Thought of the Day 06.15.10

This is how censorship happens.

Over the decades, a few loud atheists have filed numerous lawsuits against schools for violating the Constitution’s ban on establishing religion. Some of these lawsuits they won, and some they did not. The principle repeatedly reaffirmed by the Supreme Court is that schools must not endorse nor practice religion. However, the Court has repeatedly gone out of its way to remind schools that they both can and should teach about religion and the Bible because of the secular value of such knowledge.

The practical result, however, is not clarity about this legal fact, but fear. Teachers are widely worried that any mention of religion will risk a lawsuit or their jobs or even jail time, if not all three. So, they practice defensive education, avoiding religion altogether, an end result which is exactly the same as if religious content actually were illegal.

The irony is that secularists love “Inherit the Wind,” a farcical play in which a biology teacher is persecuted for teaching evolution. Meanwhile real teachers imagine they would be treated precisely this way if they even dared mention religion as an educational subject.

Self-imposed censorship is no less real than the coerced kind, especially in the impact is has on a student.