If parents object on religious grounds to books used in public schools, then their children are not required to read them. That is the implication of last week's verdict in a Tennessee trial, where Federal District Judge Thomas Hull, who heard the case without a jury, ruled in favor of parents who charged that the local school district forced their children to read textbooks that offended their strict Christian beliefs.
The group of Fundamentalist Christian parents, led by Vicki Frost, a mother of four, attacked the school district's choice of such books as The Diary of Anne Frank and The Wizard...