LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY azzy23)

This is very long, but I would appreciate any and all input. A friend and co-worker of mine received the below letter from her 13 year old daughter's school. My friend is an atheist, and is raising her child as an atheist.

Re: HB3678 - Religious Viewpoint Antidiscrimination Act



Dear parents and students:

During the 80th legislative session, HB 3678, also called the Religious Viewpoint Antidiscrimination Act ("Act") was passed by the Legislature. The Act is effective beginning with the 2007-2008 school year. The Act addresses four general areas: freedom of religious expression, student speakers, religious expression in class assignments, and freedom to organize religious groups and activities. As required by the Act, the District treats a student's voluntary expression of a religious viewpoint in the same manner it treats a student's voluntary expression of any other viewpoint.

In compliance with the Act, the District Board of trustees approved a policy that establishes a "limited public forum" for student speakers at all school events at which a student is to publicly speak. The Act requires that the policy: 1) provide the forum in a manner that does not discriminate against a student's voluntary expression of a religious viewpoint, if any, on an otherwise permissible subject; 2) provide a method, based on neutral criteria, for the selection of student speakers at school events and graduation ceremonies; 3) ensure that a student speaker does not engage in obscene, vulgar, offensively lewd, or indecent speech; and 4) state, in writing, orally, or both, that the student's speech does not reflect the endorsement, sponsorship, position, or expression of the district. You may obtain a copy of the policy on the District's website.

In accordance with the policy, student speakers will be give a limited public forum to introduce daily announcements at campuses where there is a public address system. (So essentially, morning prayers over the loudspeaker.) Students are eligible to participate as introductory speakers if they: 1) are in the highest two grade levels of the school; 2) volunteer; 3) are not in a disciplinary placement at the time of the speaking event. If your child meets these neutral criteria, he/she must submit his/her name to the campus administrator no later than the end of the school day on Friday, Sept. 7th, 2007. Sign-up forms are located in the office, and you will be notified if your child is selected to speak. (So go ahead and get those sermons ready, right?)

There's a paragraph I won't type in that just details the random selection of names, which is really irrelevant, since most Americans are xtians, so they're all going to be preaching the same thing.

The District will treat their voluntary expression of a religious viewpoint, if any, on an otherwise permissible subject in the same manner the District treats a student's voluntary expression of a secular of other viewpoint on an otherwise permissible subject. (Ergo the statement: 'If you don't believe in Jesus as your personal savior, you'll be sent to hell to burn for all eternity' carries the same weight under law as 'the sky is blue because of light refraction through oxygen molecules' in a school.)

The subject of the student introductions must relate to the purpose of introducing the designated event. (Enjoy the 2007 prom, remember, Jesus loves you, all you have to do is believe!) The selected student must stay on subject. The selected student may not engage in speech that:

- Is obscene, vulgar, offensively lewd, or indecent;
- Creates reasonable cause to believe that the speech would result in material and substantial interference with school activities or the rights of others;
- Promotes illegal drug use;
- Violates the intellectual property rights, privacy rights, or other rights of another person;
- Contains defamatory statements about public figures or others; (Do gays count?) or
- Advocates imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.

The last paragraph essentially states that a disclaimer will be issued by the District, and lists the phone number of a person to call with more questions.

The bold bits are mine. Got a little fiesty, sorry.