Prayer should not have been removed from public schools.

My opponent is under serious misunderstandings of the specific debate topic. The case of Arbington School District v. Schempp, which I linked to, is the case which removed coerced forced Christian prayer from schools. The case in question is the court case which "removed prayer from school". The topic is correctly against the status quo. Prayer was removed from public schools and thus the debate topic is that it should not have been. Pro specifically is to argue that Abington School District v. Schempp was improperly decided. My goal is to establish that it was properly decided. My opponent did not properly read the court case referred to, understand what is meant by school prayer, or comprehend my topic as properly stated. He even goes so far as to suggest that "You may have intended to refer to MANDATORY school prayer. This is clearly unconstitutional." -- As this is exactly what Arbigton was concerning my opponent has conceded. ---- The case overview given in the cited article is pretty spot on: "The Abington case began when Edward Schempp, a Unitarian and a resident of Abington Township, Pennsylvania, filed suit against the Abington School District in the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to prohibit the enforcement of a Pennsylvania state law that required his children, specifically Ellory Schempp, to hear and sometimes read portions of the Bible as part of their public school education. That law (24 Pa. Stat. 15-1516, as amended, Pub. Law 1928) required that "[a]t least ten verses from the Holy Bible [be] read, without comment, at the opening of each public school on each school day." Schempp specifically contended that the statute violated his and his family's rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments." We aren't talking about a ban on individual school prayer. That would certainly be unconstitutional by the first amendment and would have been struck down overnight. Unless a student is disrupting class, there is nothing whatsoever to stop them from engaging in the activities guaranteed by the first amendment. However, the law overturned in the Abington case was a law specifically requiring students to pray and to, at times, read from the Bible against their individual rights. This law, 24 Pa. Stat. 15-1516, required the reading of of ten verses of the Bible as a morning invocation. This is what is meant by school prayer. There is no ban on individuals rights to pray on their own time and of their own volition. My topic specifically refers to Schempp. I am talking about the prayer which was removed from public schools and why it should have been removed from public schools. Which constitutionally it should have been via Emerson, the first and fourteenth amendments. ------ >>"The government is forbidden by the first amendment to interfere with religion (without a more primary secular purpose)." I don't see your little addendum anywhere in the Constitution. The addendum is on account of such cases as McGowan v. Maryland which held that the blue laws are constitutional because they serve a legitimate secular purpose. >>However, you failed to say that [the case refers to mandatory prayer] either in your resolution or your argument. Yes. I specifically referred to the court case. I properly setup the topic. I linked to a good overview of the court case. I was extremely specific in the resolution, "It is absolutely correct that prayer should have been removed from public schools as was done by Abington School District v. Schempp." Considering that there is no ban whatsoever on non-mandatory prayer the topic wouldn't make any logical sense in the context of mandatory prayer. --- Generally we hear strawman arguments against the "removing prayer from school" as if there is some kind of jack-boot squad preventing children from praying on their own. We are discussing the Pennsylvania statute that required prayer in school conducted by school officials, which was struck down, and thusly removed unconstitutional prayer from school. My topic was designed to help address this misunderstanding behind the case. I went to a good amount of effort to refer you specifically to the court case and properly phrase the debate topic. It isn't my fault that you don't understand what the law was, the case that struck it down (even though I specifically cited it), and took this debate just to turn around and suggest that your misunderstanding is my misunderstanding, and that I should have phrased the topic different to better fit your misunderstanding. It is a ludicrous statement that the supreme court began and enforces a ban on personal prayer, it's a strawman argument that the religious right constantly uses and would absolutely be unconstitutional if that was result of the court's action. The case in question is the exact opposite. Children were being unconstitutionally forced into prayer and Bible reading and the court case was correctly decided. The case in question and the law which removed school prayer was decided properly and prayer should have been removed from public schools, as it was. My opponent out of some kind of bewildering misapprehension has conceded the debate.