The Liberty Council, affiliated with Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, launched its annual “Friend or Foe” Graduation Prayer Campaign on Tuesday. The group and the campaign seek “to educate and, if necessary, litigate to ensure that prayer and religious viewpoints are not suppressed.” But before Christians begin picketing graduations, we should ask an important question: could a push for religion in schools actually backfire?

Conservative organizations do need to fight for religious free speech. The ACLU is roving the country, devouring any case with even the slightest fragrance of progressivism, liberalism, and anti-Christian sentiments. But treating religion as a deposed king and advocating for its return to the throne within public schools might have far greater consequences than many realize.

A case in Mount Vernon, OH highlights the difficulty. There, the community is divided over middle school science teacher John Freshwater. His display of a Bible on his desk led to an investigation after some parents accused him of proselytizing. Understandably, people see this as an attack on Christianity and are outraged. But the local paper reported that many parents and students, in their fight for religious expression, have ignored the elephant in the science room: “Religion” means more than Christianity.

A fight for Christianity in schools is a fight for religious expression, and that includes religions other than Christianity. If Christianity is allowed in schools, there’s a strong case to afford Hinduism, Islam, and Wiccan the same opportunity. Christians advocating the Bible be put back in the classroom have to ask themselves if they are alright with the Book of Mormon receiving the same status. And as the Mount Vernon case shows, many are not.

Still, there seems a double standard. Mention the Bible in public schools and the ACLU cries for equality. Mention the Quran, and it falls silent. As Lynn Vincent points out over at worldmagblog, Christians find themselves in a dilemma, “While the ACLU does seem to butter its bread by barring from public school classrooms the Bible and any talk of the Christian God, ‘other’ religions seem to get a pass. But should Christians fight the inequity by quashing the public display of other religions or advocating for equal time?”

The parents of a high school sophomore in the always-litigious state of California are suing their son’s history teacher for his bizarre rants against Christianity.

The student, 16-year-old Chad Farnan, snuck a recorder into his class and taped this diatribe from his teacher, James Corbett: “What country has the highest murder rate? The South! What part of the country has the highest rape rate? The South! What part of the country has the highest rate of church attendance? The South!” The teacher also talked about the “Jesus glasses,” which he says hide the truth from believers, and said Christians are more likely to commit heinous crimes like murder and rape.

Farnan’s parents say Corbett’s remarks violate the First Amendment. They filed a federal lawsuit (aided by the nonprofit Christian legal firm Advocates for Faith and Freedom) against the school district after it dismissed the Farnans for demanding that Corbett be fired. Corbett’s attorney told Fox News the purpose was never “to indoctrinate, but simply to provide a basic starting point to provoke discussion.”

The Farnans’ suit joins a recent mini-spate of lawsuits by Christian parents indignant at their school’s treatment of religion. Among others right now, the most prominent is in Wisconsin, where parents are suing their son’s school after he got a zero on an art project that incorporated a cross and John 3:16. (The school, they claim, has a Buddha and Hindu figurines placed prominently in a classroom, as well as “a being with a horned head and protruding tongue” in the art room.)

These lawsuits, which vary in the egregiousness of the offenses for which they seek redress, go to the heart of a matter many Christians have never considered. Are they right to run to the courts, in a manner not too different from the ACLU’s when it sues a teacher for displaying the Ten Commandments in class?

“Even though it is tempting to say that turnabout is fair play, I don’t think Christians should react to being offended in the same litigious way as the politically correct elite,” writes Renaissance Guy on his blog, Significant Pursuit. “I think the teacher overstepped his bounds, and I think his logic is questionable, but I don’t think a lawsuit is necessary.”

At The Corner, Jonah Goldberg adds that, while he more or less agrees “the lawsuit probably goes too far,” it is nonetheless “interesting to ponder what the bureaucracy would have done to this guy if he’d employed a similar argument against blacks or Mexicans.”

The Freedom From Religious Foundation (FFRF) aims to stir up controversy at the Wisconsin State Capitol this holiday season by posting an anti-religious sign near the holiday tree and menorah. The Madison-based educational group, made up of atheist and agnostic “free thinkers,” works to secure separation of church and state.

The sign reads: “At this season of the Winter Solstice, may reason prevail. There are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world.” FFRF co-president Dan Barker said they will be happy if the sign does offend people: “We would be happy to take down our signs if everyone else took theirs down, too.”

Meanwhile, Rep. Marlin Schneider recently proposed legislation to change the name of the “holiday tree” in the capitol to “Christmas tree” in order to acknowledge it as a religious symbol. He said he doesn’t mind FFRF’s sign, since it is their constitutional right to post it.

Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Council, told WoW the controversy is part of the “war on Christmas” waged each year. He sees the sign as “inappropriate” during a time of celebration that is recognized by both state and national governments: “(The FFRF) seek to do tremendous damage and to erase the recognition of God or Christian faith in our society.”

While Liberty Council fights for religious freedom year-round, he said the battle becomes more visible at Christmas-time. The attack is not just on our right to worship but on “who we are as Americans” because of the American government’s foundation of Judeo-Christian principles: “When you start to eliminate Christmas, it sends a message to young generations that God and Christian principles are not welcome, and it begins to set a culture in motion that is fundamentally different than the America we know.”

Starting this year, Alabama public-schooled students will study the Bible with the State Board of Educations’ unanimous approval. Alabama is the first state to approve the Bible Literacy Project’s textbook, The Bible and its Influence, as part of its state curriculum.

Sheila Weber, Vice President of Communications for BLP, told WoW the BLP created the textbook “to give school boards a greater level of confidence, so they could see exactly how the subject matter was being presented.” The Bible and its Influence takes a non-devotional, academic approach to studying the Bible. It walks students through the Old and New Testaments, with side explorations of topics like “Milton and the Bible,” “Exodus and Emancipation,” and “Freedom and Faith in America.”

Any Bible textbook must walk a shaky wall between church and state. Forty scholars — Catholic, Jewish, Evangelical, mainline Protestant, and Orthodox – reviewed the textbook before publication. The book has won endorsements from evangelicals like Chuck Colson, Vonnie Bright from Campus Crusade for Christ and Jamie Crouse from Concerned Women for America. TIME Magazine has also praised it, and Charles Haynes, senior scholar with the First Amendment Center, reviewed and endorsed it.

According to San Diego Union Tribune, Barry Lynn of Americans United for the Separation of Church called the textbook one-sided: “To teach religion objectively, you really have to teach the good, the bad and the ugly and this book only teaches the good.” The book’s introduction tells students, “You will not be pressed into accepting religion. You will study about religion as presented in the Bible, but you will not be engaged in the practice of religion.” Earlier critics pointed to factual errors in the textbook, but a second printing has addressed concerns.

Only 8 percent of public schools offer an elective course on the Bible. Now that 160 schools have implemented The Bible and its Influence and 2,000 educators are reviewing it, that statistic may change.