In the United States of America, in the 21st century...

6 July 2006

A large Delaware school district promoted Christianity so aggressively that a Jewish family felt it necessary to move to Wilmington, two hours away, because they feared retaliation for filing a lawsuit. The religion (if any) of a second family in the lawsuit is not known, because they're suing as Jane and John Doe; they also fear retaliation...

The complaint relates that local pastor, Jerry Fike, in his invocation, followed requests for “our heavenly Father’s” guidance for the graduates with: “I also pray for one specific student, that You be with her and guide her in the path that You have for her. And we ask all these things in Jesus’ name.”...

District teachers and staff led Bible clubs at several schools. Club members got to go to the head of the lunch line... A middle school teacher told students there was only “one true religion” and gave them pamphlets for his surfing ministry....

Classmates accused [sixth-grader] Alex Dobrich of “killing Christ” and he became fearful about wearing his yarmulke, the complaint recounts. He took it off whenever he saw a police officer, fearing that the officer might see it and pull over his mother’s car. When the family went grocery shopping, the complaint says, “Alexander would remove the pin holding his yarmulke on his head for fear that someone would grab it and rip out some of his hair.”

Some of my co-religionists would rather make political alliances with evangelical Christians against the secular state than ally with civil libertarians against state-sponsored Christianity. Perhaps stories like this can remind them who they’re getting into bed with.

via Lawyers, Guns and Money

• Later: Frontiers of ecumenicism
• Earlier: A school for scandalously bad writing