Click here to view full article at press-herald.com
Johnson, Landry hold Freedom Student Summit
Partially in response to ongoing litigations against the Webster and Bossier Parish School Boards, Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry and U.S. Representative Mike Johnson published the Student Rights Review in January, a reminder to students of their rights to religious expression. Sunday afternoon, these men visited Minden to convey this reminder to students personally.
Two Freedom Student Summits, held at First Baptist Minden and the Bossier Parish Community College, were held to educate students, parents, and community members on what religious expression is constitutionally protected within the public school system.
“There’s so much misinformation and confusion about these very issues,” Johnson said. “But the Student Summit was a great opportunity to get everybody together and talk about what our rights are.”
The event was preceded by a prayer walk from the Minden Civic Center to First Baptist. When the crowd arrived, Landry and Johnson addressed attendees about the history and current climate of student rights. Three of Johnson’s children led the audience in worship songs, and two students in Webster Parish schools spoke briefly about Christian student groups such as the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and First Priority.
Johnson, a former Constitution attorney, spoke in detail for close to half an hour, outlining the history of religious expression rights in America and where they are headed. He said his goal was to answer three key questions:
What is the source of our freedom, what happened to our freedom, and what is left of our freedom?
To answer the first, Johnson cited several documents from the time of the Founding Fathers, including the Declaration of Independence, the Northwest Ordinance, and, most famously, the First Amendment, which says in part, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
“Those first two phrases, we call them religion clauses, are what all the legal skirmish is about today,” he said.“These are the two competing – I would call them compatible – religion clauses in the First Amendment. Notice here that it doesn’t say the words ‘separation of church and state.’”Johnson said this popular term is often taken […]