This is just bullcrap read what they did in texas?

Question

"legislation designed to give public school students opportunities to express religious viewpoints tentatively cleared the house on monday despite warnings that it will have unintended consequences." "If the Senate approves it, student leaders will be allowed to summon Jesus Christ in prayer to help calm student nerves before a TAKS test(state testing), Rep. Scott Hochberg, D-Houston, said of the hypothetical situation before voting against the measure.
Or, a student leader can call on Allah if he or she is a Muslim. Or, a student leader can tell other students that it's scacrilegious to pray to Jesus for comfort because "Jesus was not the son of God, Jeus was not the messiah," Hochberg told his colleagues, noting some discomfort in their facial reactions.(Hochberg is Jewish)"

"What will you do the first time one of your schools elects a Wiccan for student body president, who insists on ending all her announcements 'Great Mother Godess, take care of our students today."L Burnham

for clarification im a senior in texas, we have a one minute of silence where kids can do whatever they feel necessary religiously as long as it is silent and private, thats fine with me. but when you get people praying over the intercom thats just offensive to me, i don't think they would like it if i went over the intercom and said GOD ISNT REAL YOU ARE ALL IDIOTS because that would be disrespectful. I was somewhat ticked off until i got to that quote of the day from Lon Burnham about the wiccan thing i just sat up and said "oh no he didn't" kids here allready have a christian club, and many bring guitars and sing worship songs every morning. i think its ridiculous to give them anymore ability to discriminate.

Answer 1

Precisely why ALL religion should be kept out of schools.

There wouldn't be an issue if people of SOME religions didn't want to keep grandstanding THEIR beliefs in school. Without those, there wouldn't be a problem with religion in schools.

It would be disruptive to have people loudly praying before a test, but nobody would know if someone was beaming off a silent prayer in their head. So we are definitely talking about vulgar and grandstanding public prayer, right?

Answer 2

Well as a former public school teacher I found that students quite often spontaneously expressed religious viewpoints anyway! They do it at the elementary level too. It is vitally important in a nation that honors "free speech" and "freedom of religion" that students have an opportunity to express their viewpoints in a controlled manner where they are taught how to express their thoughts in a "friendly" manner, without anger or a demand that all follow "the party line". A school which is supposed to be a place of learning should aspire to be an ideal situation for this sharing.

Most viewpoints are inherently judgemental because to attain our "viewpoint" we have made judgements on what we believe to be the best "idea" or "theory" on a subject. This is hard to teach within a family setting since most parents raise up their children to believe certain things from their youngest memories. Look at books such as "Why Mommy is a Democrat" or any collection of Bible stories to see how we all "indoctrinate" our children!

I think the current political climate in our country is so hostile because of the public schools unwillingness to allow any expression of opposing views in schools. People need to learn to listen, respond, and express facts in a polite manner! Any teacher can be trained to conduct productive discussions on oppositional views in a variety of disciplines! I was taught this in my teacher education and it has been invaluable to me as a high school teacher!

Answer 3

I think that there is a very fine line here.

There is a seperation of church and state. Period end of story. If an individual student practives a certain faith it is for them to do as they see fit according to the first ammendment.

However I see a big parential fight ready to break if they allow kids to pray to God in whatever form they call him via the loudspeaker...

This is very sensative ground, but trust me, people in Texas generally think they are better than many others.

How do I know, I used to live in Texas. The Texas flag highs as high as the American Flag because Texas with its own Country.

They even had an outpost in Paris which turned into a BBQ restraunt... shameless...

Answer 4

The problem is the Wiccan will not get elected, and you will end up with a Christian prayer. Were is the ACLU when you need them.

I would hope either the State Court or the Federal Court will overrule this. It is a clear violation of Church and State.

Answer 5

How about this: any student is allowed to pray to him/herself to whomever/whatever they want, or not pray, as that student best sees fit.

Oh...wait...that's what we have now, isn't it?

I actually hope this measure passes. It'll be fought, and, despite the conservative face of the courts, I'm pretty sure it'll be ruled as a violation of the establishment cause. Just because the person formally leading the prayer is a student doesn't mean it isn't a public sponsorship of religion.

Answer 6

If you live in a community where the most popular kid is a loud mouth wicca religious kid, then that will happen. Otherwise a child will never be voted based on their religion, unless its a religous debate. I think this is awesome. I promise that no one in that school will bring in an uzzi and take out 20 students.

Answer 7

I hope the Texas senate will strike this ridiculous bill down.

As a Texan I dont think we need to deal with such a powder keg when we have such a poor track record as it is in the quality of public school education.

Answer 8

I believe that your religious beliefs should be kept private unless someone asks you about them. The fact that they are practically saying it's fine for children to push their beliefs on other students is wrong. I know that as a Christian I wouldn't want my child being confused by beliefs that do not coincide with our own.

Answer 9

I was really against it until you brought up the Wiccan thing. I would like to see this legislation pass on the condition that the student body president ends all her announcements like that.

Answer 10

I thought students could already do that as long as it doesn't interfere with learning time.

As long as it isn't school sponsored, it should be okay to begin with. Once we start making more and more laws that "protect" religion, we start giving more and more control over religion to the government. I think that's a bad idea.