Yoga in public schools is exercise, not religion

Yoga in public schools is exercise, not religion

Today, a San Diego County Superior Court judge said yoga classes are not the same as religious instruction, and ruled that the classes may continue.

The plaintiffs and their attorney, Dean Broyles of the National Center for Law and Policy, claimed that giving kids a little bit of yoga twice a week amounts to an unlawful embrace of Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism or Western metaphysics.
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. . . the district had always allowed children whose families objected to be excused from the classes. And that accomodation led to the accusation that the district was depriving the non-yoga practicing children from their state mandated 200 minutes of exercise for every 10 school days. (That was disputed by the district, which said they received their required minutes of exercise in other ways.)

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- A California judge refused on Monday to block the teaching of yoga as part of a public school's physical fitness program, rejecting parents' claims that the classes were an unconstitutional promotion of Eastern religions.

Judge John Meyer acknowledged that yoga "at its roots is religious" but added that the modern practice of yoga, despite its origins in Hindu philosophy, is deeply engrained in secular U.S. society and "is a distinctly American cultural phenomenon."

He also said the Encinitas Unified School District had developed its own version of yoga that was not religious but distinct and separate from Ashtanga yoga.

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Somerville said:

What do you think? Are the Sedlocks, plaintiffs in case, anything more than publicity hungry weirdos?

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