Written by Don Byrd
You may have heard, the yoga wars are heating up. A lawsuit filed in California is challenging a school district’s use of yoga in the physical education curriculum, arguing that it improperly promotes a religious view. Meanwhile, the White House is taking criticism for its encouragement of yoga as a means of promoting health.
In the San Diego Union Tribune, Philosophy professor Bruce Thompson offers his perspective. While I disagree with his views on prayer (he doesn’t like it), his formulation of the problem is helpful. Simply put, yoga is a religious exercise for some, but not for many others.
Some Hindus practice the physical exercises that in the West are called yoga, while other Hindus prefer instead to leave gifts of milk, fruit and flowers at their local temple. Meditation is a yoga. Walking is a yoga. Even breathing is essential to most yogas. If the First Amendment prohibits government sponsorship of any practice that someone in the world considers religious, it would be necessary to prohibit breathing in public schools. This would be absurd. Breathing might be a religious practice for some people, but it has other useful purposes, so people who do not think of it as a religious practice might still wish to engage in it.
So, may schools institute yoga programs? May the White House use the Office of the Presidency to encourage yoga? The best answer might be maybe. It depends.
