On June 6th of this year, Texas Governor Rick Perry signed into law a bill that would allow religious holiday celebration in public schools. This includes protecting menorah and nativity scenes.
Governor Rick Perry is quoted as saying “Religious freedom does not mean freedom from religion.”
I agree with that sentiment. It would be impossible for people to freely express their religion if other people were free from that person’s expression.
However, when it comes to government institutions, like public schools, people should be free from religion. Now does that mean that teachers and students can’t say “Merry Christmas” to each other?
No. They are just individuals. Individuals who, by themselves, do not represent the school as a whole.
But when your school sets up a nativity scene this conveys a different type of feeling. Even if you add some other religious symbols (which the law does stipulate as a requirement) there will still be an obvious preference. The only way to seem completely objective is to display symbols of all religions in the same manner with the same attention to detail and in the same amounts. This would have to counter natural human bias, which I don’t see happening easily especially when it comes to something as powerful as religion. It is also counter to many religions call to only worship one god and having to set up multiple religious symbols/scenes might make those who have to set them up feel like they are worshiping another god.
I feel like it is just the safer and more constitutional method to keep religion symbols/scenes out of public schools.
Sources:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/06/14/perry-signs-merry-christmas-bill-into-law/
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