We encourage you to take the following steps to protect the exercise of religious freedom for your school:
Private Schools:
- Understand the problem: How Same-Sex Marriage Threatens Christian Schools.
- Download and review the ADF and/or the Liberty Institute Resources for Protecting Schools
- Gather your governing documents and policies:
- Statement of Faith
- Religious Employment Criteria
- Facilities Use Policy
- Religious Mission Statement
- Code of Christian Conduct
- Emphasize Religious Character
- Admissions Procedures
- Religious Instruction
- Handbooks
- Disciplinary Procedures
- Medical/Pharmaceutical Plans
- Update, Amend and Adopt your documents to ensure the documents and written policies express your beliefs consistently.
- Ensure consistent application and enforcement of your policies to avoid any accusation of double standards.
*** To implement any of these protections, we invite you to contact our legal team at the Independence Law Center who welcome guiding you, free of charge, through what protections may be needed for your unique circumstances. Phone: 717-657-4990 or fill out an online form here.
Public Schools:
- Understand the problem: Public Schools Impacted by Supreme Court Marriage Decisions.
- “Do the Supreme Court’s marriage decisions really impact kids who attend public schools? You bet they do! They demand respectful activism by Christian students defending and promoting biblical marriage.”
- Focus on the Family has produced easy-to-understand explanations of student’s rights to watch, download and discuss with your high school and college age children.
Defending Privacy Rights – Response to Obama Administration’s “Dear Colleague” letter
- Alliance Defending Freedom: The “Dear Colleague” letter is wrong.
- Independence Law Center: Your district has no obligation to abandon biologically distinct bathrooms, showers and locker rooms.
- Copy: “Dear Colleague” letter from Obama administration
Additional Resources:
- Focus on the Family for Ministries – Religious Freedom.
- “In the aftermath of the Obergefell same-sex marriage decision, students may find an increasingly hostile atmosphere in the classroom toward biblical values, especially regarding marriage and human sexuality. You can expect to see public high-school and middle-school textbooks and lesson plans include favorable treatment of homosexuality, as is now required in California. Parents may soon find such teaching to start as early as kindergarten, with no “opt-out” rights for parents who object to such curriculum. It will take a combination of courage and a working knowledge of our freedoms of speech and religion to navigate the halls of education.”
- Alliance Defending Freedom: Public Education
- Liberty Institute: Public Education
*** To implement any of these protections, we invite you to contact our legal team at the Independence Law Center who welcome guiding you, free of charge, through what protections may be needed for your unique circumstances. Phone: 717-657-4990 or fill out an online form here.