As Alabama lawmakers once again pursue bills to bring religion into schools, four clergy of different faiths stood outside the State House Tuesday and called on them to stop.
“The students of Alabama are as diverse as the adults of Alabama; they believe many different things, they come from many different faith communities,”said Rev. Julie Conrady, president of the Interfaith Alliance of Central Alabama.”All of these bills are instituting a certain branch of a certain religious belief, and so we want to speak out and support the diversity of expression in our faith communities across the state of Alabama.”
The group spoke out against a collection of bills related to schools and religion, including HB43 and HB511, requiring school boards to institute policies for school prayer; HB179, the school chaplains bill and HB216, requiring the Ten Commandments poster to be hung in schools.
The faith leaders also spoke out about the more recent bill to deepen criminal penalties for protesting and interrupting church services filed in response to a church protest in Minnesota.
The group criticized the bill that would allow chaplains in schools, arguing it would allow untrained and unregulated individuals to enter campuses in contrast to higher standards for chaplains in hospitals and prisons.
“This bill would allow untrained volunteer chaplains into our schools, likely leading to unconstitutional coercion or proselytization,” said. Rev. Joe Genau, pastor of Edgewood Presbyterian Church in Homewood. “I would speak against this bill any time, but especially in this moment when Christian nationalists threaten both the state and the church; we cannot let them into the classroom.”
The bill requiring the posting of the Ten Commandments by its nature favors one religious sect over another, the group said, as there is no consensus on the ordering of the commandments or which to include.
Conrady warned that passage of the bill will land the state back in court fighting a similar battle to that of former Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore nearly a decade ago when he fought to display the Ten Commandments in the courthouse.
Genau pointed to U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s recent comments about the Muslim community as an example of religious discrimination.
“This past week, Sen. Tuberville was unequivocal in his assertion that Muslim children of Alabama are ‘the enemy’—I beg your pardon, then, for my lack of trust in the state Mr. Tuberville represents to protect the religious freedom of students and teachers of all faiths or no faith,” Genau said.
Meanwhile, lawmakers inside passed one of the bills out of Seante committee that would require school boards to vote on whether to have a period of prayer at the beginning of a school day.
