A bill to overturn the ban on yoga in Alabama public schools has stalled in that state’s Senate, meaning that the practice may continue to be illegal in the state, as it has since 1993.
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The reason? A hearing by the state’s Senate Judiciary Committee revealed that two conservative groups objected to the bill, citing concerns about yoga’s ties to Hinduism. That concern isn’t new to Democratic state Representative Jeremy Gray, who introduced HB246 in February in an attempt to lift the ban, but it may be enough to block the path of the Alabama House-approved measure.
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“As far as the hearing, the talking point around Hinduism is the same talking point used in 2019 when I first introduced the bill,” Gray told CBS News.
Gray is a former football player at North Carolina State University, who was introduced to yoga through playing the sport. Gray touts the mental and physical benefits of the practice and is looking to reverse the ban, which was part of a 1993 Alabama Board of Education decision to outlaw hypnosis, meditation, and yoga.
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The text of the ban, according to Insider, says “school personnel shall be prohibited from using any techniques that involve the induction of hypnotic states, guided imagery, meditation or yoga,” and the guideline also specifically bans the use of the word “namaste.”
The current bill is mindful of Alabama’s peculiar sensitivities around yoga-related issues, with language specifying that “all poses shall be limited exclusively to sitting, standing, reclining, twisting, and balancing” and that “all poses, exercises, and stretching techniques shall have exclusively English descriptive names.”
It also states that “chanting, mantras, mudras, use of mandalas, and namaste greetings shall be expressly prohibited.”
Gray disavows the notion that yoga is a slippery slope to Hinduism.
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”This whole notion that if you do yoga, you’ll become Hindu—I’ve been doing yoga for 10 years and I go to church and I’m very much a Christian,” he said, according to The Hill.
But that same publication noted the Becky Gerritson, director of the Eagle Forum of Alabama, criticized the bill during the public hearing.
“If this bill passes,” said the conservative group’s representative, “then instructors will be able to come into classrooms as young as kindergarten and bring these children through guided imagery, which is a spiritual exercise, and it’s outside their parents’ view. And we just believe that this is not appropriate.”
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Namaste? More like nama-stay in the 1950s.
*First Published: April 2, 2021, 5:50 am
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