Chicago Public Schools Back Religious Book Covers

Public school officials in this city are giving their blessing to religious groups that are distributing Ten Commandment book covers to students--as long as the groups stay off school property and give the material only to children who want it.

“I am enthusiastically supportive,” Chicago Public Schools CEO Paul Vallas said Wednesday, the day the distributions began outside an elementary school. “I view the Ten Commandments as history’s value statements. They’re certainly universally accepted.”

Vallas did not attend a news conference to announce the book covers, instead sending deputy chief of staff Wilfredo DeJesus, an Assembly of God minister who wore his minister’s collar as he passed along word of the district’s “100% support.”

The endorsement has drawn criticism as a violation of the separation of church and state.

DeJesus and a City Council member conceded that the district is walking a fine constitutional line but said a recent spate of killings and other crimes involving young people has left them no choice.

“People talk about separating church and state, but separating these two--it’s not working,” said Jesse Granato, an alderman whose district includes a neighborhood where two young people have been killed this summer.

The covers have the Ten Commandments--from “Only worship the one true God” to “Do not murder”--on one side and inspirational quotes from such figures as Oprah Winfrey, Mark Twain and Michael Jordan on the other.

They are being paid for by a TV-based religious group called Total Living Network, which expects to distribute at least 100,000 covers to churches, synagogues and community organizations. The cost was not disclosed.

The Rev. Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, said he has no problem with the distribution of the book covers, which he said is no different than the Gideons handing out Bibles.