Released Time

[Marie A. Failinger]

To be trite, this is a reason we have lawyers. . . .not only to enforce
clear rights of those whose rights are violated, but to engage in
conversation with all communities, including the public school, about what
they are doing.  Including, I must profess, through lawsuits (contrary to
current Congressional mutterings that some people shouldn't be in the
conversation, like poor people.)  Religious people are not any different
from anyone else in the respect that they need clear rights enforced and
their voices heard on the ambiguities.

 On Tue, 26 Aug 1997, richard duncan wrote:

> Marie, I think you misunderstood my post about the inadequacy of
> released time as a fix for pervasively secular inculcation in "public"
> schools. I think released time should be available for all who wish
> it. I think opt-outs and opt-ins ought to be granted for all who need
> them.  I believe students ought to be free to pray and share their
> faith at lunch, during recess and at any time when students are
> allowed to speak to one another. I support vigorous enforcement of the
> Equal Access Act. But even with all of this, the problem of
> pervasively secular inculcation by agents of the state continues to
> amount to intellectual persecution of many thousands of children
> across the fruited plains every day the public schools are in session
> under a regime of selective funding. If the schools had a Christian
> curriculum with all of the safeguards I just mentioned (free speech,
> opt outs, released time, etc) for dissenters, most of the members of
> this list would still be dissatisfied with the coercive inculcation of
> a religious-viewpoint curriculum in the public schools. They would be
> correct to be dissatisfied; their arguments have persuaded me that
> coercion of the intellect in public schools is wrong regardless of
> whether the curriculum is pervasively religious or pervasively
> secular.
>
> --
>                    ----------
>              Rick Duncan (rduncan at unlinfo.unl.edu)
>
> "Be of good courage,
>  And He shall strengthen your heart,
>  All you who hope in the Lord."
>        --Psalm 31:24
>


Marie A. Failinger
Hamline University School of Law
mfailing at piper.hamline.edu