Voluntary student prayer is already allowed, so what do you REALLY want ?

Question

I am amazed at all the grousing about how God has "been kicked out of public schools" and all the MIS-INFORMATION that it is illegal for a student to pray.

from my answer . . .
Religion IS allowed in school, as long as it is student initiated and VOLUNTARY. Students can pray alone or in groups during non-instructional time, and can form after school prayer and bible clubs if other non-curriculum clubs are allowed to meet.

Since voluntary, student led prayer is, and always has been allowed, I wonder what those who grouse about how "God has been taken out of school" really want. Do they want students to be FORCED to pray ?

Also, how would YOU feel if another religion was FORCED on you in school ? How would you feel if you Buddhism
were the majority religion and THAT religion was in the schools. That apparently is the situation in Hawaii, and in World Net Daily has an article about pre-game prayer in Hawaii. (see link)

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=468

http://www.ed.gov/Speeches/04-1995/prayer.html

The facts about religion in public schools.

Answer 1

No matter how they dance around this one, the ones that are complaining want to force their religion on everyone else, and they want their religion favored above the beliefs and right of others. There is NO other way to define it, no matter how hard they try or how nicely they try to put it.
If they can't be happy simply with being allowed to pray quietly on a volunteer basis, then it's forced prayer, and forcing your religion on someone else. Period.

Answer 2

I don't have an answer, but thank you, thank you, thank you.

I've been trying to spread the truth about the federal guidelines on school prayer for a looooong time now. I'm glad not everyone has bought into the hype.

Answer 3

When I was a child, there was "school prayer". As the day began, the loudspeaker would play a bit of music, and the principle would pray a very simple prayer. Three of four lines, asking God to bless us, our parents and our teachers, and our studies. No particular god was mentioned, and no child was forced to participate. There was nothing "FORCED" on anybody.
However, what there WAS was a sense of unity, and of knowing that you were important in the grand scheme of things, that "God" (whoever He was, or however you perceived Him), loved you enough to take the time to bless you, to bless your parents and your teachers, and to bless your studies.
I know that this is probably difficult for people under 50 to understand, since you were not there. But for the people who WERE there, it was a beautiful experience.
UNTIL one crazy woman got the notion that her kid might catch some sort of "god virus" from being close to children who were praying, and turned our entire culture upside down.
Now, suddenly, our kids are being taught an entirely different version of history than the history we were taught in school...and science teachers are terrified that kids who believe in God might not accept time-honored studies of evolution...
And, of course, some fanatic fringe lunatic Christians are making it worse. Those are the ones folks like you are hearing, of course.
AND kids ARE being teased, and worse, if they admit to being Christians, although almost any other religion is OK.
Or didn't you know that, at least at Columbine, the shooters were aiming for Christian kids?
Yes, yes, yes...we do know that there are other religions in the world, and some people think it is quite cool to try to make a "substitution"...and I think it is quite sad that our kids are growing up not realizing that their country is...or WAS...a Christian nation, regardless of the modern hype that teaches them otherwise. It's a shame, really...we are losing our own identity.
How "politically correct" can you get??

Answer 4

Voluntary student prayer is already allowed, so what do you REALLY want ?

What do "I" really want? I want it to go back to the way it was before corrupt judges bowed to the spirit of this age and invented interpretations of the constitution that flew in the face of almost 200 years of practice.

I want the Bible to be in every classroom and the teacher to have a morning prayer with the students in Jesus' name. All of this nonsense about cow-towing to every possible sensibility in religious matters so that a child can't even wear a witch costume to a halloween party lest they offend a member of the wiccan religion needs to go.

If a child is a Muslim or an Atheist or a Buddhist and they don't want to participate then they shouldn't have to and students should be warned to respect their decision. That's what I want since you asked.

Answer 5

I agree thank you so much for posting this! I think they'd like it forced so this just isn't good enough.