Will you take the "Prayer in school" challenge?

Question

Here's the challenge:

1. Go to the Department of Education website listed below and read about all the various kinds of *protected* religious expression in public schools in the US.

2. Make notes on what is protected religious expression - for students, for instructors and other school employees.

3. Next time someone expresses a belief that prayer (bible study, etc.) is not allowed in public schools, correct them with the *facts* of the matter. Be a truth-teller. Don't spread lies or allow them to be spread when you know the truth.


ARE YOU WILLING to take the challenge?



http://www.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/religionandschools/prayer_guidance.html

Suzanne, the school was sued for that.

Yes, there have been administrators who did not fully understand the range of religious expression that is protected.

In those cases, the school gets sued, the administration get disciplined, and the situation gets corrected. Just like with any other abrogation of rights. That's the way our system works. And rightly so.

His Creation,

Did you even bother to look at the website? Of course not, because if you had you would have seen that it deals with protected religious expression in "Public Elementary and Secondary Schools". That's right up there in the title.

chieko,

So....in your opinion, learning and speaking the truth is "anal"?

BTW, ALL, if you are not willing to take the challenge, just say so. "Nope, I'd prefer to continue to believe lies, and spread them"

His Creation -

Your first two links take me to search engines. If you want to present cases in which these laws have been incorrectly applied, do that. I'm not doing your homework for you, skippy. The third one just takes me to a "who we are" page about the ACLJ.

BTW, how is it that you say that the *Department of Education* is "biased" in their explanation of what is allowable and not allowable in public primary and secondary schools? It is simply a delineation of what is allowed and not. How is that "biased"?

As I mentioned above, if you are not up to taking the challenge, just say so.

Answer 1

You know I will

Answer 2

Thank you for the information. It is important for any parents of school-age children to know this so we can correct administrators or other school officials if they say that our kids cannot pray in school or have bible study and clubs. I also want to apologize for the way that some people here who may call themselves Christians treated you when what you did whether it was what you wanted to do or not is to give us all knowlege we need. I for one will take the challenge but in some ways it will be easier for me because I do not have a preacher telling me wrong things about the laws on this so it will not take a lot of courage for me to rise to this challenge. Maybe some others are in the bad position of realising that their pastor or their family and friends are not telling the whole truth about what is ok and what is not like if they just say blanket that prayer is not allowed and it would take a lot of courage for such a person to speak out in that case.

I no longer care what other people who call themselves Christians think of me and I don't like the idea that any follower of Jesus would let untruth slide by them out of worry what others would think of them.

I know that there have been things where some school official has limited what is allowed in an unlawful way and that means that the school is sued, that doesnt' say anything about the facts that are presented on the website. We do need to know them so you did a good thing by showing us what they are.

Answer 3

I'm in. I am a teacher. I teach adults English as a Second Language, and our school has a "loose" policy of not celebrating religious holidays, and prayer in school is not really an issue since, if they are praying, it would be in their language and I would just ask them to say it for us in English, and if they can, more power to them, as a good exercise in translating. However, that has never happened bc I have found that ESL students want the teacher to lead and would never presume to add to classroom content. Everyone is free to wear religious symbols, my Hispanic students often wear crosses and I always wear either a Goddess pendant or a pentacle. They occasionally ask me about it (asking such a question for them is very difficult just bc of the language challenges!) and I try to explain it to them.

A funny: one young Hispanic fellow said "via con Dios" to me one day (forgive my incorrect Spanish spelling...) and I said to him "via con DiAs" emphasizing the "a" in "Dias" to have him understand I was using the feminine form of the word for god in Spanish, and when he looked puzzled and said something like "that's how it is in America...?" (in Spanish) and I just laughed and told him both are OK.

Bright Blessings,
Lady Morgana )0(

Answer 4

Nicely done. Thanks for pointing this out.

Suzanne, obviously that example you pointed out is what you say it is, an illustration of the fact that our administrators and educators have been misinformed about the legality of individual prayer.

However, the responsible parties - the people who have misinformed those administrators and educators are the religious right. There is no conspiracy of liberals or atheists trying to keep kids from praying in schools, but there IS a well-organized right-wing movement trying teach people that liberals have managed to ban school prayer. This is a political effort aimed at demonizing organizations like the ACLU (which has an excellent history of defending freedom of religious expression - see Source below).

The blame for these events falls squarely on the shoulders of the religious right. As long as they keep lying about this, some of those administrators and educators are going to keep believing those lies. Obviously the blame belongs to the liars, and not to the victims of those lies.

Answer 5

Excellent work!

I see here all the time that the country is going to hell because we took prayer out of school. That is a total lie. Children can pray all they want. They cannot force anyone else to pray.

Answer 6

I don't disagree with prayer in schools as long as the faculty and staff don't LEAD the prayer. If the students want to set aside part of their lunch break/recess/study hall time towards prayer, then they have every right to do so.

Answer 7

The people complaining about prayer being "removed" from schools, want the teachers to be leading the entire class in prayer daily, and faculty over the loud spearker, ect. They want to force children to pray to their god. They don't care what the other parents think unless they think exactly like them.

Answer 8

Remember, "god" is nothing more than a nonsense word made up by man to explain away the things we can't yet understand.

Schools should not be active in spreading delusions and indoctrinating vulnerable children into mind control cults.

Answer 9

LOL! that could suck to be pushed in there. of course, i ought to in all probability take 'em anyhow, yet a human, you will would desire to be incredibly dang brave (or purely stupid) to bounce in on your individual freewill.

Answer 10

I know the truth so do they, but that is not the point. They want YOUR child to pray by the school saying a prayer over the PA system.

Answer 11

Raven, you are misinformed. While it's true that these activities are not prohibited by LAW, they are ROUTINELY prohibited by misinformed school adminstrators.

Case in point: last year in MD, a school girl was disciplined for reading the Bible during recess. Her principal told her (mistakenly) that this was prohibited. Sadly, variations on this theme happen all over America each year.

So you're targeting the wrong people. Educate our educators and this would never happen.