Far from creating a sense of unity, these state-sponsored religious
exercises usually sparked dissension. Roman Catholics were coming into the
country in record numbers at this time, and many of them chafed at the
Protestant flavor of the schools.
Public education became a battleground for Catholic-Protestant tensions.
The country saw numerous protests over official school prayer, led not by
atheists but by Roman Catholics.
Tensions over religion in public education rode so high in Philadelphia
that in 1844 a riot erupted after rumors circulated that the local schools
were going to remove Protestant religious exercises. In fact, the school
board only planned to adopt a policy allowing Catholic children to skip
the
daily prayers. But as misinformation spread, violence erupted. People took
to the streets and battled police for three days. When it was all over,
thirteen people lay dead. Numerous houses, shops, and a Catholic church
had
been burned to the ground.
While tension over school prayer occasionally erupted in violence, the
more
common course was courtroom action. Catholics challenged mandatory prayer
exercises in Cincinnati's public schools in 1869. The case reached the
state supreme court, which ruled that the local school board was under no
obligation to sponsor religious activity every day.
In language that still stirs today, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled, "United
with government, religion never rises above the merest superstition;
united
with religion, government never rises above the merest despotism; and all
history shows us that the more widely and completely they are separated,
the better it is for both."
State supreme courts in Wisconsin, Nebraska, Illinois, and other
states also struck down coercive programs of school prayer in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In many other states,
particularly in the West, official prayers were not part of the school
day.
In spite of this landscape, many Americans today believe no court had
acted until the high court's first ruling in 1962. That's clearly not
true.
Complicating matters was that education officials in some state
persisted in using religion as a tool of discipline or to achieve goals
not
related to faith. Thus, people argued that school prayer was necessary to
calm kids down at the beginning of the day or provide a sense of order.
Occasionally, one still hears these arguments today.
The problem is, the purpose of prayer is to communicate with God. It's not
a tool of discipline or a punishment to be inflicted on fidgety
first-graders. But as this sentiment grew, some educators and lawmakers
came to believe that a dose of prayer, even the most generic and
watered-down form, could tackle nearly any social ill. Thus, in the late
1950s, educators in New York State got the bright idea to draft religion
in
the battle against juvenile delinquency and communism.
The somewhat naïve faith of the New York Board of Regents seems almost
quaint today. Its members asserted that a brief "nonsectarian" prayer
would
keep kids on the right path and prevent them from falling into the hands
of
the Soviets. The board wrote an allegedly "nonsectarian" prayer it hoped
all students would recite.
This is a pattern I've noticed over and over again when it comes to school
prayer. Proponents tend to treat it as a magic bullet with the power to
overcome nearly any social ill. Whether the issue is teen ***ual activity,
"goth" fa****ons, or drugs, we're told that a watered-down prayer that few
would recite at home or at church will fix everything up just right.
But many people don't want to recite nonsectarian prayers. As a minister,
I
can't say I blame them. I don't say them at home or at church, and I would
never teach them to my children. Such prayers manage to combine the worst
of both worlds. Seriously religious people don't recite such pabulum. The
nonreligious find them merely irritating. Far from being an acceptable
compromise position, nonsectarian prayers end up being the most useless
form of religion known to humankind—the kind that doesn't say anything.
"To
whom it may concern" prayers aren't worth reciting.
SOURCE: Piety & Politics The Right Wing Assault on Religious Freedom. The
Reverend Barry W. Lynn. Three Rivers Press (2006, Updated 2007) pp. 52-53
***************************************************************
You are invited to check out the following:
The Rise of the Theocratic States of America
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocracy.htm
American Theocrats - Past and Present
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocrats.htm
The Constitutional Principle: Separation of Church and State
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
[and to join the discussion group for the above site and/or Separation of
Church and State in general, listed below]
HRSepCnS · Historical Reality SepChurch&State
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HRSepCnS/
***************************************************************
.. . . You can't understand a phrase such as "Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion" by syllogistic reasoning. Words
take their meaning from social as well as textual contexts, which is why
"a
page of history is worth a volume of logic." New York Trust Co. v.
Eisner,
256 U.S. 345, 349, 41 S.Ct. 506, 507, 65 L.Ed. 963 (1921) (Holmes, J.).
Sherman v. Community Consol. Dist. 21, 980 F.2d 437, 445 (7th Cir. 1992)
.. . .
****************************************************************
USAF LT. COL (Ret) Buffman (Glen P. Goffin) wrote
"You pilot always into an unknown future;
facts are your only clue. Get the facts!"
That philosophy 'snipit' helped to get me, and my crew, through a good
many combat missions and far too many scary, inflight, emergencies.
It has also played a significant role in helping me to expose the
plethora of radical Christian propaganda and lies that we find at
almost every media turn.
*****************************************************************
THE CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLE:
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
****************************************************************
|
