COLORADO
STATE COURT

(1927), in the case of Vollmar v. Stanley, 255 Pac. 610 (Col. 1927), stated:

Some of it is sectarian in the sense that it is relied on by this or that sect to prove its peculiar doctrines, but that does not make its reading the teaching of a sectarian tenet or doctrine. If all religious instruction were prohibited, no history could be taught. Hume was an unbeliever and writes as such; Macaulay is accused of partiality to dissenters; Motely of injustice to Roman Catholics. Nearly all histories of New England and indeed of the United States, are bound up with religion, religious inferences, implications, and often prejudices. Modern New England histories take pains to correct some of these things, and some people object to the corrections. Even religious toleration cannot be taught without teaching religion. …

Further, if we are to take the argument of plaintiff that sectarian means more than the sects of religion and say that it means religious, as we are asked to do, we must push it to its logical limit, and say that believers are a sect, and that, in deference to atheists no reference to God may be made (unless to deny Him, which we suppose would not be regarded as sectarian) and this would bar the singing of America and the Star Spangled Banner; and if we should say that sectarian means religious, we would bar not only the greatest of our poets, including Shakespeare and Milton, whose most inspiring passages have a religious basis, but the greatest of our orators, including Webster, Clay and Lincoln.3849

For the eighth point it is said that reading the Bible is intolerant and a form of religious persecution; but, if those who do not like it can stay away and yet say to those who do like it, “you shall not read it here,” who is intolerant? Are those who stay away persecuted?

It is urged that to absent themselves for a religious reason “subjects the pupils to a religious stigma and places them at a disadvantage.” We cannot agree to that. The shoe is on the other foot. We have known many boys to be ridiculed for complying with religious regulations but never one for neglecting them or absenting himself from them.3850