A Wall of Whipped Cream

This is why we have to stand firm against allowing even the tiniest hint of religion to poison public services: because the nose of the camel is
always followed by its stinking ass.

The head football coach at Breckinridge County (Kentucky) High School took about 20 players on a school bus late last month to his church, where nearly half of them were baptized, school officials say.

The mother of one player said her 16-year-old son was baptized without her knowledge and consent, and she is upset that a public school bus was used to take players to a church service — and that the school district’s superintendent was there and did not object.

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But Superintendent Janet Meeks, who is a member of the church and witnessed the baptisms, said she thinks the trip was proper because attendance was not required, and another coach paid for the gas.

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David Friedman, general counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky, said in an interview that the trip would appear to violate Supreme Court edicts on the separation of church and state — even if it was voluntary and the school district didn’t pay for the fuel.

“If players want to attend the coach’s church and get baptized, that’s great,” Friedman said. But a coach cannot solicit player attendance at school, he said, noting, “Coaches have great power and persuasion by virtue of their position, and they have to stay neutral.”

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Ammons, who lives in Big Spring, said that she is a Baptist but her husband, Danny, is Catholic, and that both feel like their son should wait until he is 18 to make important decisions on religion.

“We felt he was brainwashed,” she said.

She said she was prepared to drop the matter until she found out that Meeks attended the service. She said she consulted a lawyer in Elizabethtown but hasn’t decided what action she will take.

“They have no right to take my son on a school bus across county lines to be a church to be baptized,” she said.

And as a Kentucky taxpayers whose money goes to support Breckinridge County schools, I say they have no right to use publicly-owned property to support and advance a religion.

Once again, the Kentucky ACLU is sitting on its ass, issuing vague statements and refusing to defend the Constitution.