Should religious history be in school textbooks?

What are your thoughts of religious history (touching on philosophy, even if not endorsing it) being taught in public schools? Do you think it's a valuable topic to touch on for historic purposes, or should it be altogether left alone?

On one hand, I say that if we can force gay history and black history on students, then why not religious history? On the other hand, I don't think I trust religious history in the hands of proven incompetent and secularly biased teachers.

If you teach the history of one you have to teach the history of all. It would only encourage trouble because the people who adhere fanatically to theirs will just be at odds with each other because everyone believes theirs is the only "right" one. I don't see how that class could possible stay on track. Leave it alone.

I thought they already did. I learned about the Myans, Incas, Aztecs and their societies based on their religous practices. Greek and Roman mythology. Talk about bias. Their beliefs are called "mythology" while the Judeo-Christian based faiths have no more basis in fact.

I think it's only fair, given that they are teaching evolution. I'd love to see a curriculum that would include different world religion, including ancient ones.

You know, this whole teaching different types of history thing has really got me confused. We've got regular, general history that covers both the U.S. and the globe, and we have black history, that's fine, but I gotta ask where is the line drawn? When I was in school we had one history class per grade that taught everything from I don't remember how far back, to the 90s, and it included whites, blacks, Indians, ancient Eygptians, etc. and as for religion, we have separation of church and state which I'm still trying to figure out what the hell it's exactly supposed to be, but in history religion is often discussed and where is it drawn? And considering what IS being taken out of history, it kind of makes you wonder what one day teachers are going to be saying about Joan of Arc because you take out she heard God and talked with the Saints, take out that when she was in prison her biggest torture was being denied Mass, take away when she was burnt at the stake and called out to Jesus in her last moments, what do you have left? A very choppy story, but that seems to be the way history IS today.