The Tennessee state Board of Education approved guidelines which allow for teachers to move forward with Bible classes, as allowed by a 2008 state law. The law allows "non-sectarian, non-religious academic study of the Bible," so long as literature from other religions are made available to students, too. Bible classes cannot be compulsory.
Even legal experts admit the new law is rather vague, but schools are not required to teach the Holy Bible and those which already proselytize do not have to change their courses unless they face a court challenge.
Hedy Weinberg, the head of Tennessee's chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the Constitutionality of the new classes depended completely on how they were taught and whom was doing the teaching: "The devil is in the details," she said.
© C Harris Lynn, 2010
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