Some interactions between church and state are inevitable and OK, the Sumner County School District argued in response to a lawsuit against it over prayers, pastor visits and Bible distribution in schools.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee filed a complaint in federal court this month alleging that the district has shown a pattern of promoting Christianity. In its response filed this week, the district admitted to some of the ACLU’s allegations and denied others, but overall said its actions did not violate the Constitution.

The response opens by citing two Supreme Court decisions, one of which states that “interaction between church and state is inevitable … and we have always tolerated some level of involvement between the two.”

The suit charges district officials allowed Gideons International to hand out Bibles to students, prayers over an elementary school loudspeaker, a youth pastor’s weekly visits with middle school students during lunch and a middle school teacher’s hanging of a cross over her whiteboard. The ACLU also asserted that graduations and other school events have been held at churches when non-religious venues were available.

The district argued there is no problem with using churches and denied that there were other open locations.

The events were secular, even if the location was not, it said.

The district also noted “that religious organizations are allowed to advertise and distribute within the Sumner County schools on the same terms as non-religious organizations.”

Read More: http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/201105260210/NEWS/305260051

[Editor’s note: the original URL (link) referenced in this article is no longer valid, so the link has been removed.]