Chapter 12: Religion

I was glad to start reading this text as I feel that it is the one that I associate with the most since I am of a different Religion than most of the US population. The text puts Judaism as the 10th most popular religion in the US and has about 2.8 million adherents. All together that equals 1.3% of the population. Further on, the text states that Judaism constitutes about 3% of the population, but only half identify it as their religion. The Jewish population continues to decline because many you Jewish people are marrying outside of the religion. I did my part by making my fiancee convert. He likes it though and enjoys the religion.
At the start of the formation of the US, Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Baptists, Episcopalians, and Quakers were the most common making up 80% of American congregations. Catholics later moved up to the majority. About 60-905 of people report some type of religious affiliations while about half of the population attend church weekly. Females seem to be more religious as well as African Americans. 2/3rds of the population identified as the same religion of their parents.
The large issue mentioned in this chapter is the separation between church and state. In the end, students are allowed to participate in religious activities, as long as it doesn't disrupt the learning process. Other provisions are as follows:

• Students are allowed to pray and discuss religious views with their peers as long as it doesn't disrupt education
• Students may not just decide to pray as teachers call on them
• Cannot have a captive audience of students who might not want to listen
• Teachers may teach about religion but cannot teach religion
• Schools may teach creationism and evolution in comparative religion and social studies but can only teach evolution in science

The Equal Access Act allows student religious activities to be given the same access to facilities as other student secular activities. Schools can also teach virtue and moral code.
Muslims are making up a larger number of students. Islam is one of the fastest growing religions in the world and make up 1.4% of the US population The opening of a Muslim school in New York city caused a lot of controversy even though NYC already had 65 dual-language schools. Other schools and languages did not face this type of hostility so it's sad to think that these students felt unwelcome and unsupported by their community. I enjoyed learning about the Muslim faith in this text and about Somalia.