MORGANTOWN — The House of Delegates overwhelmingly approved on Tuesday its version of the bill to allow elective high school courses on the Bible as history and literature.
But the Senate on Tuesday put off possibly re-amending its more ecumenical version of the bill until Wednesday. If the Senate keeps its version as is, the bills may go to conference committee for some kind of compromise, or a stand-off that kills them both.
The House version is HB 4780 and passed 73-26. It proposes to allow county school boards to ddevelop elective social studies courses to teach students “knowledge of biblical content, characters, poetry, and narratives that are prerequisites to understanding the development of American society and culture, including literature, art, music, mores, oratory, and public policy,” along with the history and literary styles of the Bible.
Counties would submit their proposed elective courses to the state Department of Education for review.
Among the bill’s opponents, Delegae John Doyle, D-Jefferson, said “We will be saying to the rest of the country only Christians are welcome in West Virginia. We must not send that message.”
Delegate Evan Hansen, D-Monongalia, said he is Jewish and agrees with others who’ve said the bill could ostracize and marginalize students of minority faiths. West Virginia is less diverse than other states so the Legislature needs to be particularly careful about passing bills that make kids feel unwelcome.
And Delegate Mike Pushkin, who offered a failed amendment on Monday to make this bill match the Senate bill, said that teaching bible inherently involves interpretation, which will violate the secular intent of the bill. “I do not think you can separate theology from these books.”
He lamented that the House failed to move his bill to create a Holocaust education course. Without reading hit, he cited Proverbs 26:11. That verse says, “As a dog returns to his vomit, so a fool repeats his folly.”
Speaking for the bill, Delegate Tom Fast, R-Fayette, said, “The message is we’re going to teach history. We’re going to teach it correctly.”
We are Americans, he said, and the Bible was the single most influential book in our history. If we don’t pass that knowledge to younger generations, they will be ignorant of its foundations. “If we ignore it, we’re teaching a revisionist history; we’re not teaching a true history.”
Lead sponsor Delegate Kevan Bartlett, R-Kanawha, said the bill makes the course offering, and signing up for it, permissive, not a mandate. “If theology was a part of this I would be the first one against it.” The U.S Supreme Court ruled that teaching the Bible in a secular manner is constitutional in 1963.
And Delegate Marshall Wilson, I-Berkeley, said the federal government recently issued guidance that public schools may not teach religion – faith and practice – but may teach about religion and role of religion in history.
America’s history, he said, is found on a three-legged stool: Jerusalem, Rome and Athens. Jerusalem gave us the Judeo-Christian moral and ethical foundation of our society. Rome gave us the governmental administrative structure. Athens gave us the two-prong governmental priority of justice and happiness.
Whether we believe in a creator or not, he said, the Founders cited a creator in their work and it’s essential to understand that.
Locally, Democrats Michael Angelucci, Mike Caputo, Linda Longstreth and Dave Pethtel, along with Republicans Buck Jennings, Amy Summers and Terri Sypolt voted for it. Democrats Barbara Evans Fleischauer, Hansen, Rodney Pyles, Danielle Walker and John Williams voted no.
The Senate bill, SB 38, currently allows county bards to offer courses on any sacred texts or comparative religion. It was on third reading with the right to amend on Tuesday, but was laid over a day. Action is expected on Wednesday.
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