Bill Description: House Bill 162 requires that public school teachers read passages from the Bible to their classroom every day without instruction or comment, while providing accommodations to teachers and students with conscience objections.
Bill Rating: 0
Does it violate the spirit or the letter of either the United States Constitution or the Idaho Constitution? Examples include restrictions on speech, public assembly, the press, privacy, private property, or firearms. conversely, does it restore or uphold the protections guaranteed in the US Constitution or the Idaho Constitution?
House Bill 162 does not violate the US Constitution, but it does violate the Idaho Constitution.
The First Amendment of the US Constitution declares that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” Following the ratification of the 14th Amendment in 1868, the Supreme Court has selectively incorporated portions of the Bill of Rights to apply to the states. The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment was first incorporated in Everson v. Board of Education (1947). 16 years later, the Supreme Court found that mandatory Bible reading in public schools violated the Establishment Clause in Abington School District v. Schempp (1963). Subsequently, Idaho’s 1963 law requiring daily Bible reading was struck down in Adams v. Engelking (1964).
Recently, the Supreme Court in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District (2022) determined that the Establishment Clause “must be interpreted by ‘reference to historical practices and understandings,’” calling into question the precedent of Abington and Adams. In light of this recent jurisprudence, House Bill 162 would not violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments on account of our nation’s long established history of reading the Bible in public schools.
However, House Bill 162 would violate Article IX, Section 6 of the Idaho Constitution, which states that “no sectarian or religious tenets or doctrines shall ever be taught in the public schools” and that “no books, papers, tracts or documents of a political, sectarian or denominational character shall be used or introduced in any schools.”
It is evident that House Bill 162 attempted to circumvent these prohibitions by providing that the reading of the Bible be done “without comment or interpretation” and allowing both teachers and students to opt out of the daily readings. However, it is doubtful that these qualifications are enough to save the bill from constitutional objections. The founders of Idaho during the constitutional convention of 1889 directly considered and rejected an amendment which stated that:
“Nothing herein contained shall be construed to forbid the reading of the Bible in the public schools in any commonly received version, nor to enjoin its use.”
While there seems to have been a good deal of disagreement among the convention regarding whether the Bible is a “sectarian book,” this vote suggests that the majority agreed with the sentiment of delegate George Ainslie of Boise that Idaho ought to “keep religion and state affairs as far apart as you possibly can” (I.W. Hart, Proceedings and Debates of the Constitutional Convention of Idaho 1889, pg. 684-702).
(-1)
Does it promote the breakdown of the traditional family or the deconstruction of societal norms? Examples include promoting or incentivizing degeneracy, violating parental rights, and compromising the innocence of children. Conversely, does it protect or uphold the structure, tenets, and traditional values of Western society?
Our Founding Fathers firmly believed that “our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people” and thus “wholly inadequate to the government of any other” (John Adams, Letter to Massachusetts Militia, 11 October 1798). In accordance with this principle, many prominent Founding Fathers advocated for the inclusion of Biblical instruction in public schools. For instance, Benjamin Rush argued that “the only foundation for a useful education in a republic is to be laid in RELIGION,” without which “there can be no virtue” (Thoughts Upon the Mode of Education Proper in a Republic,1786). Consistent with our Founders’ desire to cultivate a moral and virtuous citizenry, House Bill 162 upholds our nation’s traditional Western values—which are above all rooted in the Christian faith—by requiring “the Bible to be read daily…in every public school classroom.”
(+1)
