The Classroom is the Battleground for Religious Freedom
A few weeks ago, the state legislature of Louisiana passed a bill that would mandate the display of the Ten Commandments in every public school. The bill instantly became a touchstone in the culture war, fanning fears of Christian nationalism across liberal media.
At first glance, the bill looks like it will easily be overturned on First Amendment grounds. Gov. Jeff Landry, a Republican, seems to know it too, as he declared that he couldn’t wait to be sued over the bill. Such a legal battle would put the issue of religious freedom and public schools back in the spotlight, but the bill itself raises another, more fundamental question: What constitutes a religious practice or icon, and how do we decide what belongs in the public square?
Émile Durkheim, a late 19th, early 20th French sociologist, deemed religion to be whatever humans hold sacred against the profane. Similarly, Paul Tillich, a German-U.S. theologian, considered it to be whatever humans hold as their ultimate concerns. One look at our cultural discourse would reveal that by these definitions, our society’s worship includes far more than that which is contained in the brick and mortar institutions we call “churches.” America’s origin story is intrinsically tied to the colonists’ desire to practice their faith freely, and questions regarding the separation between church and state have defined who we are in the centuries since. Parental ire over what their students are taught and exposed to in school participates in this traditional shared principle — that every person would be free to practice their religions and live according to the faith systems that they hold dear.
Religious freedom fighters have long been battling over the public school system, where subjects that can or can’t be taught, and the religious behaviors of teachers and staff actively shape young and impressionable minds. Some of the U.S. Supreme Court’s most famous cases have been over the role of religious expression in public education, such as Engel v. Vitale (1962), the landmark decision that banned public schools from having school prayers led by staff, to more recent cases like Kennedy v. Bremerton School District (2022), which involved a challenge to a public school football coach who openly prayed after games — a challenge that a divided court ruled was not a violation of the First Amendment. Today’s pitched fights over the bogeyman of Christian nationalism and the display of the Ten Commandments in public schools are simply new theaters of battle in well-worn proxy wars.
In addition, there have been many controversies over the past few years that challenge our very notion of what it means to spread religious teachings, although both sides of the battlefield may not see it that way. Furious debates have roiled classrooms and town halls over the teaching of topics such as critical race theory and transgender ideology in public schools. Parents are allowed to get “opt-out” waivers based on their religious beliefs, although some court decisions denied these requests, forcing ecumenical parental groups to file lawsuits on religious-freedom grounds. Few, though, have considered that some of what is being taught in public schools may be considered religious in and of itself — only that the teachings are presented not as subjective religious beliefs but as objective truths.
Take, for example, the teaching that every individual has an innate “gender identity” that may or may not align with their biological sex. Those who identify with a nonaligned gender identity often perform various sacraments ranging from changing their pronouns (and demanding that others use their chosen pronouns) to receiving hormone infusions or surgical procedures on their sexual organs. Much like some individuals have a metaphysical belief in the existence of a god or many gods, in reincarnation or an afterlife, or are atheists, others have a metaphysical belief in gender identity — while others do not.
Devout adherents of a religion tend to see their metaphysical beliefs not as mere opinion but as objective reality. Because concepts surrounding gender identity are viewed by some school administrators as an objective reality, teachers have been able to teach such concepts in public schools without running afoul of religious liberty laws. Seven states mandate the teaching of LGBTQ topics in classrooms, which includes gender ideology, and the federal government recommends that gender identity be taught as part of sex education programs. Labeling the belief in gender identity as a religious belief would prevent it from being taught in public school classrooms as objective truth.
By the same token, adherents to gender identity currently do not qualify for certain religious protections they otherwise may have been afforded, especially when it comes to the delicate matter of who has sovereignty over childrens’ bodies. Controversial religious practices involving children, such as the form of circumcision practiced by some ultra-Orthodox Jews where a religious authority sucks a newborn’s penis to draw blood out of it, are made possible via parental and religious liberties. If gender identity is legally considered a religion, then it could be possible for parents to request hormonal and surgical procedures for their children under the protection of religious freedom laws.
The question of sports also becomes complicated, as shown in high-profile events like the swimmer Lia Thomas’s victories and recent boxing matches at the Paris Olympics, which can be viewed as an imposition of religious beliefs onto a secular sports competition. Thus, religious freedom laws are a double-edged sword for any metaphysical belief — the belief cannot be presented as objective reality by governmental institutions, but practices linked to the belief get special protections. Both sides of the gender identity debate have reasons for and against considering their beliefs to be a legal religion.
As the culture wars continue to spill over into public school classrooms, the semantic nature of religion leaves a lot of questions to be answered. To the observer that does not believe in the Judeo-Christian God or in gender identity, there may seem little difference between Louisiana mandating the display of the Ten Commandments in schools and progressive schools mandating the teaching of transgender ideology. Both attempt to force metaphysical beliefs on children. Yet, only one of these mandates is legally considered religious.
Our culture wars will inevitably require a lively debate on the meaning and purpose of religion. Having to give a definition of a term can often spark lively debate on what the term means to us. Political provocateur Matt Walsh of The Daily Wire likes to challenge promoters of gender identity by asking “What is a woman?” I hereby add another question: “What is a religion?”
