ACLU wants apology after student leads graduation crowd in reciting Lord's Prayer

[estesbob]

I look at it the other way. It gets old to read about students, teachers, schools, districts, etc., etc., etc., trying to sneak in a prayer during graduations. Why do they do this? Because it garners them attention? Because if they think if enough people do it, it will eventually be Okay? Because they’re hoping to evangelize? Because they want to be passive-aggressive about their faith? Because lawyers on both sides of this issue make a lot of money, therefore they have a vested interest in finding a new case every June? The cynical side of me suspects the latter.

If folks want to pray at commencements, formal dances, athletic events, and awards dinners, attend a religious school. Or join a home school co-op. My grandparents sent me and my brother to a private religious school, and no one got all twisted up when we prayed six times a day, seven if you count lunchtime.

But don’t attend or send your kid to a public institution and expect sanctioned prayer. Just don’t. All your doing is making the lawyers rich.

I suspect they do to because , like many of us, they want to thank God when they reach a milestone in their life.

This all reminds of the story of the pricipal that finds three boys kneeling in the corrner before class. He asks them “What are you doing” They reply “Shooting craps” He Replies, “OK-for a moment there I was afraid you were praying”

 

[estesbob]

Um, no. You cited Supreme Court rulings to support your position and I showed the obvious flaw in that.

Dont you just love it when foreigners lecture us on what our Constitution says?

 

[pinay]

I think that it does. You are telling the majority of the people that they are not allowed to do something because a minority does not want to participate? This is not forcing a minority into participation, this is not taking away from the minority.

I am only basing my opinion on the title of the thread - that a student LED the graduation crowd in reciting the Lord’s Prayer.

There is no indication at all that anybody prevented the student from praying anywhere at anytime, even leading others in prayer in his own church, home, or with a mega-phone in the middle of a Wal-mart parking lot. Only that - in this particular instance where the person is inside a government school in a graduation ceremony administered by government employees, he is instructed not to LEAD the graduation crowd in prayer - he may offer a silent prayer.

Okay - tell me how this is different from smokers not allowed to smoke in a restaurant.

 

[SamH]

. Only that - in this particular instance where the person is inside a government school in a graduation ceremony administered by government employees, he is instructed not to LEAD the graduation crowd in prayer - he may offer a silent prayer.

But if he had spoken out AGAINST religion it would have been fine?

Throughout his public career, including two terms as President, Jefferson pursued policies incompatible with the “high and impregnable” wall the modern Supreme Court has erroneously attributed to him. For example, he endorsed the use of federal funds to build churches and to support Christian missionaries working among the Indians. The absurd conclusion that countless courts and commentators would have us reach is that Jefferson routinely pursued policies that violated his own “wall of separation.”

Jefferson’s wall, as a matter of federalism, was erected between the national and state governments on matters pertaining to religion and not, more generally, between the church and all civil government. In other words, Jefferson placed the federal government on one side of his wall and state governments and churches on the other. The wall’s primary function was to delineate the constitutional jurisdictions of the national and state governments, respectively, on religious concerns, such as setting aside days in the public calendar for prayer, fasting, and thanksgiving. Evidence for this jurisdictional or structural understanding of the wall can be found in both the texts and the context of the correspondence between Jefferson and the Danbury Baptist Association.

heritage.org/research/reports/2006/06/the-mythical-wall-of-separation-how-a-misused-metaphor-changed-church-state-law-policy-and-discourse

Justice Hugo Black’s majority opinion in Everson v. Board of Education is in fact a poorly written opinion given by a Ku Klux Klan member as a personal vendetta against the Catholic Church that he never intended to be applied in the broad sense that it is today.

 

[FromTheAshes777]

Telling someone not to lead a prayer at a government event isn’t the same thing as prohibiting from praying at all, or they telling them can’t say certain prayers, or they can’t practice a particular religion, or they have to practice a state-sponsored religion.

Not even close.

The free practice of religion means we, all of us, are free not to practice religion and are free from being forced to practice a particular religion or belief system. But it doesn’t mean we can foist pray off on the public.

Would you be offended if you were lead through a Muslim prayer at a public event? How about a Theravada Buddhist recitation? A Jewish prayer in Hebrew? A Native American shaman ritual?

I have actually witnessed several of the mentioned prayers at public events and I wasn’t offended at all. I simply didn’t participate. It didn’t bother me. I don’t understand why others are so bothered by something like this.

 

[pinay]

But if he had spoken out AGAINST religion it would have been fine?

In a government school graduation ceremony? Of course not!

 

[pinay]

I have actually witnessed several of the mentioned prayers at public events and I wasn’t offended at all. I simply didn’t participate. It didn’t bother me. I don’t understand why others are so bothered by something like this.

There’s a difference between a public event and a government administered event.

 

[irishpatrick]

In a government school graduation ceremony? Of course not!

There would have been NO request for an apology.

 

[irishpatrick]

If it is fine to take another person’s liberties, than why not take liberties from everyone?

Atheists and people of faith should be joining hands in this matter…freedoms lost are nearly impossible to regain and one person’s losss today can easily become anothers the following day. We either live in a land of liberty–or we do NOT!

 

[pinay]

If it is fine to take another person’s liberties, than why not take liberties from everyone?

Atheists and people of faith should be joining hands in this matter…freedoms lost are nearly impossible to regain and one person’s losss today can easily become anothers the following day. We either live in a land of liberty–or we do NOT!

Okay… name exactly the freedom that was lost in the OP.

 

[pinay]

There would have been NO request for an apology.

There would be if you send one in. The ACLU is not the end-all-be-all of religion. Very far from it.

 

[irishpatrick]

Okay… name exactly the freedom that was lost in the OP.

The student used his free speech rights…if he is legally prevented from doing that, he will lose both his free speech rights and his right to the unhindered practiced of religion.

 

[irishpatrick]

There would be if you send one in. The ACLU is not the end-all-be-all of religion. Very far from it.

Send what in?

 

[SamH]

In a government school graduation ceremony? Of course not!

Why not?

 

[Cristiano]

I am only basing my opinion on the title of the thread - that a student LED the graduation crowd in reciting the Lord’s Prayer.

There is no indication at all that anybody prevented the student from praying anywhere at anytime, even leading others in prayer in his own church, home, or with a mega-phone in the middle of a Wal-mart parking lot. Only that - in this particular instance where the person is inside a government school in a graduation ceremony administered by government employees, he is instructed not to LEAD the graduation crowd in prayer - he may offer a silent prayer.

Okay - tell me how this is different from smokers not allowed to smoke in a restaurant.

First of all if you are talking about a ceremony administered by government employees, that refers to employees of a local government. The first amendment talks about congress and not a state government.

In the case of smokers in a restaurant (and I do not always agree that it should be forbidden by a local law) all the customers would smoke because of sidestream smoke. They could choose not the breath but that would be more damaging than second hand smoke. If you look at the definition of prayer, you cannot really force a person to pray.

 

[pinay]

Send what in?

A request for apology.

 

[Cristiano]

There’s a difference between a public event and a government administered event.

Are you saying that the federal government can dictate everything on how the local governments should administer events? If that is true than the states with same sex marriages should not be allowed to perform same-sex ceremonies because the defense of marriage act.

Are you saying that the federal government should dictate everything on how a public event, that has direct or indirect federal funding, should be organized? What about is the public event is held on Federal ground, what about a public event held on roads paved with federal money?

 

[irishpatrick]

A request for apology.

The ACLU would laugh at such a request. They simply do not see anti-Christian bias as being bad for the country.

 

[pinay]

First of all if you are talking about a ceremony administered by government employees, that refers to employees of a local government. The first amendment talks about congress and not a state government.

In the case of smokers in a restaurant (and I do not always agree that it should be forbidden by a local law) all the customers would smoke because of sidestream smoke. They could choose not the breath but that would be more damaging than second hand smoke. If you look at the definition of prayer, you cannot really force a person to pray.

Depends on the State. In the State of Florida - religious freedom is written in the State Constitution (complete with several amendments even) which also prohibits state employees from showing preference to any specific religion in the fulfillment of their jobs within the state - and yes, that includes the graduation ceremony.

I consider side-stream smoke as the same as sidestream prayer… I don’t want my child to have to sit down through a prayer made in the name of “Horgath” who I’ve been telling the kids is a god who is responsible for the death of their grandfather… or some such.

Okay, let’s change the example to… Gay Pride Parade in the schools.

 

[pinay]

The ACLU would laugh at such a request. They simply do not see anti-Christian bias as being bad for the country.

You’re not sending a request for an apology to the ACLU. You’re sending a request for an apology to the school. You said there wouldn’t be a request for an apology if it was something against religion. The only reason there’s not one is because you didn’t send one.

And sure, the ACLU is probably going to laugh at it in the same manner that you are laughing at the ACLU’s request for an apology for the Lord’s Prayer. So what?