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Human Rights  » School Prayer, Right Or Wrong

School Prayer, Right Or Wrong

In the Bill Of Rights, the First Amendment to the Constitution,

titled "Freedom of Religion, Press, Expression" states the

following: "Congress shall make no law respecting an

establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise

thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or

the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition

the Government for a redress of grievances.".

Now, I am not an attorney nor am I a legal scholar, and I

realize that the courts have interpreted the foregoing in

numerous ways, however, I also realize that how the Amendment is

interpreted depends on which judge is sitting on the bench at

the time a case is heard and just because a person is a judge

does not mean that that person is infallible and it does not

mean that that person does not have his or her own agenda.

Judges are, after all, still human.

In my opinion, having organized prayer in school is not "an

establishment of religion", but is instead the carrying out of

the will of the majority of the people in this nation. I further

believe that to forbid school prayer is "prohibiting the free

exercise thereof". It is also "abridging the freedom of speech"

of the majority. This nation is supposed to be a Republican

Democracy where the will of the majority of it's citizens is

supposed to rule. As far as I can determin, the majority of the

citizens in this country believe in prayer, of one type or

another, and only a small minority, comprised of certain

athiests, far left politicians, "Hollywood celebrities", etc.,

are against prayer. To allow this small minority to override the

will of the majority is wrong. To allow this small, very loud,

very activist, very well financed minority to take away the

right of the 'silent' majority, to pray as they wish, is to

allow them to corrupt our system and to take away freedom of

religion from our citizens. I realize that our citizens can

still pray at home and in church, however, public schools are

paid for with public tax dollars, and as long as the majority of

tax payers want school prayer then they should have school

prayer.

When a teacher leads a class in prayer, no one is forced to

pray. Some people claim that when a child does not join in the

praying, that child may be embarrassed or ridiculed by the

teacher or other students, therefore they claim that class

prayer is harmful. I disagree. No good teacher would criticize a

student for not praying. If a teacher does so then that teacher

should be reprimanded or dismissed because that teacher is not

worthy of being a teacher. If some students ridicule a non

praying student then those students have not been taught

properly about the rights of others and should be corrected. For

my own reasons, I never prayed during class prayer and no one

ever said anything to me. I was never ridiculed or critcized. I

knew others that did not pray and to the best of my knowledge

they never had any problems, except that some of their parents

embarrassed them by complaining to the school. It seems that

while the non praying students did not mind school prayer, their

parents did.

The majority of Americans find hope and comfort in prayer. To

deny them the right to pray because a small minority does not

approve, is just plain wrong. I realize that in a small number

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of cases some children do have problems with school prayer, but

to deny the large majority of students the hope and comfort of

starting their school day off with a prayer is to stomp on their

rights. To deny the majority their religious freedom goes

against what this country stands for.

One of the most important things about attending school is that

children learn how to deal with other people. All kinds of

things go on in school that affect or bother various students.

They can not and should not be protected from everthing that

they don't like. Some children are embarrassed by going to

physical education class, should we then take physical education

off the curriculum? Some children are bothered by certain things

taught in history class, should we then take history off the

curriculum? Some children are embarrassed because they are not

good at math, should we then take math off the curriculum? If we

took everything off the curriculum that might embarrass or

bother a student there would no longer be any schools. If we

protected the students from everthing that bothered them then

they would not learn how to cope with problems and would not be

able to function as adults.

In my opinion, forbidding school prayer is just another case of

'political correctness' gone overboard.

About the author:

David G. Hallstrom, Sr. is a retired

private investigator and currently publishes several internet

directories including http://www.resourcesforattorneys.com a

legal and lifestyle resources directory for attorneys, lawyers

and the internet public. For more lifestyle