The Freedom From Religion Foundation is outraged by the introduction of Idaho’s shockingly unconstitutional “School-Sponsored Bible Reading Act,” an unabashed attack on religious freedom and public education.
This egregious bill would force public school students to endure daily bible readings until the entire bible is read over a 10-year period. The bill, HB 162, is sponsored by state Rep. Jordan Redman, but is really being pushed by the Idaho Family Policy Center, a Christian nationalist ministry that “advances the lordship of Christ in the public square through engaging the church, promoting God-honoring public policy, and training statesmen.” The Center partners with other Christian nationalist organizations like Alliance Defending Freedom, Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council. The bill text contains numerous untrue or misleading claims.
The bill declares that the bible “is the most important book in the world, molds public morality, impacts history, and contains unequaled literary value.”
“This is nothing short of government-mandated indoctrination,” responds FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “This bill tramples on the First Amendment, disregards decades of Supreme Court rulings, and would turn our public schools into religious battlegrounds.”
In its press release celebrating the bill, the Idaho Family Policy Center claims that Idaho’s “children and communities are starved for biblical truth and morality.” The release makes abundantly clear this bill is about advancing Christianity and boasts that it cannot be used to “open the door to the use of other religious texts, like the Quran or the Satanic Bible.” The Center erroneously states the bill “conforms to the requirements of both the U.S. Constitution and the Idaho Constitution,” while openly violating both.
The proposed legislation violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, disregarding decades of Supreme Court precedent prohibiting school-sponsored prayer and religious exercises in public classrooms. In Abington School District v. Schempp (1963), the U.S. Supreme Court unequivocally ruled that school-sponsored bible readings in public schools are unconstitutional.
The bill would subject students to sectarian religious instruction in a captive environment and place undue burdens on teachers and administrators, forcing them to navigate religious inquiries from students that would open school districts to costly legal challenges.
The bill also clearly violates Idaho’s constitutional prohibition on religious teaching in its public schools: “No sectarian or religious tenets or doctrines shall ever be taught in the public schools. … No books, papers, tracts or documents of a political, sectarian or denominational character shall be used or introduced in any schools.”
“If lawmakers wish to uphold their oaths to defend the Constitution, they should abandon this bill immediately,” says FFRF Legal Director Patrick Elliott. “If enacted, it will be swiftly challenged in court — and struck down.”
The Freedom From Religion Foundation urges Idaho legislators to reject this unconstitutional measure and is calling on all defenders of secular public education to fight back against this blatant attempt to impose Christianity in public schools.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with nearly 42,000 members nationwide, including hundreds of members in Idaho. FFRF’s purposes are to protect the constitutional principle of separation between church and state, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.
