Last night as I was getting dinner ready to serve, I turned around and sneezed (away from the food. You’re welcome.)

“GOD bless you,” TheKid said to me. Then he continued, “Some of my friends have this teacher who’s an atheist, and they’re not allowed to say ‘God bless you’ in class when someone sneezes.”

Apparently any mention of the word “God” in this classroom makes the teacher upset.

“Are there consequences?” I wondered.

“Well, I know the teacher yells at them. So they say the ‘God’ part really loud. Like this: GOD bless you,” TheKid told me.

If the only thing that’s happening when the students mention God in class is that the teacher yells at them, then it’s a good thing that this is one ineffective teacher.

But what happens when an effective teacher, an influential teacher, decides that it’s OK to deny students the right to mention the word “God” when someone sneezes?

What happens when the school administration supports some teacher’s (or student’s) “right” not to have to even hear mention of the word “God”?

Are we really to believe that, for atheist teachers in public schools, the word “God” requires a trigger warning?

And are the students’ parents good with this? Or don’t they know that, for 45 minutes per day, one person’s desire not to hear a certain word mentioned trumps the free-speech rights of 25 others?

Image credit: Pixabay, CC0 Public Domain. Modified in Canva by the author.