Abington vs Schempp

[E_Pluribus_Unitarian]

I'm sharing this at my "Faith of the Free" Facebook page today, but thought some of you might like it. Also a Youtube from a middle-schooler about the case.

-- June 17th (1963): The United States Supreme Court released a ruling, 8-1 in favor of respondent Edward Schempp, declaring school-sponsored Bible reading in public schools in the United States to be unconstitutional. Mr. Schempp, a Unitarian Universalist and a resident of Abington Township, Pennsylvania, filed suit against the Abington School District in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to prohibit the enforcement of a Pennsylvania state law that required his children, specifically his son Ellory Schempp, to hear and sometimes read portions of the Bible and the Lord's prayer at the beginning of each school day. That law (24 Pa. Stat. 15-1516, as amended, Pub. Law 1928) required that "[a]t least ten verses from the Holy Bible [be] read, without comment, at the opening of each public school on each school day."

Schempp specifically contended that the statute violated his and his family's rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Like four other states, Pennsylvania law included a statute compelling school districts to perform Bible readings in the mornings before class. Twenty-five states had laws allowing "optional" Bible reading, with the remainder having no laws supporting or rejecting Bible reading. In eleven of those states with laws supportive of Bible reading or state-sponsored prayer, the state courts had declared them unconstitutional.

Mr. Schempp was a founding member of the BuxMont Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Warrington and late in his life was a member of Cherry Hill Unitarian Church. His son said Mr. Schempp loved hymns and good sermons, and had read the Bible, though he did not take it literally. In 1986, he self-published the Buyer's Guide to Gods, which outlined his humanist approach to religion. He marched against the Vietnam War in the 1970s and wrote to newspapers condemning social injustice.

[dimbear]

1. Interesting report. I note that back in 1963, it was a churchgoer who stood up and asked to be

counted.

That ardor among churchgoers seems to have cooled, and the seculars only seem to take on the burden of defending the right to be left alone.