Judge: School Broke Law by Promoting Student-led Mission Trip

A public school district violated the law when it promoted a mission trip sponsored by the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, according to a judge appointed by President Obama.

Federal Judge R. Brooke Jackson determined the Douglas County School District in Colorado violated the Establishment Clause by promoting a FCA mission trip to Guatemala.

The American Humanist Association had filed suit against the Douglas County School District in 2014 on behalf of an unnamed parent.

The parent, who had a child enrolled in a grade school, had objected to the school district’s promotion of the mission trip to “run camps for Guatemalan orphans.”

The grade schoolers, including the plaintiff’s child, had been encouraged to contribute items like toothpaste, soap and shampoo to the mission trip project.

“As non-Christians, the school’s actions in promoting and endorsing a Christian organization … made us feel like outsiders and unwelcome in our own community,” the plaintiff said in court papers.

The plaintiff went on to say her son was “questioned and maltreated by his classmates for his beliefs underlying the reason he did not participate in the drive.”

The court ruled that the school district’s actions were an excessive government entanglement with religion.

“Religious minorities in public schools should never be faced with school-sponsored activity that promotes the majority religion,” AHA legal director David Niose said in a prepared statement.

The court also determined that the district had supported an overtly Christian cause. Well, what other kind of cause would the Fellowship of Christian Athletes be supporting?

Only a group of “humanists” would be offended by Christian teenagers helping impoverished orphan children in a foreign country.

And only a federal judge appointed by President Obama would say giving children a bottle of shampoo in the name of Jesus is against the law.