Claiming that an agreement between the ACLU and Florida's Santa Rosa County's school system violated the individual religious expression rights of teachers and school employees,the Liberty Counsel has waged a year-long campaign to have the agreement overturned. That effort has now come to an end after Liberty Counsel withdrew the complaint following modifications to the consent order. Florida's ACLU explains the changes and the process that brought them about:
Most of the clarifications to the original agreement were minor. Two highlights include new language that makes it clear that although district employees may not lead prayer or religious activities, or allow or direct others to do so, they may remain still and clasp their hands as a show of respect while students pray. And new language gives express permission for employees to say things such as, “God bless” or “Good heavens” to express surprise.
“Despite contrived examples of threats to religious freedom and concocted claims confusion, the original agreement and court order never blocked or interfered with personal religious expression,” [ACLU attorney Benjamin] Stevenson said. “It was never unclear but now it’s double-clear, you can say “God bless you” when someone sneezes.”
Efforts to insert more religion into public schools, or into government speech, often rely on a strategy of exaggeration to make the institutional separation of church and state seem like a threat to religion itself. So, we hear statements like "religion is being scrubbed from the public square" or claims that citizens are being denied the right to pray in public, or banned from saying "Merry Christmas" or "God bless you" in public buildings. These charges are of course inaccurate, but effective in whipping folks into a frenzy.
Sadly, the loser in all of these games is the taxpayer, who foots the bill for losing arguments. According to the ACLU's press release, Liberty Counsel received more than a quarter of a million dollars from Santa Rosa County in agreeing to drop their lawsuit.
