outlined no such restriction, leaving each school district to answer the question on its own.
So separation of church and state can just be ignored now? Can I be a teacher as a satanic Chaplin in Texas? Hang some sweet Baphomet posters and teach kids to think rationally and not blindly follow authority figures?
It’s freedom to force Christianity on everyone when the Republicans are in charge.
Stop voting for Republicans, they don’t believe in our democracy.
Up until this Supreme Court, as I’m sure you know, this was considered a full violation of the First Amendment and enforcement of the law could be expected. In the same exact way that Roe v. Wade was actually about the right to privacy as defined by the 14th Amendment, and in the end state-enforced abortion bans didn’t stand up to constitutional examination. Then, anyway.
But that was before THIS Supreme Court, and before this court decided to selectively redefine the US Constitution and legal precedent and existing case law in all kinds of novel ways.
So yeah, separation of church and state is now just being ignored, because the assholes ignoring it are full of “Well, what are YOU gonna do about it?” and the Supreme Court is now all “Not a goddamned thing, homie.” And then John Roberts will write yet another mewling op-ed for WaPo about how people just don’t respect the legitimacy of the court like they used to and how committed the justices are to ethical behavior and how justices need no oversight at all because they’re justices and couldn’t possibly be corrupt, and we will continue to watch as they continue to dismantle the foundations of our country right out from underneath us.
And I can be a wiccan chaplain and hang up pentagrams?