Prayer in School
There was a time in America, where although the constitution guarantees a separation of church and state, many of the government institutions still encouraged or at least included components which were based on religious practices. In the past, the children of American public schools would enter the classroom, stand at attention for the pledge, and then join in with the class in prayer. In the locker room, the football or basketball coach would lead his players in a prayer both to win and that no one was injured in the game. The majority of the population of American citizens was Christian and so they would logically pray to a Christian god or to the savior of that religion. Students who did not belong to the Christian religion could either choose to abstain from this activity, or they could pray along with the other students in order to participate. That was before legislation was passed which made prayer in school to be unlawful because of various criteria and constitutional protections. After a series of lawsuits, the government got involved in the issue of school prayer, eventually passing a constitutional amendment which banned prayer in school.
During the 1970s and 1980s, there began a series of lawsuits against public schools and public school districts. Often these suits were initiated by members of the community who did not belong to the Christian religion. These families, and their political supporters, felt that their children were being forced to participate in religious practices outside of their system of beliefs. The reasoning was that this demand for participation in prayer was a violation of the constitutional sanction separating church and state. Even though prayer is officially banned in schools, there are still cases where public schools are promoting religion, particularly Christianity, and violating both the law and constitution itself (Eckholm). Because...
In the court case of Engel v. Vitale in 1962, it was determined that forcing children to participate in prayer in a public school setting was unconstitutional. Employees of the government thus could neither force or even encourage students to pray in a public school setting. The following year, Abington Township School District v. Schempp declared that school-sponsored readings from the Bible were also unconstitutional. According to the United States Department of Education:
The relationship between religion and government in the United States is governed by the First Amendment to the Constitution, which both prevents the government from establishing religion and protects privately initiated religious expression and activities from government interference and discrimination. The First Amendment thus establishes certain limits on the conduct of public school officials as it relates to religious activity, including prayer (Guidance).
This position would provide the basis for the ban on school prayer, but would also lead to challenges of the ban which some claim is a violation of their right to express their religious beliefs.
For more than a decade, school prayer has been illegal in American public schools. This seemed to be the end of the debate. However, in recent years there has been a surge in the amount of suits challenging the ban on prayer in school. For example, a football team in the American south brought about a challenge. According to news reports, the team captain wished to lead the team in prayer. Over the stadium loudspeakers, a student chaplain gave a Christian…
