LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY rechan)

This does not bode well.

Georgia is trying to put two Bible literature courses on school cirriculums.

The real issue comes down to this:

The measure calls for the courses to be taught "in an objective and nondevotional manner with no attempt made to indoctrinate students."

But critics say that while the language may pass constitutional muster, that could change in the classroom if instructors stray.

Maggie Garrett, legislative counsel for the Georgia branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the curriculum approved Tuesday — like the legislation itself — is vague.

"They didn't put in any outlines describing what they can and can't do constitutionally," she said. "The same traps are there for teachers who decide to teach the class."

Some teachers might seek to include their own beliefs or be pushed by students into conversations that include religious proselytizing, Garrett said.

I also think this is a real powder keg if the class does exactly as it says it will do: delivered in an objective and nondevotional manner. Namely, if the class begins looking at the history of the text and the edits that it has went through, and looked at the real-world situations that influenced the writings, then the dominionist parents are going to begin shrieking that their children are receiving the secularist propaganda corrupting their children into thinking the Bible is altered from how God had written it.

Viewing the Bible objectively is going to force the kids to think, and once they start thinking, the genie is out of the bottle. Since it's rather hard not to come away from the Bible with the impression that the OT God is... well, just a vindictive ass. Not to mention really reading some of the stuff in there will make the kids realize "Wow, there's lots of sex and violence and incest and slavery in there."