The move that proponents say will ease a youth mental health crisis, bolster staff retention and offer spiritual care to students.

Lawmakers in more than a dozen states have proposed legislation to allow spiritual chaplains in public schools, a move that proponents say will ease a youth mental health crisis, bolster staff retention and offer spiritual care to students who can’t afford or access religious schools.

Conservatives also argue religious foundations will act as a “rescue mission” for what they say are public schools’ declining values, a topic that has galvanized Republican-controlled Legislatures to fight for issues such as parental oversight of curriculum, restrictions on books and instruction on gender identity and state-funded tuition assistance for private and religious schools.

But many chaplains and interfaith organizations oppose the chaplaincy campaign, calling the motivation offensive and describing the dangers of introducing a position of authority to children without clear standards or boundaries.

  • @afraid_of_zombies
    4•9 months ago

    The alternative to a pedo shaman is not a lunatic with a gun the alternative is licensed and trained therapists with a background screening and specialist knowledge of children development. You are setting up a false either-or. And frankly I would trust a random person hired at a bus stop over a priest because if they rape a kid they won’t have a criminal organization hiding it. Hell I would trust someone who almost never showed up and when they did they spent their entire time on their phone because at least if they do nothing it is still an improvement over doing something wrong.

    It doesn’t not sound like a relabeled guidance counselor position. It sounds like they are trying to get their dress wearing shamans back in taxpayer funded schools so they can have a harem.

    This is going to run into a lot of flak from communities that don’t have common ethics or morality standards with the priest that takes up the position.

    I am proud to be a member of a community that doesn’t consider child rape to be an ethical value.