-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.
idealist707,
Thank you for the clarification. That is a very prolonged stutter.
I still don’t understand artiewhitefox’s last post, but that’s my failing. I need subject, verb, and object, and some sort of logical sense.
Tell me, what is wrong with what I wrote? Can you be specific?
Are people blind? State supports holding people in bondage, justifying death. Religion against Jesus talked themselves into to torturing Jesus doing horrific things to him. How in bloody blue blazes can church, and state be separate?
Malisha,
Try holllllllllllllllllllllddddddddddddiiiiiiiiinnnnnngggg
down the keys.
That should be like drawing your nails over a blackboard. Does it hurt?
Bob Kauten,
He has just now, see three dupe comments at:
http://jonathanturley.org/2012/09/08/muslim-cleric-arrested-for-framing-christian-girl/#comment-416758
How does he do it? First he makes a single copy on one, and the next one comes in triplicate.
Dan, it doesn’t matter if it is a “modern” conception.
Things have changed from 1776. There are a lot of modern conceptions. The fact is the separation of church and state is not a “concept”. It is a constitutional right. The school can not promote one religion or another.
Are people blind? State supports holding people in bondage, justifying death. Religion against Jesus talked themselves into to torturing Jesus doing horrific things to him. How in bloody blue blazes can church, and state be separate?
I can s s s st sttt I can stt sttttuh I ca-cannn stutter imp imp…in print!
What an extraordinary conversation.
Artiewhitefox used to stutter? In print?
ArtieWhiteFox,
I see you have stopped stuttering. Can you come and help me with my computer also?
I don’t think you understand what I said. I guess the preacher word activated you.
The whole is based on my tale of an evangelical family I followed to church two Sundays. The father ate Sen-Sen. It smells bad. And preachers often used it. Someone then said that they had found some and liked it. Thus my comments. No judgements of right or wrong is intended.
Hope this helps.
I did not stutter in print. That has to be done on porpoise I mean purpose.
AHHHH now I see the preacher raising a stink no matter what.
Do you remember what your mom said after you ate it?
Were you a child preacher? How come you are so short and I am so long? Does God decide?
BettyKath,
Never tasted it. The stink appalled me. But then I don’t like licorice. Lady and dsughter sat next to me at busstop. Lady eating long strings of licorice. Gave some to daughter. Daughter said yech. Said to woman that my wife liked livorice, but not I. She claimed it was a woman thing. That women do usually. ???? The daughter, pre-pubertal, did not like it.
??????
Denis,
Did you see that one of our christian adherents has quoted the whole sequence of praying in your closet and not on the streetcorners, etc.
Doing as you preach and not just preaching is the hard part..
If the stature of a Person determined goodness tall people would be good short bad.That is not the case..
idealist707;Jesus said feed my sheep. To pray like people usually pray boosts the ego. To not let anyone know is humbling.
Good people will be produced. Prayer is a state of mind. Don’t pray, and be out of your mind. Prayer is like the air ever present around you. Don’t pray, and be in a spiritual vacuum.
Matt,
You get hungry at night and sleep walk. Odd that your mewing does not wake you up. Are your whiskers growing long too?
One of my sisters stabbed a wasp in the back with a needle because she needed to do that for a science project, One of the girls I went to school with in junior high didn’t have any problem cutting the frogs apart.
I’ll check the tuna can at daylight.
.
707,
sen-sen. Not sure how old I was. Probably less than 10. Found a small box of it at home, not sure where. I said anise, but it may have been licorice. The taste was very strong. I liked it.
Not only is religion is a PERSONAL thing between a person and his / her own god, but for christians, PUBLIC prayer is actually against their own doctrine ! The bible considers it HYPOCRISY !
Why dont they stay at home and study their bibles instead of trying to foist upon others, their misunderstandings of their own religion ?
Frankly,
as a young kid I learned to run pretty fast to avoid some of those altercations! I did learn that it is harder to run in the hallway of the highschool when a bully already had his hands on me.
I put out another can of tuna. I’ll wait to see if it’s empty in the morning.
idealist707 1, September 9, 2012 at 5:52 pm
Blouise,
Allow me to use your joke:
White man speak with phucked forked brains.
We do have two brain halves, but I don’t that is the problem.
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ID707,
Are you thinking? You have to understand what you’re dealing with.
Mike Spindell 1, September 9, 2012 at 2:13 pm
Ryan is little more than a sociopathic whore.
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Must agree.
Elsie DL 1, September 9, 2012 at 1:15 pm
Will I, as an atheist teacher, be required to supervise students during their prayer time? Do the atheist students get to go out and play soccer with me instead?
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They’ll get beat up, and so will you.