Source: Omaha World-Herald
http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_page=1219&u_sid=10528246
School officials in a northeastern Indiana district deny that a religious education program offered during the school day illegally advances religion, as a federal lawsuit claims.
A complaint filed by attorneys with the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana on behalf of an unnamed woman and her 8-year-old son asks a federal judge to shut down the program and bar the school district from providing it with utilities or any other support.
The boy, identified only as "J.S.," attends Horace Mann Elementary School, which offers third- and fourth-grade students a "release time" program for "By the Book Weekday Religious Instruction" through the Associated Churches of Huntington, the suit states.
The Huntington County Community School Corp. argued in a response to the lawsuit that the release time program neither advances nor inhibits religion.
Similar programs at elementary schools have been protected by a 1952 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that allowed students to receive religious education during school hours but not on school property.