It's going to be used to allow homeschooling to accept answers that are purely based on religion. It's just going to harm Ohio as their schools lose accreditation due to religion replacing science, after all you can't penalize someone if they legitimately believe that the Earth was made by Xenu. It's a legitimate concern after all. In fact how do we know what a legitimate concern is and who dictates that? If this were as innocent as you say then there would be no reason to create it as that's the status quo. You're not reading this correctly through religious lenses. It also does nothing to protect atheists unless there's some other part of the bill that covers it as atheism isn't a religion.
First off, it doesn't allow homeschooling to do anything different than it already does.
Second, you cannot penalize nor reward a student for the religious content in the answer only the academic content.
Third, accreditation is an optional standard for accepting Government funding for Universities and Colleges and doesn't apply to elementary and secondary schools (other than charter/private schools), each state's board of education sets the terms for a schools status and that's why they can also require laws like this.
>after all you can't penalize someone if they legitimately believe that the Earth was made by Xenu.
Correct, you cannot penalize them for believing that, but, you can penalize them if they don't put the correct academic or scientific answer on a test. If they put both answers, you must ignore the religious content.
>You're not reading this correctly through religious lenses.
Correct, this isn't religious texts. It's a law, and in the US court systems there are standards in how we interpret legal language.
>If this were as innocent as you say then there would be no reason to create it as that's the status quo.
That's nonsense. There are multiple types of laws. there are those that prosecute for a violation of them, those that protect from a violation of them and those that enshrine your rights. This is the latter.
Right now, there is nothing on the books to say that a young Muslim student in rural Ohio who wrote a paper on morality but mentioned Allah, could not in turn be marked wrong by their Christian teacher even if they met all the parameters of the assignment. Such a case is absolutely worth defending.
>You're not reading this correctly through religious lenses. It also does nothing to protect atheists unless there's some other part of the bill that covers it as atheism isn't a religion.
Thank you for noting that you read the clickbait article and not the actual law. The entire law substantially includes rights for students to take time to pray, meditate, reflect on morality, or things of a philosophical or patriotic value to them, and gives them the right to opt-out of any such activities in the classroom that do not reflect their beliefs, their parents beliefs or the lack thereof.
For something that is trying to be painted as an archaic pro-christian only law, this law is remarkably balanced and takes into considerations other religions, other systems of belief and the lack of any belief and enshrines them all quite equally.
This law is not perfect, but, from reading the text I cannot fault the intention of it the way that so many have.
Will it be misused and need to be challenged in courts? Absolutely. Most young laws do need to evolve through that process of refinement and clarity.
But, I don't see anything here that merits being demonized.
