More than 100 chaplains signed a letter urging local Texas school boards to vote against putting chaplains in public schools, calling efforts to enlist religious counselors in public classrooms “harmful” to students and families.
The letter was issued just days before a bill allowing public schools to hire school chaplains becomes law in Texas, the first state in the country to pass such a measure. The legislation, which had been pushed by activists associated with Christian nationalism, gives the state’s nearly 1,200 school boards until March 1 of next year to vote on whether to employ chaplains.
The letter was organized by the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty and Interfaith Alliance as well as the local advocacy group Texas Impact.
The chaplains who signed the letter, released Tuesday, bemoaned the lack of standards for potential school chaplains aside from background checks, contrasting it with the extensive training required for health-care and military chaplains.
“Because of our training and experience, we know that chaplains are not a replacement for school counselors or safety measures in our public schools, and we urge you to reject this flawed policy option: It is harmful to our public schools and the students and families they serve,” the letter reads.
Although chaplains who operate in multifaith environments are generally barred from proselytizing, the Texas bill, SB 763, outlined no such restriction, leaving each school district to answer the question on its own.
But no school district in Texas who stupidly thinks that chaplains should work in public schools would knowingly hire Satanists when there are probably many Christian denomination chaplains available.
Different story if the only applicant is a Satanist, but the district just declares the search as failed without interviewing the Satanist. Then it’s a matter of religious discrimination in the hiring process for that one individual.
I can’t think of any situation in which the actual chaplain at any given school could challenge this law to the point it starts moving through the courts.
To get into the court system, some parents are going to have to sue. I’m predicting a Jewish family, Muslim family, or Bahai family raising suit after the WASP chaplain starts evangelizing to the non-believers.