Maybe we're not on the same page here- whose religious expression are we talking about, and in what context. Teacher or student? Inside of class or outside?
All your arguments fall flat in light of the religious activity that was part of the public school system in whatever form it existed in, for the centuries from the founding of this country until the recent past.
I have a tough time squaring the use of taxpayer money for religious activity in schools with the 1st Amendment. How do you propose allowing an even playing field for all faiths in the schools?
Prayer and Bible reading were part of the school day until the ACLU and its cohorts pushed it out. Show me what damage all that religious activity in schools did up until that point.
For Agnostics, Atheists, Hundus, Wiccans, Muslims, Zoroastrians and various other faiths, being forced to pray and read the religious book of a different faith is a violation of their 1st Amendment rights, especially when done with taxpayer money. We didn't really consider that issue a couple of generations ago, but we do now.
Well, for a good 200 years in this country people didn't have that problem. The folks that wrote up the Constitution knew that teacher led Bible reading and prayer were going on in schools in the young country and didn't have an issue with it or they would have put a stop to it then and there. They would have certainly spoken up then if they thought that it was violating the intent of the First Amendment because they, of all people, knew what they meant when they wrote it up, and they didn't. So it looks like your interpretation is what's flawed here.
For Agnostics, Atheists, Hundus, Wiccans, Muslims, Zoroastrians and various other faiths, being forced to pray and read the religious book of a different faith is a violation of their 1st Amendment rights, especially when done with taxpayer money.
No it isn't. The First Amendment is only about Congress and what it is and isn't allowed to do to interfere with religious activity. But by using that argument, then my rights as a taxpaying Christian are being violated because secular humanism (basically the religion of atheism) is being forced on the kids in school and my taxes are being used to endorse a religion I don't agree with.
Congress outlawing prayer and Bible reading in school would be what's unconstitutional.
Besides, teacher led Bible reading and prayer is not forcing the kids who don't want to participate to do so. Another fallacy.... that hearing something is the same as being compelled to participate. It's not.
Is that the extent to which you have trouble squaring the use of taxpayer money in schools? Or are there other uses that cause you an equal (approximate) amount of anguish?
There was a time when the Supreme Court could have applied the rule of community standards to Bible reading in school, just as they have done with obscenity laws, but at that time the courts were not seized with the issue and saw no reason to even take notice of it. Now our society seems to have become too diverse to even intellectually entertain the idea in many communities.
Oddly enough, the veritable explosion of community diversity seems to have nearly coincided with an incursion of Federal influence and authority into what had been previously a state and local affair. Since the federalization of education virtually demands a uniformity of content and practice throughout the fifty, we have come to see diversity in the schools expressed in the most unlikely manner. Banning Christianity (even its mention) doesn’t seem to have solved very many of the pressing problems of education any more than has pumping enormous amounts of money into the system.
If you find yourself discontented by Education’s present muddle, a direct solution to the problem should present itself to mind. For some time now we’ve seen Education roiled by a great deal of political turmoil. If you want politics left out of an issue, then leave the issue out of politics. Otherwise . . . what do you think will happen?
By the way, have you examined the etymology of the word ‘diverse’?