northland10 wrote: ↑Sat Aug 21, 2021 12:37 pm
When I was teaching, some kids had Bibles with them and even read them during silent reading time in homeroom (which was allowed). Some students prayed as they saw fit (silently normally, though if kids in the hall wanted to stand together in the corner and prayer before an exam, it was their choice).
Prayers and Bibles have never been banned from schools. Mandatory prayers and Bible readings have (along with being led by a person with authority, like a teacher).
I bet Wendy would be fine and dandy with banning students from bringing Korans to school and reading them on their own silent reading time.
The right's faith is so weak, they need the school to enforce it. Sad. Not what Jesus would do.
Yeah, the RWNJs and the religious fanatics like to rail about prayer being banned in schools, but it never has been.
As the old joke goes, "As long as there are history tests in school, there will be prayer".
The only thing that was banned was mandatory, school-sponsored prayer. I remember when the ban was enacted, and probably into the seventies, a few schools tried allowing students to remain silent, while the rest of the class recited a prayer. The courts ruled that this was so humiliating for the silent students that it constituted undue pressure to participate.
Can you imagine their howls if the principal happened to be a Muslim and mandated a Muslim prayer? Or even a Jewish prayer?
BTW, I read that in the original case, brought by Madeline Murray O'Hare in 1963, the prayer in question was "The Lord's Prayer", known as the "Our Father" by Catholics. The local community was diverse and included Christians, Jews and a few Muslims. None of them found the prayer objectionable. It is, after all, not a prayer TO Jesus, but a prayer BY Jesus. All three religions believe in the same God, although they have different names.
Also, later in life, Ms. O'Hare became a born-again Christian and worked to overturn the ruling she had originally sought.
My wife was a K-2 school librarian until she retired. The school had a few Muslim children. During Ramadan, one of the teachers would be assigned to entertain the Muslim kids during the lunch period and to make sure that they didn't eat anything. While I didn't think that was unreasonable, I always wondered if it was actually legal for school employees to be enforcing religious doctrine in that way.