The American Jewish Congress filed a “friend of the court” brief today challenging the constitutionality of Pennsylvania’s school Bible-reading law. The law, which requires that at least ten verses “from the Holy Bible” be read in each public school on the opening of each school day is under attack in a Federal court in a suit filed by two parents of schoolchildren.
The AJC brief questions the validity of the state law on three grounds: by requiring schoolchildren to commit a devotional act it violates constitutional guarantees of freedom of religion and of separation of church and state; it introduces sectarianism into a public school, and it shifts responsibility for religious training from the home to the school.
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