Fox News offers support in an interview with a Louisiana principal who runs a public high school that allows a culture of Christian indoctrination.Â
For months the ACLU has been in contact with Airline High School and its principal, Jason Rowland, over what the civil rights organization is calling “religious proselytization.” For at least six years, according to both Rowland and Slate, Airline High in Louisiana has been invoking religion in school messages, including a memo to students that ended with, “The Future Starts Today – May God Bless You All.”
But Slate’s Zack Kopplin, who spoke with students at Airline High, reports they “say Christianity is being forced on them.”
“During health class, students at Airline High, a public school in Bossier Parish, Louisiana, read Bible passages, and their teacher asks them to identify their favorite verses,” Kopplin reports. “Airline students told me they are taught creationism as science and pressured into attending Fellowship of Christian Athletes club meetings. During gym class, girls are warned against contraception by a ‘born again virgin’ from the local crisis pregnancy center, a Christian anti-abortion, anti-birth control, anti-premarital-sex advocacy center.”
Last month, Principal Rowland was a guest on Fox News‘ “Fox and Friends Weekend,” in a segment titled, “The Fight For Faith.” The chyron under Rowland read, “Christianity Targeted.”
Rowland told the  Fox News hosts he’s “not real sure” why the ACLU is demanding he remove that memo to students and stop indoctrinating them in Christianity.
“To be totally honest I’ve never had a complaint from a student of ours that was offended by the fact that we saluted a message or even said to them, ‘God bless you,'” Rowland told Fox. “If it gets to that point and you’re not even allowed to sneeze in a school system to say, ‘God bless you,’ where’s our culture, where are we going if that’s going to be offensive to someone?,” Rowland posited.
“Well, isn’t this freedom of speech?,” Fox and Friends Weekend co-host Clayton Morris asked. Rowland said it is, and it is “an American message.”
But of course, the illegality is not over a “God bless you” being offered when someone sneezes. It’s about total Christian indoctrination in a public school, as Slate documented, and being paid for with public tax dollars.
Fox News’ Clayton Morris should know better than to say religious indoctrination is “freedom of speech” when it’s taking place in a public school. There have been many court cases proving it’s not, and the ACLU has well-documented the rules.
Â
Image: Screenshot via Fox News
Hat tip: Raw Story
Â