Prayer In School, are you against or for prayer in school Options

[chelle]

ok. so i'm doing an english project for school on the oh so controversial topic of prayer in school. and since we LOVE to debate ( ) i was wondering what everyone's stand in this is.

Pro School Prayer Positions:
1)Our Government is based on Religious Principles
2)The Free Exercise Clause Protects School Prayer
3)Banning School Prayer Leads to Moral Decline
4)Majority Should Rule

Anti School Prayer Positions:
1)State-Sponsored School Prayer is Unconstitutional
2)Prayer in School is Already Legal
3)State-Sponsored Prayer Will Lead to Religious Intolerance
4)Moral Decline and School Prayer are Unrelated
TO SEE THESE ARGUMENTS IN DEPTH GO HERE


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i am against school prayer. big surprise. lol. public schools exist to educate, not to proselytize. children in public schools are a captive audience. making prayer an official part of the school day is coercive and invasive. what 5, 8, or 10-year-old could view prayers recited as part of class routine as "voluntary"? religion is private, and schools are public, so it is appropriate that the two should not mix. our schools are for all children, whether catholic, baptist, quaker, atheist, buddhist, wiccan, jewish, agnostic. the schools are supported by all taxpayers, and therefore should be free of religious observances and coercion. when religion has invaded our public school system, it has singled out the lone jewish student, the children in the minority. families who protest state/church violations in our public schools invariably experience persecution. it was common prior to the court decision against school prayer to put non-religious or nonorthodox children in places of detention during bible-reading or prayer recitation. the children of supreme court plaintiffs against religion in schools were beaten up on the way to and from school, their families subjected to community harassment and death threats for speaking out in defense of a constitutional right. we know from history how harmful and destructive religion is in our public schools. individual, silent, personal prayer never has and never could be outlawed in public schools. it is coercive for schools to schedule worship as an official part of the schoo day, school sports or activities, or to use prayer to formalize graduation ceremonies. such prayers are more "mandatory" than "voluntary." the radical school prayer amendment would negate the first amendment's guarantee against government establishment of religion. most distressing, it would be at the expense of the civil rights of children, america's most vulnerable class. it would attack the heart of the bill of rights, which safeguards the rights of the individual from the tyranny of the majority. those in the minority would be compelled to conform to a religion or ritual n which they disbelieve, to suffer the humiliation and imposition of submitting to a daily religious exercise against their will, or be singled out by orthodox classmates and teachers as "heretics" or "sinners" for not participating. should the government become "prayer police"? the school prayer debate seems calculated to deflect attention away from the more pressing economic questions facing our nation. some politicians like to blame everything bad in america upon the absence of school prayer. it is a quick fix. it is irrational to charge that the complicated sociological problems facing our everchanging population stem from lack of prayer in schools. our political system is a democratic republic in which we use majority vote to elect certain officials or pass laws. but, we do not use majority vote to decide what religion, if any, our neighbors must follow. imposing prayer-by-majority-vote is flagrant and insensitive abuse of school authority. such schools should be teaching students about the purpose of the bill of rights, instead of teaching them to be religious bullies.

[Dr3aMeR]

I SAY YES. WE NEED PRAYER AT SCHOOLS.

this country was made on the principles of christianity and we should always have stuck my them. sometimes i wish i could go back in time to the Constitutional COnvention of 1787 and make the founding fathers be more specific cause i hate it that people say the constitution says its wrong. "separation of church and state" haha. dumb people who use that as an excuse. the people who made the constituion were christians in one denomination or another...they would have been okay with that fact that there are different types of christianity HOWEVER they would not have been okay with other religions especially taking PRAYER out of SCHOOLS. they might have let the other religions be free to worship on their own but i hardly doubt that they would have wanted prayer out of schools. this country needs to go back to its christian roots.. im tired of people who try to do otherwise

ALSO WHEN they wrote separation of church and state they meant it in the point that the government couldn't stop a form of the Christian denomination. they probably would want them to stop the weird religions that has come into this country.

I mean seriously. if they truly truly wanted separation of church and state and took that literally as some dumb puck holes do now why did they still allow school prayers to go on

dunno know for sure but you ever think of why the Kennedy family has no heir now...ever think about which president was in office when the decision came to stop school prayers...it should make you think

so that is my topic...about the fact what has heppened to the kennedy family in realation cause there is already a topic for school prayer

[*mipadi*]

this country was made on the principles of christianity and we should always have stuck my them.  sometimes i wish i could go back in time to the Constitutional COnvention of 1787 and make the founding fathers be more specific cause i hate it that people say the constitution says its wrong.  "separation of church and state" haha. dumb people who use that as an excuse.  the people who made the constituion were christians in one denomination or another...they would have been okay with that fact that there are different types of christianity HOWEVER they would not have been okay with other religions especially taking PRAYER out of SCHOOLS.  they might have let the other religions be free to worship on their own but i hardly doubt that they would have wanted prayer out of schools.  this country needs to go back to its christian roots.. im tired of people who try to do otherwise

ALSO WHEN they wrote separation of church and state they meant it in the point that the government couldn't stop a form of the Christian denomination.  they probably would want them to stop the weird religions that has come into this country.

I don't think that's an accurate depiction of our Founding Fathers at all. Keep in mind that many of the first colonists were fleeing religious persecution at home. Pennsylvania, the second state to ratify the Constitution, was created by Quakers who were fleeing religious persecution. The first Pilgrims in the Mayflower were fleeing religious persecution as well. So no, the Founding Fathers were not thinking only of Christianity when they wrote the Constitution. The fact that most of them (not all, mind you) were Christians does not mean that they were militant Christians who wished to remove every other religious order from the face of the earth. Remember, too, that this was shortly after the Enlightenment period, where people were beginning to question religion, or at least believe more in science. Not all the framers were hardcore Christians. Some were even atheists (or, at least, doubted some Christian teachings).

This country really doesn't have "Christian roots." Many things in the Constitution are based on Christian principles because that's what many of the authors were raised on, but they did not intend for everyone to be Christian. It's very noble of you to practice your religion, but there's no reason to make the whole country practice it, too.

As far as religion in school goes, it's not "banned"--it's just no longer mandatory. People are free to pray in schools. Many public schools even have (optional) religious groups operate within them. As a non-Christian, I am fine with that. I just don't think prayer should be forced anyway. I'll be quite honest: I have no interest in praying to some abstract concept that I don't really believe exists.