Red tape for Jesus!!!

Religious strife in San Antonio? Who'd'a thunk it?

Evangelical Christians point to 1963 as the year God was kicked out of school.

That's when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Madalyn Murray O'Hair's argument and abolished the practice of students reciting prayers and Bible passages in public schools.

***

This year, the Texas Legislature added more fuel to the decades-old debate by passing a law that could leave the spiritual conscience of a school up to the captain of the football team.

Lawmakers approved that law and two others that could ease the way for more religion in public schools. The changes will take effect when students return to classrooms in August.

***

The third new law, dubbed the Religious Viewpoints Anti-Discrimination Act, has superintendents nervous as they figure out how to implement it in the coming weeks.

It requires public school districts to adopt policies specifically allowing spontaneous religious expression by students. A so-called model policy included in the law states that upperclassmen who are student leaders — such as student council officers, class officers or the captain of the football team — should be designated as speakers.

The law does not address concerns that such a selection process could wind up leaving out minority faiths.

"This mandate is going to create a collision of ideas that should really take place outside of the school," Superintendent Richard Middleton of North East Independent School District said. "Our lawyer fees are going to go up because of this."

The new law creates a "limited open forum" that gives students the opportunity to speak about religious issues. It states that if a student speaker at a sports event, a school assembly or a graduation ceremony elects to express a religious viewpoint while addressing an otherwise permissible topic, school officials must treat the religious content the same as they would the secular content.

First of all, how puny is God in these evangelicals' conception, that a bunch of pansy-assed liberals could force Him out of schools? Doesn't sound like any sort of all-powerful deity to me, if He can't even stand up to the pencilnecks in the ACLU.

All mockery aside, though, does the Legislature have any idea what kind of hornet's nest they have created? Who am I kidding...of course they do. I can't say for sure what is going to happen, but I will be waiting for the first Wiccan, Neo-Pagan, or Pastafarian demanding equal time with the Southern Baptists. The battle is gonna be downright Biblical, I tell ya!

And that's really how our public school administrators should be spending their time. I have this feeling that somewhere over in India or China, there is a classroom full of young science students laughing their asses off at us.