Prayer in School: Good or Bad?
COMM 215
Essentials of College Writing
Steven Labry
April 16, 2007
Lorretta Zachery
Prayer in School: Good or Bad?
Perhaps no aspect of the church-state controversy arouses more emotion and discussion than the subject of prayer in the public schools. After all, public schools are supported with taxpayer money. What believer would want his taxes to support an institution that prohibits his children from praying? What nonbeliever would want her taxes to support an institution that requires her children to participate in prayer?
Fortunately, the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects both believers and nonbelievers from such a situation by mandating government neutrality between belief and unbelief. The government--through its proxy, the educators and administrators who facilitate our schools--cannot lead children in prayer or force them to pray a certain way. However, all children have the right to pray voluntarily before, during, or after school, and nonreligious children do not have to pray at all.
Some unbelievers think that they know better than the Founding Fathers and want to tamper with the Bill of Rights. They want to amend the U.S. Constitution, and have begun a campaign so that the Government would legally refuse to sponsor or support prayer during any public school activity. Students should always have the right to pray and read the Bible in public schools; no one should suggest that that right be taken from them.
As secular humanists and groups like the Christian Coalition are at war with each other regarding prayer in high schools behind closed doors in Washington DC, the average scho ...