Ohio bill would require school districts to create released time for religious instruction

[Diamond_Dog]

Existing law already permits districts to do so; this proposal would make it a requirement.

Two Republican lawmakers are trying to strengthen an existing Ohio law by requiring — instead of just allowing — school districts to create a policy letting students to be excused from school to go to released time religious instruction.

State Reps. Al Cutrona, R-Canfield, and Gary Click, R-Vickery, recently introduced House Bill 445 and it has had one hearing so far in the House Primary and Secondary Education Committee.

“The correlation between religious instruction, schools, and good government are embedded in our constitution,” Click said in his written testimony. “You will notice that HB 445 does not establish which religion but merely acknowledges the opportunity for religious instruction. This opportunity is open to all faiths.”

May vs. shall

Ohio law currently permits school district boards of education to make a policy to let students go to a released time course in religious instruction.

HB 445 would require school districts to create a policy and changing the wording of the existing law in the Ohio Revised Code from “may” to “shall.”

“While many schools have taken advantage of the permissive language of the law, some school boards have been less accommodating,” Click said. “Regardless of their intentions, their failure to implement a sound policy in this matter results in a denial of both the students’ and parents’ constitutional right to the free exercise of religion.”

More
https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2024/05/17/ohio-bill-would-require-school-districts-to-create-released-time-for-religious-instruction/

***** Isn’t Sunday School and CCD, etc. considered religious instruction or isn’t that a thing any more. I’m so far out of the loop.

Betting on they make kids skip art, gym, music, lunch, etc. for their daily “religious instruction “ which in my opinion should be taught outside of school hours. Just allowing it wasn’t enough for these Ohio bozos, they demand each school have a “plan”. Argh. How about working on education problems that are more helpful, like class size, building maintenance, extracurricular educational activities?

[Think. Again.]

1. That's. What. Church. Is. For.

Not schools.

[Diamond_Dog]

6. Agree +++

[sakabatou]

14. This (or other religious institutions)

[Rebl2]

32. Absolutely!

Study your religion after you get home from school.

[Baitball Blogger]

2. If I were a kid, I would go to the Satan Revival Studies just out of curiousity.

And Pagan Studies. Let's not forget Pagan Studies. Or the Voo-Doo religion. If there's a class on how to make dolls, I'm there.

[GreenWave]

3. And do religious institutions allow qualified spokespeople to speak about evolution?

[HAB911]

4. Hmmmmmmmm, which religion I wonder

[marble falls]

5. Friday after school was for school clubs. I belonged to YFC (Youth for Christ), and some of my Jewish friends ...

... left school early to go to Hebrew School.

Jewish and Muslim kids had religious holidays off, too. But we did not need state mandated "guarrantees", which sounds like grift to promote "christian nationalism".

I will admit I thought I wanted to be Jewish because I wanted some more holidays off and I had had crushes on Judy Resnick's younger sister and then on Irene Mack. My stepmom was curious when Irene's mother asked her if I was really Jewish.

Cities can be a collection of small towns, there are no secrets.

[sakabatou]

15. Eh, conversion's tough.

It isn't a dunk in a mikvah, and you're suddenly Jewish.

[marble falls]

19. I know. My mother's mother's father was a Dutch Jew who came here in the 1880s and lived to be 99, ...

... My father's mother's father was a Jewish glass cutter from Belgium who went to Tiffin, Ohio to work at the Tiffin Glass company, he went to Montana to bring back a Jewish orphan for his wife.

In Chicago, served Seder dinners at the Water Tower Congregation and a synagogue on south side of the LDS near the Disney school. Pasach dinner was great fun, The Rabbi was dressed a s Bullwinkle and his son as Boris Badinov.

Converting is no casual or easy thing.

I loved talking to my friends' family. Warren Glick's grandfather told me about leaving Russia because of pogroms and not wanting to be drafted into the Czar's army for a twenty year hitch. Irvin Finer's mom showed me her tattoo and told me about being in a satellite camp to Auschwitz, walking back to their home in Poland after liberation, digging up possessions they had buried under the floor boards and then walking to a DP camp in in West Germany to wait five years before coming to Akron, Ohio. Irvin once told me his earliest memory. It still haunts me: when he was four, after his father had died, his mother found Ivin sitting on the floor of the dining room pushing money between the floorboards. Irvin was a very special person to me. Out of his entire family, only his mother and father and mother's sister and her husband, and two of their cousins survived. One of his mother's cousins lived in Montreal and one lived in Ecuador. His parents had two children as did his aunt and uncle. Irv's two cousins had two children each, irv's sister had two children and Irv died with no children. Before he died he had only 12 living members of his family in the entire world. I did consulting work in Montreal and Irv asked me if I could find him, and I did. I don't know if Irvin ever contacted him.

He gave me photos of his mother and two sister's cutting up, dressed as newsies and smoking cigarettes with huge grins on their faces just a few years before the Holocaust. It's an experience looking at these and knowing what was coming up.

I get it: I feel shame at how casually I treated "being" Jewish as that naive junior high schooler in the early 60s. And I understand, the diaspora has never completely ended.


On my mother's father's side and my father's father's side, we have governors, senators , representatives and slaves holders in Kentucky and North Carolina. It's complicated.

[sakabatou]

21. From my dad's side, my great-grandparents and grandparents left Imperial Russia (now Lithuania)

I don't know much about my mom's side, other than her great-grandparents were also from Eastern Europe. Go back far enough, and my ancestors might be in the Ottoman Empire. Before that, the Roman Empire. Before that, the Southern Kingdom of Israel. Before that, the Babylonian/Persian Empire.

That's as far back as I can think of.

[marble falls]

22. It's complicated for all of us ants when the elephants wrestle. Then and now.

[Conjuay]

24. I see ..

You had that 'religious fervor' I've often heard mentioned.

[marble falls]

30. I feel the 'presence' every day, but it's never been 'ferver'. Lutherans have no "ferver", we abide.

[Ligyron]

7. Satan's Sunday School and Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster are in.

Atheists From Hell are onboard too I hear

[spanone]

8. The theocrats march on.....

Fuckem

[Cyrano]

9. So they want to change their law from "May" to "Shall."

You just know that, given enough power, they will change that law from "Shall" to "Must."

[LiberalFighter]

10. There are sufficient options

After school/evenings
Saturdays or Sundays

[NanaCat]

11. Can't wait for the kids who ask to attend

Remember how the traitor thugs howled when Muslims started taking advantage of school vouchers intended for the Christian cult's schools? Wonder how long the law will stick around after the Satanists/atheists demand to have equal time to instruct their children? I can see a typical lesson plan entry now:

'Today, boys and girls, we'll read the next chapter of The Missionary Position by Christopher Hitchens, and discuss the possible reasons for the plethora of intersections between religious leaders and dictators throughout history. Sure to be a lively discussion, so bring a friend!'

They're even getting in some actual history and political science (AKA civics)! You don't get that with the other religious groups, unless they're whining about persecution--whatever that means to them.

[Ping Tung]

12. Will they allow the kiddies to be "instructed" in the Teachings of Baal or Bacchus?

[Think. Again.]

13. Yes, math teacher, my Satanic Temple only meets during your algebra class, see ya.

[keithbvadu2]

16. Many of our right wing brethren want to put public prayer and the Bible back in the schools.

Many of our right wing brethren want to put public prayer and the Bible back in the schools.

They have no qualms about using the gov't to foist their own religious beliefs on the children in public schools without letting the parents decide how they want their children raised.

[SamKnause]

17. Fuck you and your fantasy theocracy.

I don't believe in your god.

I wouldn't worship your god if it existed.

Your god character is horrifying.

Your bible is horrifying.

It is past time proof be given if laws are being crafted around this imaginary being.

Fuck this shit !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Bob0264]

18. It'll of course be challenged in court if it passes. Rethugs don't believe in the 1st amendment.

It'll be challenged in court if it passes.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

33. Welcome to DU

[GenThePerservering]

20. This bonehead can't even write

“The correlation between religious instruction, schools, and good government are embedded in our constitution,”

The correlation...ARE embedded in our constitution"?

[mahatmakanejeeves]

23. "The correlation ... are embedded in our constitution," Click said in his written testimony."

“The correlation between religious instruction, schools, and good government are embedded in our constitution,” Click said in his written testimony.

Say, before we get to that instruction in religion, maybe we set aside a little time to address some other matters.

Edit: I've been beat to it. See above.

[Johonny]

25. Did they include funds to impliment sound policy

Or is this an unfunded mandate?

[AllaN01Bear]

26. i agree w poster # 1.

[Raven123]

27. Sure. Just extend the school day by one hour and let them have that

[DBoon]

28. Religions should schedule their indoctrination around existing school hours.

Schools should not have to change their instructional schedule for religious practices.

Religions should accommodate the existing school schedule.

[Initech]

29. Absolutely insane to think that the GOP is turning into the people we declared war against 20 years ago.

[Rebl2]

31. For all religions?