School chaplains an assault on church-state wall

Florida’s volunteer school chaplains bill, passed by the state House and awaiting a Senate vote, was wrong from the start.

There’s no need for it other than as a direct assault on the constitutional separation of church and state.

Qualified chaplains belong in prisons, hospitals and military posts, whose residents can’t seek spiritual solace elsewhere. But not in public schools.

School children are at liberty to practice religion wherever else they and their parents choose — at a church, synagogue or mosque. They should not be prey for the evangelists this legislation invites into schools.

Attack on church-state

The chaplain bill (HB 931), which the House passed 89-25, is another manifestation of the Christian nationalism movement that rejects the secularism prescribed by the Constitution.

A bill co-sponsor, Rep. Kimberly Daniels, D-Jacksonville, claimed that separation of church and state “is not in the Constitution” and in any case “was not meant to keep the church out of the state. It was meant to keep the state out of the church.”

Nothing could be further from the truth. But truth is the first victim of holy wars such as the one that Daniels seems to have in mind.

“Our schools are war zones and they’re under attack,” said Daniels, who has also championed school prayer bills. “The real enemy are after our children, and I just want to say this: Ministry is about professional professionalism and the simplicity of the Gospel.”

Amendments voted down

If that didn’t reveal this bill’s true purpose, the House made it all too clear by shouting down amendments that would protect students.

One rejected amendment called for a school chaplain to have a master’s degree or higher, be ordained in one of the 221 faith traditions recognized by the Department of Defense and have completed at least one pastoral education course from an accredited institution.

That defeat was significant because some bill sponsors say the chaplains would be mental health counselors. Nothing in the legislation requires any relevant qualification.

The House also voted against prohibiting chaplains from proselytizing students, against providing for oversight committees, against forbidding county school boards to prefer chaplains from a particular faith, and against requiring chaplains to be trained in preventing sexual harassment and assault.

Citing the rejection of “any guardrails,” Rep. Gail Harris, D-Orlando, warned that the Legislature would be “embracing and endorsing that an unlicensed person can deal with our most vulnerable children.”

Too few safeguards

The only safeguards consist of mandatory criminal background checks, as already required of other school personnel, and parental consent.

It would be optional for public school and charter school boards whether to have chaplains and to specify or limit their services.

HB 931 is another steamroller for the Republican supermajority. Only five Democrats, including Daniels, voted for it.

The companion Senate bill (SB 1044) has passed three committees, the last by a vote of 14-5, and is on the Senate calendar. We encourage South Florida senators to oppose it, as all but one of the region’s Democratic House members did (Rep. Lisa Dunkley, D-Sunrise, voted yes).

Nationally, the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty (BJC), founded in 1936, actively opposes the school chaplain movement, which began in Texas and is proposed in 12 other states besides Florida. They are Alabama, Georgia, Iowa, Indiana, Kansas, Maryland, Missouri, Mississippi, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma and Utah.

“We do think this is part of a resurgence of Christian nationalism in the United States,” a BJC spokesperson told the Sun Sentinel Editorial Board.

‘Grace of Jesus’ in schools

The BJC traces the movement to an organization called Mission Generation, whose web site once stated it intended to “influence those in education until the saving grace of Jesus becomes well-known and students develop a personal relationship with Him.”

In a Time magazine essay, “Public Schools are Not Sunday Schools,” the BJC’s counsel, Holly Hollman, wrote that “families and faith communities, not the government, should direct the spiritual development of children.”

That should be self-evident to lawmakers everywhere.

But the bill’s prime Texas sponsor acknowledged that it would enable the “important role chaplains serve for pastoral care and representing God’s presence within our public schools.”

Some Texas school boards have voted not to hire chaplains and more than 100 professional chaplains in the military and health care fields went on record strongly opposing the concept.

“Beyond concerns that chaplains in schools may cause discomfort to students with differing religious beliefs, the Texas law’s rock-bottom qualifications to serve as a chaplain open the door for potential abuses of authority,” Hollman said, “and put vulnerable students already struggling with mental health challenges at even greater risk.”

The Florida bill is just as offensive. The legislators voting for it are faithless to Florida students and to the Constitution of the United States.

The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Opinion Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Opinion Editor Dan Sweeney, editorial writer Martin Dyckman and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson. Editorials are the opinion of the Board and written by one of its members or a designee. To contact us, email at letters@sunsentinel.com.