Are public schools unconstitutional? A Nebraska court will decide | Hacker News Reader

Are public schools unconstitutional? A Nebraska court will decide

washingtonpost.com

So I sympathize with the idea that a government school paid for by tax dollars, is violating 1st amendment rights.

But it would also violate 1st amendment rights if they took tax dollars and gave it to families who used it on a private religious education.

Or they could arbitrarily let parents pick whatever school they wanted, regardless of what it taught, but that is way too ripe for fraud.

Can anyone think of how a government could respect various religious beliefs while not advocating for one specific one (and let’s presume secular humanism is a type of religious belief), while maintaining tax funded education?

That's a pretty big assumption. "Secular humanism," as far as I know, doesn't have prayers, rituals, or dogma -- it's basically "be nice to others."

I think it's a term invented by Christians to lump non-believers into a category they can then rail against.

My point is more that as a parent I shouldn’t be forced to pay for an education i wouldn’t give my children.

Secular humanism not being a religion, does have a set of beliefs. It would seem unconstitutional if someone had to pay a teacher to teach my kids the Bible, or the Quran, and many things taught in government schools are counter to beliefs of religion.

I don’t see a solution to the problem that doesn’t cause crazy amounts of abuse other than the government completely gets out of education, or local communities/governments alone support it and the school matches the beliefs of the local community.

None of that seems plausible. So how do you respect the 1st amendment rights of people like the article talks about?

I've found that none of the words of the Amendments mean anything like what the dictionary says.

If the words "In God We Trust" on the money, and "Under God" in the we're-pretending-it's-not-mandatory prayer, aren't "establishment of religion", then I have no idea what the Constitution says.

How do we respect the "rights" of those people? We let them homeschool their kids. And if they want a tax break for it, we increase their taxes to pay for the sheer number of things that other people pay for but don't use.

> (and let’s presume secular humanism is a type of religious belief)

Let's not presume that, because it's in no way a religious belief. Pretending that it is means that there's little the government could actually do. Which may, in fact, be the point of this particular lie.

Not necessarily saying it is a religion, as much as there isn’t a neutral way to say you should educate people as if there is(are) no god(s).

So presuming it forces a set of beliefs on people based on an idea that there is no god that would be counter to their religious beliefs.

But it does no such thing. Teaching facts, logic, and reasoning without mentioning god(s) is not countering any belief in god at all.

A lot of secular humanists are are believers in various religions. There is no actual contention between the two ideas.

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