ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes the religious rights of parents to direct the religious education of their children in a US K-12 public school and the corollary rights of students to not be indoctrinated by the school to accept a particular religious belief under the First and 14th Amendments of the US Constitution. A secular state purports to be neutral as to religion, not endorsing any religion or religious belief when a government activity "touches the religious sphere". Religion includes both theistic and non-theistic belief systems. Generally, the courts have held that any school activity that supports theistic religion may be viewed by an objective observer as state endorsement of "religion". The non-theistic views are taught exclusively as "secular", when they actually promote non-theistic religion. The chapter further reflects the religious issues addressed by National Education Standards, the curricula that deal with the subject, the excluded theistic views, and the included competing non-theistic views, which match the tenets of Religious ("Secular") Humanism.
