Religious free speech suffered another blow as the Third Circuit Court of Pennsylvania ruled against a mother reading Bible verses to a kindergarten class as part of an "All About Me" project to share with the class something about individual classmates. The court, citing several previous court decisions, said that because of separation of church and state, the mother could not share with the class passages from her son's favorite book - the Bible. Donna Busch intended to share from Psalm 118, verses 1 though 4 and verse 14, which begins, "O give thanks unto the Lord; for he is good: because his mercy endures for ever."
Busch testified that she chose these specific verses because 1) she and her son Wesley "frequently read from the Book of Psalms; 2) she thought the children would like Psalms because they are similar to poetry; and 30 she desired a reading that did not make reference to Jesus, which she worried might upset some people given what she perceived in the past as hostility in the school district towards her Christian beliefs." The kindergarten teacher admitted she often allowed fiction to be read in the classroom about Christmas and other religious holidays. The reading from the actual source, the Bible, however, is another story.
The Court cited a year 2000 case that ruled ". . .if a student is asked to solve a problem in mathematics or to write an essay on a great American poet, the student clearly does not have a right to speak or write about the Bible instead." The Court clearly does not understand plain English written in the Constitution that specifically gives a student or anyone else the right of free speech - Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech. . ." Citing court cases that are obviously in error rather than the Constitution itself has become standard practice of wayward courts.
Under the supervision of Thomas Jefferson, the Bible was the first textbook of the public school. A main author of the Constitution was not concerned that reading from the Bible violated the Constitution. But one of the three Circuit Court judges wrote: "We have observed that "at a certain point, a school child is so young that it might reasonably be presumed" that the First Amendment does not protect that child's speech." The Apostle Peter in 1 Peter 2:8 said that God's Word, Jesus, is "A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense. Even to them which stumble at the word." The Third Circuit decision has stumbled both on the word of God and the Constitution, and your rights have suffered another blow.
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