If you're an atheist, and the Ten Commandments (or other religious texts purporting to be instructions from God) are posted in school, it does seem to resemble the state proffering religious instruction to your child, and sanctioning one particular sect, when all you are trying to do is get your child a public school education.
Let me ask you this. When I read that, I thought, Well, if I were fighting that case, I would do some research on atheist writings, or the writings of non-theist philosophers, and come up with a Ten Commandments of Non-theism, and I would have them delivered (by parents) to each school in which the Christian Bible's Commandments were posted with a request to post them.
One could come up with a wonderful list.
And I would proceed with the case after the schools, backed by the Christian parents, had refused to post my group's Commandments alongside theirs.
Would you be on my side or theirs, I am wondering? Your child could just avert his eyes from the statements of John Stuart Mill or Jeremy Bentham or David Hume....
Edit: If I win this case, the walls in those schools are going to be so congested with Commandments that they'll have to remove the blackboard. |
