-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
Paul Ryan, Republican nominee for Vice President, said he believes that states should have the right to determine if prayer in public schools is allowed. In response to a question from a campaign volunteer, Ryan said that’s “a constitutional issue of the states.” Prayer in public schools is a hot-button issue for religious conservatives. Was Ryan simply pandering to the Republican base or does he truly not support the separation of church and state?
While any student can silently pray during school, that’s not the kind of prayer that the religious right is talking about. They want the kind of prayer that is foisted upon young minds by school authority figures. Those in the classroom are a captive audience, compelled by law to attend.
In the case of Engel v. Vitale (1962), the Supreme Court found that a New York state law, directing a School District’s principal to cause a prayer to be said aloud by each class in the presence of a teacher, was “wholly inconsistent with the Establishment Clause.” The Court noted that the First Amendment was “made applicable to the State of New York by the Fourteenth Amendment of the said Constitution.”
Ryan goes on to say that the decision to say a prayer is the “moral responsibility of parents.” However, a government sponsored prayer violates the very parental responsibility he claims to support. The decision not to say a prayer is also the responsibility of parents. A child should neither be pressured to pray nor pressured not to pray. Religious parents would scream bloody murder if their child was pressured not to pray, but these same parents have no qualms when pressuring other children to pray.
Government sponsored prayer in public schools is a blatant attempt to refresh and reinforce religious beliefs of the children of religious parents and indoctrinate the children of parents who have different beliefs.
H/T: Steve M., New York Times, Americans United.
Hubert,
I thank your parents who gave you that name. Well chosen, and you confirm it with every word you write.
So you think we need a god to develop a guiding feeling of personal responsibility.
Some one who believes that is beyond the reach of arguments. Untouhable.
Personal responsibility is a human trait selected by millenia of evolutional development and environmental selection of the best development. The trait of personal responsibility seems to be favorable to survival in our societies.
God has nothing demonstrably to do with the matter.
Dan,
The root cause of the whole problem is that people would be reminded of personal responsibility if God is recognized and that things actually matter. Take God out of the equation, and then there isn’t any personal responsibility and there isn’t anything considered higher than the state and federal government. Likewise, there wouldn’t be any consequences for wrongdoings.
“Was Ryan simply pandering to the Republican base or does he truly not support the separation of church and state?”
Separation of church and state has been successfully turned upside down by the anti-God anti Church secular humanists and leftists. The phrase actually isn’t even found in the Constitution.
The original intention was to keep the government out of the affairs of the church. As evidenced by the phrase “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Therefore it would be a state issue.
The special interest groups have been able to actually turn the original intent upside down and suggest that the meaning is to control the church by the government, systematically removing any form of religion in the public arena. To a degree where schools are taking off “Christmas Holiday” from their calendars and using a more politically correct “Winter Break” or something else. Never mind that “CHRISTMAS” is a FEDERAL HOLIDAY. Nevertheless, school systems, citing they don’t have money to fight the ACLU, bend over and grab a jar of Vaseline and change to appease the whims of the ACLU and their ilk.
If the prayer is so important, why don’t local pastors come to the public sidewalk by the schools to lead kids in prayer who’s parents want them to? How come I never see that? If fact, many schools have a church very nearby, they could meet there before school for prayer…again why is that not happening? I think most of us know the answer.
Dan,
Public schools are government institutions and are not allowed by the Constitution to promote one religion over another.
Any prayer is bias for one religion and against others. Prayer in and of itself is a bias against those who don’t pray. Prayer conducted by an agent of the state, the teacher, is unconstitutional.
No one has suggested that students can’t say a silent prayer whenever they feel the need.
There was a big push in the 1950s to put in God in the government. This is when the motto In God We Trust was adopted and put on money. It’s when “under God” was added to the pledge of allegiance. I believe it’s also when the Lord’s prayer was added to the morning rituals in the schools.
Dan,
Why were black people forced to use separate bathrooms and drinking fountains, and ride in special sections in public conveyances, in the South, before the 1960s? White supremacy.
Why were prayers allowed in public schools before the 1960s? Deist, usually Christian, supremacy.
It’s disregard of human rights by the majority, in both cases.
I still do not understand what the big deal is when it comes to prayer in public schools. I do understand that people that are atheist or agnostic or of a religion that frowns upon praying with others not associated with their religion would feel alienated by public school prayer. But this whole concept of separation of church and state to ban prayer in public schools is a modern construction. Why were public schools allowed to require prayer before the 1960s. Didn’t they know about the separation of church and state then?
Dan,
Why weren’t women allowed to vote? Why were black people not allowed to sit in front of the bus?
In case you do not know, this is NOT a Christian nation nor a nation built on any other particular religion just in case if you have been brainwashed by some one-eyed King in your blind ilk.
As mentioned in the other post by me, a prayer has no place anywhere. It is meaningless, full of me-ism and a blatant bribery to which ever deity you may worship.
Ryan looks sorta like Afred E. Newman. Cheers big ears!
No surprise, they want to take women back to the 1950’s so why not the whole country?
James in LA
1, September 8, 2012 at 10:19 am
Does Paul Ryan understand he has been set up to take all the blame?
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that’s pretty much the job description for vice pres
707
sen-sen – little black things with a very strong anise flavor. are they still available?
Elsie,
I have only been in a Catholic church once, when my youngest sister got married. I told the Father that he did a good job, but he just passed it off.
There is no crying in baseball.
Matt,
Thanks for the link. Should spend more time at Wiki’sa and less here.
I’ve heard that Salk who made the polio vaccine did his testing unethically (alleged) in Africa.
Hi Matt,
I think you may have missed the irony in my comment. When you get to know me better, you will realize that I am a recovering Catholic and that I find reading anything about Catholicism torturous. Let me redefine this: I truly and honestly dislike the leaders of the Catholic church. As one of my Kindergarten girls once told a boy in class who was trying to bully her with a lecture: “You are not the boss of me.” As a matter of fact, neither is any other man, religious or not! Cheers!
ID707,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentation_in_the_United_States
Now I know what Sen-Sen means. I got the information from Wikipedia again.
Matt,
Hope you are not serious about converts/traitors. Any risk? Some do, sure. Some guys go nuts and do other things. That is why we have cops,etc. The guy in Yemen was one. And he got his, sadly his son did too.
But as the guys in the helicopter said about the guy in his van with his kids who they shot up because
he stopped the van and tried to help a wounded guy.
They said, “shouldn’t have your kids here”. As though when he was taking his daughters to grandma’s he knew that he would find a victim wounded by a ‘copter.
Of course the comparison is not correct. The guy in Yemen knew he was a hunted man.
I asked not for research but to see if anyone had personal knowledge of what it meant.
And Sen-Sen was a common bad breath coverup in the ’50s.
Of course you are correct that this is extremely divisive subject. Are they allowed to have a mosque so near our schools. What if our kids should go in and be converted. The Horror, the horror.
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The problem is if you have an American who converts and becomes a traitor. That’s a problem.
idealist707 1, September 8, 2012 at 3:23 pm
Matt,
LOL for lots you write. It was not the drinkin’,it was the Sen-Sen he chewed. Do you even know what it is? And don’t go peeking in Wikipedia this time, that’s cheating.
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I don’t need to peek into Wikipedia and that’s not cheating, it’s called research. I don’t know what Sen_Sen is. Do your own Wikipedia research.
PS to BK,
I’ll betcha if they had visited a RCC or evangelical church, that they would have been offered to pray with the priest/minister.
Personally I’m all for living. Even the dangerous kind
BettyKath,
“It was unwise for the boys to be invited to pray. The school should make sure it doesn’t happen again. If the boys want to pray to allah, they can return on their own.”
You can watch people have sex, but if you feel any urges, then take care of it at home. Where does the line go between appreciation, education, experiencing, hands on exercise.
Of course you are correct that this is extremely divisive subject. Are they allowed to have a mosque so near our schools. What if our kids should go in and be converted. The Horror, the horror.