During Joe Biden’s regime, religious rights were not a priority. Sometimes they weren’t even protected, even though the Constitution provides for that.
The American Enterprise Institute pointed out that the anti-Christian activism likely reached its pinnacle when Biden named Easter Sunday, which recognizing the resurrection of Jesus Christ is considered one of the holiest days of the calendar for Christians, as “Transgender Day of Visibility.”
Of course believers in transgenderism defy the Bible’s instructions regarding sexuality and imply by the very existence of the campaign that God makes mistakes and some boys born as boys really are girls, and vice versa.
The report said Biden, even while claiming to be Catholic, “Appears to harbor a grudge against the church, repeatedly targeting its practices and personnel.” Further, the report said, “Biden’s progressive base regularly demonizes and demeans evangelical Christians.’
It continued, “The Biden team’s anti-Christian track record extends into foreign policy. His evangelicalism for LGBT issues in foreign policy antagonizes Christian communities across Africa, where conservative societies tolerate homosexuality so long as no one shoves it in their face. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s removal of Nigeria from the religious freedom watch list as the Nigerian government facilitates the murder of Christians mocked the State Department’s concern for religious freedom.”
Now, the American Center for Law and Justice has noted the government’s release of a new “Guidance on constitutionally protected prayer and religious expression in public elementary and secondary schools.”
It explains, “The prudent course of action for school officials is to allow the individuals who make up a public school community to act and speak in accordance with their faith, provided they do not invade the rights of others, the school does not itself participate in religious action or speech as an institution, and the school does not favor secular over religious views or one religious view over another.”
The guidance said, “This is not the familiar but legally unsound metaphor of a ‘wall of separation’ between religious faith and public schools. It is rather a stance of neutrality among and accommodation toward all faiths, and hostility toward none, deeply rooted in our nation’s history, traditions, and constitutional law—a stance that upholds our Constitution’s ‘recognition of the important role that religion plays in the lives of many Americans.’ The Constitution does not enforce itself. Thank you for the central role you play in ensuring that our nation’s public schools uphold the First Amendment.”
The government said, “Public schools are entitled to maintain ordinary discipline and are required to protect students from targeted harassment, even when the harassing student or students claim a religious basis for their actions. Schools should be careful, however, to distinguish general expressions of religiously grounded beliefs from targeted harassment, threats, or advocacy of unlawful physical violence toward individuals or groups, which may create a hostile environment. Speech that reflects sincere religious belief and does not constitute targeted harassment, threats, or advocacy of unlawful physical violence, even if it offends, is typically protected speech.”
According to the ACLJ the guidance “marks a significant reversal of Biden-era guidance that minimized the constitutional rights of public school students, parents, and employees.”
The report continued, “This time, the Trump administration left no stone unturned. First and foremost, the guidance reminds all public-school stakeholders of the ‘larger legal framework governing the relationship between public schools and matters of religious faith.’ Three years ago, the Biden administration would have preferred that the robust case law on this issue be forgotten.”
It said, “Several notable changes include clarification that ‘a public school cannot require a student to adopt a particular viewpoint in order to be recognized by the school if the viewpoint violates the student members’ religious beliefs. School officials also cannot express hostility toward religious student groups by demeaning their beliefs.’ In other words, the school cannot require a student religious club to affirm or accept cultural trends that directly violate religious tenets and beliefs.”
And it pointed to another “welcome change.”
That would be the affirmation of parental rights.
“The new guidance emphasizes the rights of parents to participate in public schooling in ways that are consistent with their religious beliefs. This is another refreshing change from Biden-era policies. As the guidance explains: ‘The Court has, over eighty years, steadily upheld the constitutional rights of parents and their children to participate in public schooling (or not) in ways consistent with those parents’ and students’ sincere understanding of what their religious faith requires. This includes instances when the accommodation conflicts with ordinary school policy or curriculum and thus requires significant effort on the part of the school.'”
“The court has protected children’s and parents’ religious interests not only from direct coercion but also from indirect burdens, both curricular and cultural, on children’s development and the religiously inflected values of their faith,” the guidance states.
Explained the ACLJ, “It instructs that a public school ‘may never force or pressure a child to declare or affirm something contrary to his or his family’s religious beliefs.'”
