PRAYER IN SCHOOLS

I have three questions for our good forum posters.

1. Have any of you ever had your life drastically changed for the worse because you were subjected to a prayer while you were in school? Do you know, or have you ever even heard of a person whom this might apply to? If so, how was their life changed, how bad did it get, and how do they know it can be attributed directly to being forced to listen to a prayer in a public school?

2. If there are 1000 students in the senior class of the local high school, and 2 of them are offended by a prayer that is held every morning in the classroom, is it right to deny the other 998 the prayer, simply because it offends the 2?

3. What about the rights of the 998. Who stands up for them and brings the lawsuit into the courts that allows them to continue to pray each morning?

BTW, I've never found one single person who can prove that a prayer in a public altered their lives for the worse forever, so I'm just really wanting to hear that story.

Part Two.

If not even one single kid has ever been actually harmed by prayer in a public school, why have we allowed one faction of society, and a minor faction at that, to dictate policy to all of the rest of us?

Because we are nuts.

No one should be forced to pray nor should anyone not be allowed to pray.

Alice wrote:

No one should be forced to pray nor should anyone not be allowed to pray.

I agree, Alice, but I am in favor of teacher led morning prayer in school and at sporting events. I have never known, or known of, anyone who was actually harmed by school prayer, and I think the two or three who don't like should just do as kids did for generations. Sit there, listen, and be respectful. The prayer is not going to harm the little easily offended darlings.

I concur.

Orange was not a bad place to grow up. A lot of that had to do with it being more culturally diverse than many smaller Texas communities, and overt bigotry was not considered OK. I'm not saying it didn't happen, just that there were more people around who felt it was wrong than there were who felt it was OK. We were, for instance, one of the first, if not the very first (I'm getting old. I don't always remember stuff correctly) to voluntarily comply with the Supreme Court desegregation rulings. Nearly everybody in the community realized it was a good thing and worked hard to make it work. It wasn't perfect, but it came about much easier there than in some of the surrounding communities.

Of course, the African-American community there was probably 100% Christian, so school prayer wasn't one of the obstacles that had to be dealt with.

Our Jewish community was not large - quite a few more than 2 per 1000, but not large enough to support a synagogue. If a member of the Jewish faith wanted to attend services, s/he would have to drive to either Beaumont or Port Arthur. There were several Jewish families in my neighborhood, and our parents were close friends. I learned a lot about Jewish customs listening to coffee conversations that went on around my mom's kitchen table. I don't know of any Muslim or Buddhist families there. There was a very large family of full-blood Cherokee, the Tiger family. They were Presbyterians. I know because I was a Presbyterian, too. I didn't know until much later that when they first arrived in town, during the 1930's, a petition was drawn up by some members of the congregation, to prevent them from even attending, much less being members, but it was voted down. From as far back as I can remember, Abe Tiger, the family patriarch, was an Elder in the church.

So, I guess if anyone might have objected, it would have come from members of the Jewish faith. I would have said the Jewish Community, but there wasn't such a thing. We were all part of one community.

When I was in high school, I was invited to participate in the Neches River Festival in a close-by little city. It was during that time that I learned that anti-semitism was still a real and viable thing. One of the young men that I met, and dated, would tease me by calling me Levinstein. I didn't get it. I didn't know that I was supposed to be insulted. I met this really gorgeous, super guy, and asked some of the girls from the city who were helping me to meet people to introduce us. They were shocked. "Ann," they whispered, "He's a Jew!" I still didn't get it. My brother's first girlfriend happened to be Jewish. Her mother laughed to mine that Bonnie asked her mother if, should she and Bill marry, it would be possible for their children to have his "heavenly green eyes."

Not long after my divorce, I went to a party in that city, and one of the other guests was that same boy I had been so infatuated with back in high school. He, by the time I re-met him was an extremely successful businessman, but his high school experiences were still quite raw, as was true, I learned of the rest of that city's "Jewish Community."

As I wrote earlier, I don't know of a place where only two out of a thousand were members of a different religion, but I do know of areas where such people are told, basically, "You don't count." And I know that the pain of it lasts for decades afterward.

My question is this: If one person in a group of say, a thousand, is rejected when they say they are harmed by an activity, how "religious" is it to continue the act? Does the prayer, if that is the activity, really help those who are praying? Would a loving God approve?

And what about the ancestors of that 998? The ones who came here to avoid being persecuted for wanting to pray their own prayers in their own way? The ones who made the separation of church and state a law?

Just me.

Ann

Those who want to pray should be premitted to pray, but prayer should never be manditory in public schools. Mandating prayer in public schools would constitute nothing less than government sponsorship of religion and would be a direct violation of separation of church and state. Religion should be an individual's personal business, not something endorced by government, public schools, ect. Public schools, government, and like institutions should be secular. Having a public school endorce prayer would mean having the school endorce one particular belief system over another and that should not be the role of the school system.

I spoke too quickly. Why pray our loud at school?
Most kids are not dying for want of a prayer. What if the teacher does not want to pray?

Pray at home at church and quietly at school.
Should not be an issue.

I agree with E.Don's desire to pray but recognize that some Buddist his same age might be terribly offended by it.

I respect all religions and lack of religions.

If 998 want a teacher led prayer, and 2 object to it, I'm not overly concerned about how those 2 feel about it. Their feelings may be hurt, but if the prayer is discontinued, the feelings of the 998 might be hurt. Are the feelings of the 2 more important? I fail to see what good it does for any of the 1000, the 998 or the 2, to give in to 2 people at the expense of 998.

However, that is only part of what I asked. Ann and Gordon, please tell us your story of the person you know who was damaged for the rest of his or her life, and in a really terrible way that led to a life of crime or to drug addiction, or to something equally as bad, because they were forced to listen to a prayer in school.

What I want to know is how much true damage public prayer in school has led to, and whether or not it has really turned some kid from a fun loving youngster into a monster who has lived a life of crime and degradation.

I would think that unless it was doing irreparable damage to a bunch of our children, there is no need to give in to 2 people and disregard the rights of 998.

BTW, I don't respect anything that imposes the will of a few people on us all, to the detriment of the rest of us.

I am not arguing here and am not answering E. Don's question, but here is what happened.

The New York Board of Regents had previously instituted the following twenty-two-word prayer for classrooms:
“Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our country. Amen.”
Concerns over this prayer were brought to the Supreme Court, which on June 25, 1962 handed down a decision in a six to one ruling that the reading of the above prayer in New York public schools was unconstitutional. The decision brought about heated debate and some state governors supported a Constitutional amendment declaring religious observances possible in public schools.

Tonight is not a good night for me and I do not believe anyone was harmed. It was the Supreme Court's decision. I believe in the separation of church and state. I am a Christian.

Carol

Ann, is it more to your liking to tell 2 people that they don't count, or to tell 998 the same thing. If you allow the feelings of the 2 or take precedent over the feelings of the 998, who have you served? Only the 2. Does not the feelings of the 998 mean as much as the feelings of the 2? The problem is that when you disallow prayer in school, you are allowing the 2 to dictate to the 998, and what is right about that?

Gordon, have you been damaged to the point that your life has been ruined by a teacher led prayer in school?

Don,
Gordon's comments make good sense. It's not a question of anyone being damaged by a prayer. A prayer is simply words. Without faith in the words spoken, they are meaningless and harmless. Conducting a mandatory religious ritual is the argument.
When I was a kid in school, we pledged allegiance to the flag and said the Lord's prayer every morning. It was a formality and we said it hurriedly and in rote monotone to get it over with. No harm done and no known benefit.
Each morning before we went to school, my mother read the bible and we all knelt for prayer. Our morning devotions were private.
School is for learning. Religious philosophy is a school subject. Being compelled to perform a ritual, meaningless and offensive to many, is the subject in question. The religious diversity in our society has changed. What hasn't changed is the fact that we're all Americans. Pledging allegiance to the flag is proper. Allegiance to a specific religion in the form of a prayer, is not.

Abe, were you damaged beyond the point of no return by the prayer and the pledge that you listened to every morning? I'm trying to find someone who was actually hurt by the process, and I'm having a bit of trouble doing so. I'm not much into the hurt feelings thing, because I think most of the time that is a ploy used by a few to force their way of thinking and doing things on the many.

So, did you suffer inrreparable damage, or do you know someone who did?

I still feel very strongly that if no one has been actually hurt by a school prayer, then no harm as been done.

Why is is ok for the few to force their ways upon the many?

Don,
You are insisting on a yes or no answer of being harmed by school prayer. To my knowledge, I don’t know of anyone who was harmed nor do I know of anyone who was helped by it. Schools are for learning. What is learned by being compelled to recite a meaningless or harmless script? Do you know of anyone who has benefited from it? Where are the statistics? What’s the point in doing something meaningless in a school of learning?

E. Don, I guess part of my problem with the question is that I've never been in a situation where only two out of a thousand were involved. It's difficult for me to think in terms of such an extreme disparity. The minorities I've known of, those who have a voice, constitute a much larger percentage.

Right now, all I can think of is how lost those two kids must be feeling, surrounded by what seems to me a lot more hostility than love coming from people who are claiming a special relationship with a God who would require them to allow those two children to be left out of the group because they are different.

The young man in my last comment, the one who grew up to be a successful businessman, was successful because he was driven by his aggression to prove he was not only as good as, but even better than, those who had discounted and ridiculed him when he was young. He was also a very bitter individual.

You seem to me to be focusing on extremes: 2 out of 998, a life of depravity and crime as the only result that might matter enough to make a difference.

In a situation where only two of a thousand were involved, those two would not have a voice.

I mentioned in my earlier comment that our school in my home town integrated smoothly, and it did, relatively speaking, especially during the first few years, when the numbers of students entering the system were smaller. Over time, with larger numbers, the newer students became more vocal about circumstances that were difficult for them. Back when I had been a student at the school, several years before integration, the class I was in started a "new tradition." One night during a football game that we were losing, the band started playing "Dixie" and hearing the song gave the team players a burst of energy that led to our team winning the game. A group of us got together and made up new lyrics to go with the music, turning it, we believed at the time, into a local school thing that was completely unrelated to any older uses of that particular composition. By the time integration actually started, The new song and music had replaced the older one as the "official" fight song. During the first years after, nothing was said and the song continued. It took some brave kids to finally say, Hey, this composition has a history for us that is hurtful, and we wish it would stop. the school became split and divisions occurred, and what had been a peaceful period of change threatened to erupt into something ugly. What stopped it was a letter to the school board from the white players on the team, asking that the song not be played at the games. These boys wanted to focus on team spirit and winning ball games, and did not want the other members of the team to be hurt. The song stopped, and many of the students realized what had been happening and apologized.

I realize I still have not answered the question you asked. Right now, in my own life, I'm feeling a lot like those outsiders whose feelings didn't count to the rest of the group, so I felt someone had to stand up for them.

I'm done now.

Ann

I don't even think there was anything wrong with the prayer in the New York schools or that it would have harmed anyone. What our founding fathers were trying to do was recognize a higher power while avoiding the religious mistakes of the past, to keep this country from the extremes of religious zeal that have brought whole nations down throughout the world's history and killed millions of people. Even when we were colonies, "witches" were burned at the stake, and people were imprisoned for disobeying rules of various religions. Today of concern are the schools in the Middle East that teach extreme religious principles and jihadism, that are raising a whole new generation of terrorists. Unless we can come to some understanding, realize there really is one God, one truth where we all have a piece of understanding, a God who really doesn't want us to hate each other because of him, but to love each other, we will never progress.

I like this part of our constitution. I like being able to be whatever religion I care to be, and not have a religion imposed upon me.

It is our system of checks and balances we see here. My youngest children went to a Catholic School. They had prayer everyday and mass once a week. My youngest daughter is a music minister and music teacher in the schools. That is all right as those who go to the school are there because of their parents' choices. It is a loving place.

Prayers are not harmful when they come from people's hearts and souls. In fact, I could use a few to help me get through the tests I have today.

Carol

Sending one your way, Carol.

Ann, you're talking racism and intergration, I'm talking prayer in schools. You're also concentrating on a number (998 vs 2) that is meaningless, and one that I only chose as an example. What if the actual numbers were 100 class members, with 51 wanting prayer and 49 being against it? Why should the 49 get their rights seen to, while the 51 had to see theirs taken away? BTW, I see no harm in playing Dixie at a school rally, complete with the original words.

Abe, over the years we have all heard thousands of stories from people both small and famous, that tell how the power of prayer has helped them. These stories are well documented and can be found simply by doing a search on the subject.

What I am hearing here is that none of you have had a school prayer ruin your life, and you don't know of a single person that this has happened to. And so far, other than Ann saying that she thought some of the kids were made to feel that they didn't count, nobody has mentioned any harm that a school prayer actually does. Even in Ann's "kids don't count" story, one of them took what he felt was wrong and used it as his impetus to become a wealthy and successful businessman, so instead of hurting him, one might argue that it helped him.

Once again, I see no reason why a handful of kids (usually it more the parents that it is the kids) who don't want prayer in school should have their rights observed while many more see their rights denied.

Do any of you care about the rights of the kids who are denied the benefits they think they would get from a teacher led prayer?

Carol, I think your words are very good on this topic.

11/2/2009

I remember in 1956 when I was in the 1st
grade they still had prayers in school...It
didn't hurt me. Matter of fact I had to go to
religious instructions every Wed. at 2:00Pm
St. Gabriels, my Mother told me when I turned
18 then I could make my own decisions. I think
it's important for children to have some kind of
religious training.....Oh yes the prayer in school
in Public School in 1956 was Brooklyn, NY..

Cheers...Joe

Quote :

Prayers are not harmful when they come from people's hearts and souls.
In fact, I could use a few to help me get through the tests I have
today.

Carol

You're getting them, Carol.

Ann

Don, no one can stop a person from praying anywhere, anytime. The issue you raised concerns a mass, organized prayer led by a teacher. No one could possibly answer your question about creating monsters.
There was no prayer in the school I attended in Akron. What would it have been, a Christian prayer, a Jewish prayer, a muslim prayer, a hindu prayer? We had them all in the class of 44.
Organized prayer was for home, church, synagogue, temple, whatever. No one was allowed to get out a pryer rug and face Mecca or perform any of the other rituals that are everyday experiences for many.
It's not a simple thing, Don. There are schools in Western Ohio that for decades haven't had a student who was not a Roman Catholic. If a Baptist moved into one of those districts, what then if organized prayer or religious service was allowed?

Carol,

You are in my prayers.


E.Don,
I can see ypur point. if I were in the minority, 2 versus 998, I would not be offended--I would say, " The majority rules."
However,
How many children are broken-hearted that they don't have prayer at school?
Not one murderer has claimed his life of crime began when the schools quit praying.