A Small, But Significant, Victory For Religious Freedom

There are two ways to fight religious bigotry and exclusivity in this country -- go to court to try and stop government involvement in religious activities, or make sure your religion (or anti-religious organization) gets equal access to the activity. There is some evidence that the latter may be the most effective these days.

Consider this example from Florida. In honor of Religious Freedom Day (January 16th), the Orange County public schools were going to allow a christian organization to pass out bibles. Instead of trying to stop this, the Satanic Temple and the Freedom From Religion Foundation (an atheist group), asked the school to allow them to also pass out some literature.

This put the school district between a rock and a hard place. They could not allow the christian organization to pass out bibles with also allowing the Satanic Temple and the FFRF to pass out literature. To do so would have violated the religious freedom provision in the First Amendment of the United States Constitution -- the provision that guarantees government must treat all religions (and anti-religious organizations) equally (and public schools are government institutions). Whatever the government does for one religion, it must do the same for all others (and for anti-religious organizations) -- regardless of how many or how few people believe in any particular religion.

What did the school district do? They cancelled the activity, and prohibited all the organizations from passing out any material (including the christian organization). They really had no choice (since many parents would probably have been incensed to have their children given satanic or atheist literature). This is a small, but I believe significant, victory for religious freedom in this country.

I'm sure there will be a lot of whining by christians claiming they have been denied their religious rights. But that is simply not true. They have the same rights as all other religions and anti-religious organization -- and that is exactly what our forefathers intended when they wrote the Constitution.

Christians can still worship as they please anywhere in this country, and they can pass out their bibles or other literature. They can do it in their churches or in religious schools. They can even set up a table and distribute it in their front yard, or walk the streets passing out their items, or offer these items on the internet, or buy an ad and offer it through the media. The number of ways they can distribute their religious materials is almost unlimited.

There is only one restriction. They cannot use the government or the law to pass out their materials or force others into participating in their religious rituals -- and that is a good thing. That is religious freedom.