News Flash

Humanists Celebrate Progress on the Church-State Front

(April 29, 2003) Humanists and others who value church-state separation justifiably feel besieged by the current administration's steady appeals to sectarian religion, but today we should feel heartened. Progress has been made in the struggle for religious liberty.

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court’s ruling against the publicly funded Virginia Military Institute's (VMI) unconstitutional fifty-year tradition of group prayer before supper. The policy was, in effect, coercing students to pray because of the institute’s "martial atmosphere." This is an important ruling reminiscent of the 1996 ruling where VMI's policies of not accepting women were declared unconstitutional.

On the other side of the country, the Colorado Senate voted to table a bill that would have permitted public school teachers to display the phrase "In God We Trust" in state classrooms and other public buildings.

And in Kentucky, where the state government hoped to continue prominently displaying a granite sculpture of the Ten Commandments in front of the state capitol another victory for religious liberty was struck. The rulings of a Frankfort U.S. District Court and the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, which said that the true purpose behind the display was the promotion of a specific religion, remained in force, as the Supreme Court today refused to hear an appeal from the State of Kentucky. With this case behind us, the Religious Right will no longer be able to hide behind their false argument that the display of the Ten Commandments on public ground is only intended as a history lesson.

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