From: jlbrand@pb2esac.uucp (Jack Brand)
Newsgroups: ba.politics
Subject: Voluntary school prayer
Date: 8 Oct 92 06:11:43 GMT
Organization: Pacific*Bell ESAC, Oakland, CA.

In article <athos-071092095609@athos.apple.com> athos@apple.com (Rick Eames) writes:
>The point is this: if a community wants to give a moment for students to
>pray, that should not be a "bad thing."  If a community, however, FORCES
>students to pray, I would say that *is* a "Bad Thing."  

It is simply a distortion to say that those who oppose the voluntary school
prayer movement want to "stop students from praying".  How/when students
pray in school could conceivably be broken down into three general areas:

(any reader who has an aversion to viewing things in other than black and
white extremes may exit here)

1) Students actively led in school prayer
2) Time officially set aside for "moment of silence" or "voluntary prayer"
3) Students privately pray on their own, e.g. before school, at lunch, etc.

The current debate is not about enacting 1) or outlawing 3).  Please let's
be clear on that.  The problem area is 2).  Proponents say "how can this
hurt anything - students are not being forced to do anything that might
contradict their own beliefs - the school is not promoting any one faith."
Opponents contend that 2) tacitly implies that the school endorses something
like "communicating with a higher being".  While this is less specific than
promoting a particular faith it is still actively promoting religion.

It may be difficult to understand "how this could possibly hurt" unless you
put yourself squarely in the shoes of an atheist or agnostic or other non-
believer.  I won't insult anyone's intelligence by spelling it all out from
there.

Also there are those opponents of 2) who would probably not be that queasy
about it if there were a rock-solid 100% guarantee that teachers given the
freedom to set aside a moment for whatever would not abuse this by evolving
to setting aside a moment for "meditation or prayer" to "silent prayer time"
to "group prayer time where those who don't wish to participate may step
outside" and so forth.  If anyone thinks this would not happen they have
their head in the sand.  And legally, I am *told* (I am no lawyer) that the
Courts may strike down laws if there is a high probability they will be
misinterpreted in their application as in my above examples.

The other "side issue" is one that someone else (Patti?) has already brought
up: it only takes a brief acquaintance with the people behind the voluntary
prayer push to understand what they really want.  This is no secret - 
they will tell you flat out that one element we need to get our society
back on track is getting God/Christianity/religion back in the schoolhouse.
Voluntary prayer is the first step, and we proceed from there.  If you
don't believe me, tune in the 700 club and listen to Pat Robertson and
lawyer Jay Sekulow, who argues cases like this before the Supreme Court
and other courts.  Their mission in life is not to enable a "moment of
silence" in schools and then pack up their briefcases and go home.

I believe they are less concerned about students "rights" as they are
grasping at any method they can to "git Gawd back in the classroom".

>I don't understand the opposition to moments of silence, mentioning God at
>graduations or any of that sort of thing.  I really don't.

I don't understand why it's OK for the president of *all* the citizens of
this country to assert that atheists should not be considered citizens or
patriots.

jb