Mom Sues After School Bars Bible Reading at Her Child's School
by Jim Brown
May 6, 2005
(AgapePress) - A Pennsylvania school has been sued over its alleged censorship of a Christian mother and her young son.
Last October, Donna Busch was invited to visit her son Wesley's kindergarten class in Philadelphia and to take part in "Me Week." As the featured student of the week, Wesley was allowed to choose his favorite book and have his mother read an excerpt from it aloud to the class at Culbertson Elementary.
But when Wesley chose the Bible as his preferred book, his mother was barred from reading a passage from Psalm 118 because of its religious content. Principal Thomas Cook told Mrs. Busch that reading the Bible in class is against the law because it violates the establishment clause of the First Amendment -- that is, the so-called "separation of church and state."
According to Busch's attorney, John Whitehead with The Rutherford Institute, the Christian mom was then offered the option of reading from another book instead -- one about witches, witchcraft, and Halloween. However, she declined.
Whitehead says the incident might have passed over without further incident had it not been for something that occurred about a week later. He says, "Wesley, the kindergartener, came home and told his mother it was bad to read the Bible. She said, 'Where'd you hear that from?' And he said, 'My teacher told me.'"
The Pennsylvania woman felt it was important, not only for herself but particularly for Wesley's sake, to take action and to stand up to the school officials she believed had unfairly abridged their religious liberty. She contacted The Rutherford Institute, which has since filed a lawsuit against the school, alleging that the mother and son's free-speech and equal-protection rights were violated.
Whitehead feels what happened at the elementary school was a case of blatant discrimination since the school officials, while silencing Busch, allowed other forms of religious expression to take place. "That same school allowed Hanukkah, Menorahs, the dreidel game -- which are all Jewish religious practices," he says.
"And the schools routinely tell us -- I think this is basically out of ignorance -- that these are not religious items," the Rutherford spokesman adds. "But they surely are. You ask any serious Jewish person and they're going to say they're offended when people say [any of these traditional Jewish symbols] is not religious."
Whitehead says Culbertson Elementary is displaying an "ignorant view of the Constitution that is often promoted by groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for the Separation of Church and State." However, he argues, by excluding Christian religious expression from the classroom, the school exhibited a kind of hostility toward religion that amounts to a violation of Mrs. Busch's and her son's constitutional rights.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
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