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ACLU lawsuit against Texas school district 'baseless,' says legal group

The American Civil Liberties Union is being accused of filing a baseless lawsuit against a Texas public school district that allows Bible elective courses to be taught in two high schools. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of eight parents against the Ector County Independent School District in Odessa, challenging the Bible elective courses.



The parents claim the district-approved course -- "The Bible in History and Literature," which uses the King James Version of the Bible -- violates their religious liberty by promoting particular religious beliefs to children in their community. Associated Press quotes one of the plaintiffs, a Presbyterian deacon, who believes public schools "are no place for religious indoctrination that promotes certain beliefs that not all the kids in the school share."

Hiram Sasser is with the Liberty Legal Institute, which is advising the school district. He says the Ector County schools are not doing anything wrong.

"The ACLU and people of that ilk, they just hate the Bible so much that they fundamentally disagree with the U.S. Supreme Court in its suggestion to be able to teach a Bible course in a secular way," Sasser asserts. "That's not even good enough for them. They just don't want the Bible to even go into the schoolhouse gates at all," he says.

The parents on whose behalf the ACLU is suing the Ector County ISD argue that the school district has no business teaching the Bible course, even if it is an elective. However, the Liberty Legal Institute attorney says the plaintiffs' lawsuit is baseless. "They've got a two-fold strategy," he contends. "One is just to make this school district fold, and I think the other strategy is to try to scare all the other school districts."

But this time, Sasser insists, the ACLU's strategy is not going to work "because, I think the school district is going to have great representation and is going to be able to take the ACLU head on and knock this thing out of the park."

Also, the lawyer points out, the Bible elective courses offered in Ector County's schools use a well-established national curriculum taught in school districts across the country. Sasser says the school district is trying to decide its next course of action.

The Ector County course is produced by the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools (NCBCPS), and is being offered at Permian High School and Odessa High School. The group People For the American Way has joined in the lawsuit with the ACLU. The case is Moreno v. Ector County School Board.