<\/p>\n
A federal judge has stepped in to temporarily halt seemingly blatant anti-Christian discrimination in a public school district just outside Seattle.<\/p>\n
Lifewise Academy, a faith-based nonprofit providing off-campus Christian extracurricular activities to students with written parental permission, has been the target of a purportedly purposeful prejudice at the hands of authorities within Everett Public Schools in Washington state.<\/p>\n
Speaking with CBN News, Lifewise founder Joel Penton said things \u201cwent very smoothly\u201d at the start of the partnership between his organization and Everett Public Schools, with dozens of families participating in activities through Lifewise.<\/p>\n
That all took a turn last year, though, when one board member took issue with Lifewise\u2019s offerings to students. During a Dec. 9 board meeting, Charles Adkins made very clear he had a personal vendetta against the Christian ministry, which had sent a letter to the board to \u201caddress the claim about whether [Adkins\u2019] comments are motivated by animus toward Lifewise Academy.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to make it very, extremely, abundantly clear that, yes, I do, in fact, hold animus toward Lifewise Academy,\u201d said Adkins. \u201cIt is an organization of homophobic bullies, who are active and willing participants in the efforts to bring about an authoritarian theocracy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Listen to the latest\u00a0episode\u00a0of \u201cQuick Start\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n In late April, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington\u00a0issued a preliminary injunction, temporarily blocking the school district \u2014 which oversees some 21,000 students across 27 schools \u2014 from singling out Lifewise with overly burdensome restrictions, seemingly to prevent students from participating in off-campus Bible instruction during school hours.<\/p>\n Jeremy Dys, senior counsel for First Liberty Institute, which is representing Lifewise in this case, said, \u201cTargeting the operation of an out-of-school program just because it\u2019s religious is a direct violation of the First Amendment.\u201d<\/p>\n According to Penton, the district had been placing onerous rules on Lifewise in at least three ways.<\/p>\n For other clubs or organizations, a parent is required to sign a single permission slip at the start of the school year, allowing his or her child to participate in that group for the duration of the year. For Lifewise, the district began mandating parents sign new permission slips every single week \u2014 a \u201cmajor obstacle\u201d that only applied to Lifewise, Penton said.<\/p>\n Secondly, he explained, Lifewise was barred from participating in events where the organization could promote to parents what it offers kids who have been granted parental permission. It also disallowed Lifewise from hanging flyers on school property, as other groups are allowed to do.<\/p>\n It was the third restriction, Penton said, he found the most ridiculous, even calling it \u201ccomical.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we send things home with students, whether it\u2019s worksheets or even Bibles \u2014\u00a0if we send a Bible back with students from our class, the school says it has to come back in a sealed envelope,\u201d he said. \u201cWhich, of course, gives the impression that it\u2019s somehow dangerous or it certainly gives the impression that kids need to conceal their faith.\u201d<\/p>\n Penton told CBN News the organization first tried to address the friction \u201cquietly,\u201d explaining to officials their actions were not constitutional. They didn\u2019t budge, though, so Lifewise filed a lawsuit against the school district.<\/p>\n On April 24, the court said the schools must, for now, allow Lifewise to participate in fairs, post flyers on school property, use permission slips in the same manner as other extracurricular groups, and permit students to read Lifewise materials during school time when students are reading \u201cnon-scholastic materials.\u201d<\/p>\n Watch our full conversation with Penton in the video above.<\/p>\n Please sign up for\u00a0Faithwire\u2019s daily newsletter\u00a0and download the\u00a0CBN News app\u00a0to stay up-to-date with the latest news from a distinctly Christian perspective.<\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A federal judge has stepped in to temporarily halt seemingly blatant anti-Christian discrimination in a public school district just outside Seattle. Lifewise Academy, a faith-based nonprofit providing off-campus Christian extracurricular activities to students with written parental permission, has been the target of a purportedly purposeful prejudice at the hands of authorities within Everett Public Schools<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28330,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[9367,72,1267,2656,2441,1353,202,557,2978],"class_list":{"0":"post-28329","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jesus","8":"tag-blatant","9":"tag-christian","10":"tag-discrimination","11":"tag-district","12":"tag-halts","13":"tag-judge","14":"tag-school","15":"tag-state","16":"tag-washington"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28329\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}