Freedom From Religion Foundation Regional Government Affairs Manager Mickey Dollens has had an op-ed published in one of Maryland’s most venerable newspapers.

“Theocratically inclined Maryland lawmakers are offering a false solution to a real problem.” Dollens begins his column in the Easton Star Democrat, founded in 1799.

The piece goes on to explain:

Like most states, Maryland faces a serious shortage of school mental-health professionals. The American School Counselor Association recommends a ratio of 250 students per counselor, yet Maryland’s average is closer to 327. The gap is even wider for school psychologists, with roughly 1,000 students per psychologist — nearly double the recommended maximum.

Rather than investing in licensed, trained mental-health professionals, House Bill 24 attempts to address the shortage by inserting unlicensed volunteer chaplain aides into public schools to provide “support services” to students.

The bill lacks even the most basic safeguards. It does not prohibit proselytizing, require parental consent or list any professional standards for chaplains working in schools. It tramples the religious liberty of students and disregards the very same parental rights that some of the bill’s supporters claim to value so much.

Don’t fall for the rhetoric claiming that public school chaplains won’t proselytize. Of course they will — and that is precisely the point of this bill. HB 24 does nothing to prevent a volunteer chaplain from using a school-sanctioned role to advance religious beliefs during the school day. Imagine a county superintendent who attends a Baptist church recruiting that church’s pastor to serve as a school chaplain — encouraging students to meet with him during the school day and allowing the pastor to proselytize during those meetings. Such a school would obviously be favoring religion over nonreligion, and favoring the county superintendent’s own specific denomination over all others. …

A major driving force behind this legislation is the National School Chaplain Association. Its parent organization has openly stated that it places Christian chaplains in public schools with the goal of converting non-Christian students — “reaching the largest unreached people group inside of the public schools around the world” to ensure that “the saving grace of Jesus becomes well known.” The same organization has said it intends to exploit the “massive lack of school counselors throughout public schools” to insert chaplains to “share God’s word” and “disciple” students.

“If lawmakers genuinely care about student well-being, the answer is not to blur the line between state and church,” the op-ed further states. “It is to invest in what actually works: hiring more licensed counselors and psychologists trained to support students of all backgrounds without pushing religious doctrine.”

You can read the full piece here.

This column is part of FFRF’s initiative to engage with pertinent national and state issues and spread the messages of secularism and freethought to a broader audience.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a national nonprofit organization with 42,000 members nationwide, including close to 1,000 members in Maryland. FFRF’s purposes are to protect the constitutional principle of separation between church and state, and to educate the public on matters relating to nontheism.

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