Senate panel votes to amend Nuxoll’s Bible in schools bill
After a hearing stretching for nearly two hours, the Senate State Affairs Committee has voted unanimously to send SB 1342, Sen. Sheryl Nuxoll’s Bible in schools bill, to the Senate’s 14th Order for amendments. Senators said they wanted to make sure the measure recognizes that schools may use other religious texts for reference as well.
Nuxoll, R-Cottonwood, gave the committee three legal opinions – one from Michael Ferris of Patrick Henry College, one from Matt Sharp of Alliance Defending Freedom, and one from Idaho attorney Christ Troupis. “All of them agree that this proposed section of code does indeed meet both state and federal constitutional muster,” Nuxoll told the senators.
But Sen. Bart Davis, R-Idaho Falls, quoted from an Idaho Attorney General’s opinion on an earlier draft of the bill. “The Attorney General … concludes that it is virtually impossible to defend the proposed (law) because it selects a specific religious text to be used as a reference over other religious texts.” And then, Davis said, the Attorney General concludes that the bill as written “would invite constitutional challenge and almost certainly be held unconstitutional as applied under Article 9, Section 6.” He asked Troupis about that analysis.
Troupis responded that he believes the Attorney General mistakenly identified the Bible as a denominational text, when Troupis said it should be seen as universal.
Sen. Michelle Stennett, D-Ketchum, told Nuxoll the word “religion” does not appear in the U.S. Constitution, which also states that no religious test will be required for office. “So I’m thinking about what the founding fathers wanted us to do at the beginning of our country,” she said. “I understand where you’re trying to get to here because most of us in the room have a Christian background.”
Nuxoll responded that 20,000 Bibles were bought and produced for U.S. public schools in the late 1780s. “So in their mind, the Bible was not a sect or a denomination, since it’s used by everyone,” she said. “We can’t use the catechism of the Catholic church, we cannot use the Book of Mormon. … But the Bible they looked at as a universal book.”
Stennett responded, “It’s proven that they’ve used religious works and it has been all of our diverse foundations, but they never saw fit to put it in statute.”
Sen. Cherie Buckner-Webb, D-Boise, asked Nuxoll, “It only calls out the Bible. There are other great religious texts ... so why not the Koran, why not the Torah? Nuxoll responded, “As a Catholic, I don’t use the Koran, I use the Bible. Islam uses the Bible, they refer to the Bible a lot and they have their own. So again it’s the same message as what I have brought before, that those are denominational books, whereas the Bible is a universal book used by everyone.”
Numerous people testified on both sides of the bill. Julie Lynde of Cornerstone Family Council told the senators, “This bill will alleviate confusions and anxiety in an academic setting as well as in a home setting.”
Nuxoll said her bill was intended to “allow the Bible to be used as a reference in public schools by codifying in law a practice which is already being allowed. … No one is required to use any religious texts, doctrine cannot be taught, and there is no mandate for usage.”
