An Alabama lawmaker has filed a bill that would allow chaplains to be employed at public K-12 schools.

HB 59, sponsored by Rep. Mark Gidley, R-Hokes Bluff, would require local boards of education to vote on whether or not to allow public schools to have an employed or volunteer chaplain.

“This bill would not require schools to have a chaplain, it would only allow them to,” Gidley  said in a phone interview on Tuesday.

Gidley said that chaplains exist in other parts of society, such as fire departments and hospitals, and provide emotional and spiritual support in those spaces.

“They’re not coercive,” he said. “They’re there to support and be that place for people to come that they can have a safe place to share their needs, concerns and have someone that is trained to support them in that.”

Gidley cited benefits from school chaplains, such as school safety, from the National School Chaplain Association.

The National School Chaplain Association is a subsidiary of the Mission Generation Inc. Mission Generation Inc. described its mission to Guidestar, which tracks nonprofits and their financial filings, as addressing “the degradation of sociality because school-age children PK-12 are not being taught faith-based ethics and morals in schools.”  

Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, wrote in a statement Wednesday that the Constitution promises that parents, rather than school officials, legislatures or “government-imposed religious leaders,” direct religious education.

“Replacing trained school counselors with religious chaplains would violate the religious freedom of every student and family in Alabama,” she wrote. “Families should be able to trust that public schools are welcoming and inclusive of all students and won’t force a particular religious perspective on their children. And students deserve to have access to certified school counselors who are trained to help all students. Replacing well-educated and licensed professionals with uncertified chaplains threatens the safety and education of our students. Public schools are not Sunday schools.” 

A similar bill passed in Texas last summer, but the Texas version allowed chaplains to provide counseling to students. 

While HB 59 states that chaplains can provide “support, services, and programs for students,” the Texas version included chaplains in the list of support of mental and behavioral health personnel.

Alabama schools pay for counselors with a mixture of local and state funds, wrote Alabama State Department of Education spokesperson Michael Sibley in an email Wednesday.

In June, Stateline reported that the Texas bill was part of a broader push for more religion in schools and could serve as a model for states. 

Gidley said that he expects some conversation around the separation of government and religion but said the “separation of church and state” does not appear explicitly in the constitution. 

“It’s a talking point that has been used, that really does not exist in our Constitution,” he said. “Our Constitution is far from that.”

The concept of the separation of church and state emerges from the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances,” it reads.

According to the Legal Information Institute housed at the Cornell Law School, Thomas Jefferson said that the First Amendment made a “wall of separation” between the government and religion when he was president. The term is also used in court cases.

Jefferson’s line came from a letter written to Baptists, according to PBS.