Stop Saying There is No Prayer in US Schools

In the past year President Trump has vowed to restore the right to pray in public schools—indeed to “champion” such prayer as a “fundamental right.”

Done.

You see, as long as there are algebra tests (or pick the topic you struggled in most), there will be prayer in schools. What is not allowed by the Constitution is school-guided prayers. Students are free to pray silently while in class and out loud between classes and during their lunch periods. They can pray after school on school grounds, even in the middle of the night. They can come by the school grounds on weekends and summer vacations and pray all they want.

They can pray in their churches, at home, on vacation, in the mall, at Costco, virtually anywhere and everywhere, but schools cannot lead them in prayer, they have to do it on their own and isn’t that what their god intended (see Matthew 6:5-13)?

What is not allowed is school-lead prayers, because the school would need to pick a prayer based upon a religion and that has been perceived as promoting that religion. Even if the schools chose prayers from all of the myriad religions, people would be dissatisfied as parents would object to prayers to Shiva, Buddha, and Allah, etc. So, prayer is left as a personal practice, not a school practice.

And how does current policy (of no school-lead prayers) restrict anyone’s religious freedom when they all can pray in the privacy of their own minds for hours on end? And with all this time they have to pray, how is it they do not have enough prayer in their lives? Gosh, do you think this is a play for favoritism, even power by evangelical churches? Gosh, how could that be?

And Trump? Pandering to his base? No, say it isn’t so!