The bill requires public schools to guarantee students the right to express their religious viewpoints in a public forum, in class, in homework and in other ways without being penalized. If a student's religious beliefs were in conflict with scientific theory, and the student chose to express those beliefs rather than explain the theory in response to an exam question, the student's incorrect response would be deemed satisfactory, according to this bill.

The school would be required to reward the student with a good grade, or be considered in violation of the law. Even simple, factual information such as the age of the earth (4.65 billion years) would be subject to the student's belief, and if the student answered 6,000 years based on his or her religious belief, the school would have to credit it as correct. Science education becomes absurd under such a situation.

I'm not convinced this is true after reading the bill, but it could be interpreted that way. The relevant portion of the bill reads:

Students may express their beliefs about religion in homework, artwork, and other written and oral assignments free from discrimination based on the religious content of their submissions. Homework and classroom assignments shall be judged by ordinary academic standards of substance and relevance and against other legitimate pedagogical concerns identified by the school district. Students shall not be penalized or rewarded on account of the religious content of their work.

There is some confusion here, clearly. Does this mean, as McNeely says, that a student could answer that the earth is 6000 years old on an earth science test and not be penalized for the wrong answer? The second line suggests that the answer is no. If that answer is judged by "ordinary academic standards of substance", the answer is clearly wrong. But the last sentence could easily be interpreted as meaning the opposite.

The real problem here, as with a similar bill passed in Texas last year, is that the text could mean a great many things. Schools throughout Texas complained that they had no idea how to implement many of that bill's provisions and this bill has similar language and will result in similar problems.

Other provisions, as I said, are just completely superfluous. Like this one:

Students may organize prayer groups, religious clubs, "see you at the pole" gatherings, or other religious gatherings before, during, and after school to the same extent that students are permitted to organize other noncurricular student activities and groups.  Religious groups shall be given the same access to school facilities for assembling as is given to other noncurricular groups without discrimination based on the religious content of the student expression.  If student groups that meet for nonreligious activities are permitted to advertise or announce meetings of the groups, the school district shall not discriminate against groups that meet for prayer or other religious speech.

The law already supports all of those things. The Equal Access Act already requires that all non-curricular clubs be given equal recognition and be treated equally in all respects regardless of religious viewpoint. Then there are some troublesome provisions about establishing limited public fora at various events:

The school district hereby creates a limited public forum for student speakers at all school events at which a student is to publicly speak.  For each speaker, the district shall set a maximum time limit as enumerated below, reasonable and appropriate to the occasion.  Student speakers shall introduce:

1.  Football games;
   
2.  Any other athletic events designated by the district;
   
3.  Opening announcements and greetings for the school day; and
   
4.  Any additional events designated by the district, which may include, without limitation, assemblies and pep rallies.

B.  The forum shall be limited in the manner provided for in this article.
C.  Only those students in the highest two grade levels of the school and who hold one of the following positions of honor based on neutral criteria are eligible to use the limited public forum:

1.  Student council officers;
   
2.  Class officers of the highest grade level in the school; and
   
3.  Captains of the football team, and other students holding positions of honor as the school district may designate.
   

D.  Eligible students shall be notified of their eligibility, and a student who wishes to participate as an introducing speaker shall submit their name to the student council or other designated body during an announced period of not less than three (3) days.  The announced period may be at the beginning of the school year, at the end of the preceding school year so student speakers are in place for the new year, or, if the selection process will be repeated each semester, at the beginning of each semester or at the end of the preceding semester so speakers are in place for the next semester.  The names of the volunteering student speakers shall be randomly drawn until all names have been selected, and the names shall be listed in the order drawn.  Each selected student will be matched chronologically to the event for which the student will be giving the introduction.  Each student may speak for one (1) week at a time for all introductions of events that week, or rotate after each speaking event, or otherwise as determined by the district.  The list of student speakers shall be chronologically repeated as needed, in the same order.  The district may repeat the selection process each semester rather than once a year.

So they've established a limited public forum and a process that requires student speakers to be selected on a neutral basis. So far so good. If the school chose the speakers based on the content of what they plan to say then that would violate the law regarding limited public fora. But here's where the potential problem comes in: they say that the student has to speak about issues directly relevant to the event, yet they allow religious speech:

The subject of the student introductions shall be related to the purpose of the event and to the purpose of marking the opening of the event, honoring the occasion, the participants, and those in attendance, bringing the audience to order, and focusing the audience on the purpose of the event.  The subject shall be designated, a student shall stay on the subject, and the student shall not engage in obscene, vulgar, offensively lewd, or indecent speech.  The school district shall treat the voluntary expression by a student of a religious viewpoint, if any, on an otherwise permissible subject in the same manner the district treats the voluntary expression by a student of a secular or other viewpoint on an otherwise permissible subject and may not discriminate against the student based on a religious viewpoint expressed by the student on an otherwise permissible subject.

This provision clearly introduces a great deal of subjectivity into the process. None of those things they say the student speaker can address has any relationship to religion, so any religious statement would be extraneous to the stated purpose. Clearly what they want to allow is a student speaker to say things like "we'd like to thank God for giving these players the ability to play the game" or to say a prayer that no one is hurt during a football game, and so forth.

But imagine for a moment if a student got up and said those very same things but, being a Muslim, decided to give thanks or say a prayer to Allah instead of God (yes, I know they mean the same thing, but that is utterly irrelevant to the point I'm making). Or imagine a pagan student doing the same thing. Under this law, the school could not prevent them from doing so.

But just imagine the fallout. That student would, in the vast majority of schools in this country, be ostracized, harassed, quite possibly beaten up or worse. And the administration has to know that, as does this legislature. The students surely know it. It would take an incredibly brave student to stand up and do that. But the fact that the legislature also knows this means that what they're really doing is not creating an open forum but rather a forum for Christian proselytizing 99% of the time, and it establishes this forum during events where it's completely inappropriate. Every single person there is already free to pray for the safety of the players all they want, individually or in groups.

The bottom line is that this is ill-conceived, hot button legislation designed primarily for the purpose of allowing legislators to tell voters "we stood up for 'religious liberty' and our opponents tried to destroy it." It's the kind of thing no legislature should be doing, but also the kind of thing all legislatures far too often do.