The Case Against School Prayer
(This brochure was produced by the Freedom From Religion Foundation. In order to combat the growing influence of the Religious Right, this brochure is being mailed to schools, school districts and state Secretaries of Education across the country.)
"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
The "godless" Pledge of Allegiance, as it was recited by generations of school children, before Congress inserted a religious phrase, "under God," in 1954.
Should Students Pray in Public Schools?
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. To introduce
religion in our public schools builds walls between children who
may not have been aware of religious differences before.
Why Should Schools Be Neutral?
Our public schools are for all children, whether Catholic, Baptist, Quaker, atheist, Buddhist, Jewish, agnostic. The schools are supported by all taxpayers, and therefore should be free of religious observances and coercion.
It is the sacred duty of parents and churches to instill religious beliefs, free from government dictation. Institutionalizing prayers in public schools usurps the rights of parents.
School prayer proponents mistake government neutrality toward religion as hostility. The record shows that religious beliefs have flourished in this country not in spite of but because of the constitutional separation of church and state.
What Happens When Worship Enters Public Schools?
When religion has invaded our public school system, it has singled out the lone Jewish student, the class Unitarian or agnostic, the children in the minority.
Families who protest state/ church violations in our public schools invariably experience persecution. It was commonplace prior to the court decision against school prayer to put non-religious or non-orthodox children in places of detention during bible-reading or prayer recitation.
The children of Supreme Court plaintiffs against religion in schools, such as Vashti McCollum, Ed Schempp and Ishmael Jaffree, 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 principle.
We know from history how harmful and destructive religion is in our public schools. In those school districts that do not abide by the law, school children continue to be persecuted today.
Can't Students Pray in Public Schools Now?
Individual, silent, personal prayer never has and never could be outlawed in public schools. The courts have declared government-fostered prayers unconstitutional - those led, required, sanctioned, scheduled or suggested by officials.
It is dishonest to call any prayer "voluntary" that is encouraged or required by a public official or legislature. By definition, if the government suggests that students pray, whether by penning the prayer, asking them to vote whether to pray or setting aside time to pray, it is endorsing and promoting that prayer.
It is coercive for schools to schedule worship as an official part of the school day, school sports or activities, or to use prayer to formalize graduation ceremonies. Such prayers are more "mandatory" than "voluntary."
What's Wrong With A "Voluntary" Prayer Amendment?
Proponents of so-called "voluntary" school prayer amendment are admitting that our secular Constitution prohibits organized prayers in public schools. Otherwise, why would an amendment to our U.S. Constitution be required?
The nation must ask whether politically-motivated New Gingrich & Co. are wiser than James Madison, principal author of the Constitution, and the other founders who engineered the world's oldest and most successful constitution!
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.
What Would the Prayer Amendment Permit?
The text of the proposed federal amendment (as of January, 1995) reads:
"Nothing in this Constitution shall be construed to prohibit individual or group prayer in public schools or other public institutions. No person shall be required by the United States or by any State to participate in prayer. Neither the United States or any State shall compose the words of any prayer to be said in public schools."
Since the right to "individual prayer" already exists, the real motive is to instill "group prayer."
No wording in this amendment would prevent the government from
selecting the prayer, or the particular version of the
bible it should be taken from.
Nothing restricts prayers to "nondenominational"
or "nonsectarian" (not that such a restriction would
make it acceptable).
Nothing would prevent a school from selecting
the Lord's Prayer or other prayers to Jesus, and blasting it over
the intercom.
For that matter, nothing would prevent the school
from sponsoring prayers to Allah or Zoroaster. Nothing would prevent
principals, teachers or clergy from leading the students. Nothing
would prevent nonparticipating students from being singled out.
The proposal also seeks to institutionalize group prayer in other
public settings, presumably public-supported senior centers, courthouses,
etc.
School prayer supporters envision organized, vocal, group recitations
of prayer, daily classroom displays of belief in a deity or religion,
dictated by the majority.
Those in the minority would be compelled
to conform to a religion or ritual in 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.
Haven't Public Schools Always Had Prayer?
At the time the U.S. Supreme Court issued its 1962 and 1963 decrees against school-sponsored prayers and bible-reading, it is estimated religious observances were unknown in about half of the nation's public schools.
Horace Mann, the father of our public school system, championed
the elimination of sectarianism from American schools, largely
accomplished by the 1840's.
Bible reading, prayers or hymns in
public schools were absent from most public schools by the end
of the 19th century, after Catholic or minority-religion immigrants
objected to Protestant bias in public schools.
Until the 20th century, only Massachusetts required bible-readig
in the schools, in a statute passed by the virulently anti-Catholic
Know Nothing Party in the 1850's.
Only after 1913 did eleven other
states make prayers or bible reading compulsory. A number of other
states outlawed such practices by judicial or administrative decree,
and half a dozen state supreme courts overruled devotionals in
pubic schools.
As early as the 1850's, the Superintendent of Schools of New York
State ordered that prayers could no longer be required as part
of public school activities.
The Cincinnati Board of Education
resolved in 1869 that "religious instruction and the reading
of religious books, including the Holy Bible, was prohibited in
the common schools of Cincinnati."
Presidents Ulysses S. Grant and Theodore Roosevelt spoke up for what Roosevelt called "absolutely nonsectarian public schools." Roosevelt added that it is "not our business to have the Protestant Bible or the Catholic Vulgate or the Talmud read in these schools."
For nearly half a century, the United States Supreme Court, consistent with this nation's history of secular schools, has ruled against religious indoctrination through schools (McCollum v. Board of Education, 1948), prayers and devotionals in public schools (Engel v. Vitale, 1962) and prayers and bible-reading (Abington School District v. Schempp, 1963), right up through the 1992 Weisman decision against prayers at public school commencements.
How Can Prayer Be Harmful?
Contrary to right-wing claims, piety is not synonymous with virtue. People should be judged by their actions, not by what religion they believe in or how publicly or loudly they pray.
Some Americans believe in the power of prayer; others believe
nothing fails like prayer. Some citizens say prayer makes them
feel better, but others contend that prayer is counterproductive
to personal responsibility.
Such a diversity of views is constitutionally
protected; our secular government simply is not permitted to pick
a side in religious debates.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray," wrote Robert G. Ingersoll. Who could disagree?
Should Government Become "Prayer Police"?
How ironic that those campaigning on an anti-Big Government theme,
who contend that government should get out of our private lives,
would seek to tell our children who to pray to in our public schools!
As many editorials across the country have pointed out, the school
prayer debate seems calculated to deflect attention away from
the more pressing economic questions facing our nation. As one
conservative governor put it: "If we don't deal with the
economic issues, we'll need more than prayer to solve our problems."
Can't Moral Decline Be Traced to The Prayer Decisions?
Some politicans like to blame everything bad in America upon the
absence of school prayer. Get real! Entire generations of Americans
have grown up to be law-abiding citizens without ever once reciting
a prayer in school!
If prayer is the answer, why are our jails
and prisons bulging with born-agains! Japan, where no one prays
at school, has the lowest crime rate of any developed nation.
Institutionalizing school prayer can not raise the SAT scores (only more studying and less praying can do that). It is irrational to charge that the complicated sociological problems facing our ever changing population stem from a lack of prayer in schools.
One might just as well credit the lack of prayer with the great advances that have taken place since the 1962 and 1963 decisions on prayer. Look at the leap in civil liberties, equality, environmental awareness, women's rights, science, technology and medicine!
The polio scare is over. Fountains, buses, schools are no longer segregated by law. We've made great strides in medical treatment. We have VCRs and the computer chip. The Cold War has ended! Who would turn the clock back?
What About the Rights of the Majority?
Our political system is a democratic republic in which we use
majority vote to elect certain officials or pass referenda. But
we do not use majority vote to decide what religion, if any, our
neighbors must observe!
The "majority" is free to worship
at home, at tax-exempt churches, on the way to and from school,
or privately in school. There arw 16 school-less hours a day when
children can pray, not to mention weekends.
Many in the "majority" do not support school prayers.
And if the majority religion gets to choose which prayers are
said in schools, that would mean a lot of Protestant kids will
be reciting Catholic prayers!
The Roman Catholic Church is the
single largest denomination in our country. Should Protestant
minorities be excused so the classroom can pray in unison to the
Virgin Mary?
In a few school districts, Muslims outnumber other
religions. Should Christian minorities march into the hall with
their ears covered while the principal prays to Allah over the
intercom?
What's Wrong with a Moment of Silence?
Given the regimentation of school children, it would make more
sense to have a "moment of bedlam" than a "moment
of silence"! Obviously, the impetus for "moments of
silence or meditation" is to circumvent the rulings against
religion in schools.
The legislative history of such state laws
reveals the religious motives behind the legislation, as in the
Alabama law struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1985 calling
for a "moment of silence for meditation or prayer."
When a "moment of silence" law was enacted in Arkansas
at the suggestion of then-Gov. Bill Clinton, the law mandating
this meaningless ritual was later repealed following popular indifference.
We know from experience that many teachers and principals would
regard a "moment of silence" mandate as a green light
to introduce prayers, causing more legal challenges at the expense
of taxpayers.
Should Commencements Start With Prayers?
In 1992, the Court ruled in Lee v. Weisman that prayers at public
school commencements are an impermissible establishment of religion:
"The lessons of the First Amendment are as urgent in the
modern world as the 18th Century when it was written.
One timeless
lession is that if citizens are subjected to state-sponsored religious
exercises, the State disavows its own duty to guard and respect
that sphere of inviolable conscience and belief which is the mark
of a free people," wrote Justice Kennedy for the majority.
He dismissed as unacceptable the cruel idea that a student should
forfeit her own graduation in order to be free from such an establishment
of religion.
What About "Student-Initiated" Prayer?
This is a ruse proposed by extremist Christian legal groups such
as the Rutherford Institute, and the American Center for Law and
Justice run by televangelist Pat Robertson.
Religious coercion
is even worse at the hands of another student, subjecting students
to peer pressure, pitting students in the majority against students
in the minority, treating them as outsiders with school complicity.
Imposing prayer-by-majority-vote is a 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.
Some principals or school boards even
have made seniors hold open class votes on whether to pray at
graduation, leading to hostility and reprisal against those students
brave enough to stand up against the First Amendment.
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.
Some principals or school boards even
have made seniors hold open class votes on whether to pray at
graduation, leading to hostility and reprisal against those students
brave enough to stand up for the First Amendment.
"The notion that a person's constitutional rights may be subject to a majority vote is itself anathema," wrote Judge Albert V. Bryan, Jr. in a 1993 ruling in Virginia, one of several similar district court rulings around the nation banning any prayer, whether student- or clergy-led.
We cannot put liberties protected by our Bill of Rights up to
a vote of school children! Should kindergartners be forced about
whether to pray before their milk and cookies?
Under such reasoning,
what would make it wrong for students to vote to segregate schools
or otherwise violate the civil liberties of minorities?
Keep the State and Church Forever Separate
Our founders wisely adopted a secular, godless constitution, the first to derive its powers from "We, the People" and the consent of the governed, rather than claiming divine authority.
They knew from the experience of religious persecution, witchhunts and religious discrimination in the Thirteen Colonies, and from the bloody history left behind in Europe, that the surest path to tyranny was to entangle church and state.
That is why they adopted a secular constitution whose only references to religion are exclusionary, such as that there shall be no religious test for public office (Art. VI).
There were no prayers offered at the Constitutional Convention, which shows their intent to separate religion from secular affairs.
Prayers in schools and religion in government are no panacea for social ills - they are an invitation to divisiveness. More people have been killed in the name of religion than for any other cause.
As Thomas Paine pointed out, "Persecution is not an original feature in any religion; but it is always the strongly marked feature of all religions established by law."
Even Jesus Was Against School Prayer
"Thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men...
"But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret." - Matt. 6:5-6
"There is no such source and cause of strife, quarrel, fights. malignant opposition, persecution, and war, and all evil in the state, as religion. Let it once enter our civil affairs, our government would soon be destroyed. Let it once enter our common schools, they would be destroyed."
- Supreme Court of Wisconsin, Weiss v. District Board, March 18, 1890
"Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and the private school, supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and state forever separate."
- Ulysses S. Grant, "The President's Speech at Des Moines" (1875)
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
- First Amendment, Bill of Rights, U.S. Constitution
Thomas Jefferson, author of the sweeping Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom, stating that no citizen "shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever..." and that to "compell a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of [religious] opinions which he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical."
"I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law `respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between church and state."
- President Thomas Jefferson, 1802 letter to the Baptists of Danbury, Connecticut
To order copies of this brochure, send $3.50 for ten, or $20 for 100, postpaid (WI orders add 5.5% sales tax).
Religion Foundation, Inc., PO Box 750, Madison, WI 53701 (608) 256-8900. Reproduced with permission.
- Religious Themes Mainpage
- 2017 Website Updates & Deletions
- Web Master Homepage
- Bristol, Southwest Virginia Revealed
- Science & Technology
- Hobby Electronics
- US Constitution
- Christianity 101
- Nazi Roots of Multicultural Racism
- Classical Deist' View of Religion
- Humanism
- Thomas Paine
- Anti-Semitism
- Atheism
- Christian Activism
- Christian Militias
- Assorted topics, etc.
- Zoroastrianism, Judaism, etc.
- Why Christian Morals Need to be Rejected
- Hard Look at Jewish Religious Leftism
- Among the Goths and the Jews
- Leftist War Against Jews
- George Soros the Radical Non-Jewish Jew
- Judeo-Christian Violence vs. Islamic Violence
- When Christianity Pushed Back Muslim Attacks
- Islam the Demise of Classical Civilization
- Plato's Trinity
- Why Judaism Is The Key To Deism
- Judaism and politics
- About Jewish proselytizing