Next They'll Be Wanting to Burn Them

[Esquilax]

I had to take a break since I was out of breath from dodging all those arrows coming at me at once. First of all, I'm talking about the US public school system, since that's where I live. I think it's okay to have proper sex education in schools, but I'm not one to say "they're going to do it anyway, so give em some sex ed and some condoms and hope for the best." I don't think there's a place in the public school system for sexually explicit books.

We aren't talking about Fifty Shades of Grey, here. We're talking about a young adult book with some occasional foul language in it.

I don't know where you live, but if a teacher here tries to pray in class or even tell the class that he follows Jesus, he'll be out of there no time.

Only where that prayer is something the teacher is leading the class in, which is against the law. A simple statement of personal belief won't invite any punishment, or shouldn't, but the trouble is that christians in particular seem to have difficulty figuring out the difference between stating their own beliefs and proselytizing to others.

Come to think of it, why is this teacher praying in class anyway? He's there to do a job, not to fuck around and do whatever he wants. Just don't go unfairly privileging prayer over any other activity; if you'd punish him for stopping class to do something else, then the same rules apply to prayer. Do it on your own time.

This doesn't apply to the rights of the students to exercise their freedom of speech. If a kid wants to tell a classmate that he or she is a christian or an atheist or whatever, that's his or her right. Minimalist says he still has the bible they gave him in school. All I can say is if that was an American public school, it must be an awfully old bible.

First of all, that was me that told you that, and granted, it's an Australian public school, not an American one. But when I read about kids getting to get out of class for religious instruction for up to several hours, on school time and money, I have a hard time believing in all these heavy religious restrictions in your education system.