If one more person says praying in school is illegal...

The BBQ Pit
1

I saw this going around on email forwards and such lately.

“Now I sit me down in school, where praying is against the rule. For this great nation under God, finds mention of him very odd. The scripture now the class recites, it violates the Bill of Rights. Any time my head I bow, becomes a federal matter now. Our hair can be purple, orange or green. That’s no offense, it’s a freedom theme. The law is specific, the law is precise. Prayers spoken aloud are a serious vice. For praying in a public hall might offend someone with no faith at all. In silence alone we must meditate. God’s name is prohibited by the state. We’re allowed to cuss and dress like freaks and pierce our noses, tongue and cheeks. They’ve outlawed guns but first the Bible, to quote the good book, ‘makes me liable.’ It’s inappropriate to teach right from wrong. We’re taught that such judgments do not belong. But can get our condoms and birth control, study witchcraft, vampires and totem poles. But the 10 Commandments are not allowed. No word of God must reach this crowd. It’s scary here I must confess. When chaos reigns, the school’s a mess. So Lord this silent plea I make, should I be shot, my soul please take.”

When are people going to get it? “Prayers spoken aloud”. Says it all right there. If you want to pray out loud, go to a private religious school where everyone is the same religion as you. I don’t see how forcing God or any religion on kids in a public school is going to all of a sudden stop school violence and turn everyone into A students.

The bottom line is this (and sorry for shouting but so many people don’t get it I am mad) YOU CAN PRAY IN SCHOOL. YOU CAN PRAY ALL YOU WANT TO WHOEVER OR WHATEVER YOU WANT IN YOUR HEAD. God (or whoever) will hear you. As far as I’m concerned, religion is between a person and their deity. Want to pray out loud? Go to church. Or synagogue or mosque. But DO NOT force your religion on others in a public school.

I think Superintendent Chalmers said it best–“That sounded like a prayer. A prayer. In a public school! God has no place between these walls! Just like facts have no place in religion!”

2

Actually, students can pray out loud any time they can speak freely out loud–at lunch, or during breaks between classes, or at homeroom (unless their homeroom teacher is the sort of jerk who tells students they can’t talk even when the PA announcements aren’t on). Of course, the opportunities for students to speak freely on non-curricular activities are frankly pretty limited in school–most of the time they’re expected to sit quietly and listen, or speak only after raising their hands and being called on, and then only on something germane to the topic being taught–but that’s a general rule of school, and not anything designed to single out prayer.

But hey, lies are nothing new for e-mail glurge.

3

I want to know which schools are teaching about vampires, witchcraft and totem pools. Man, we never studied anything fun when I was in school. Harrumph.

4

Well, I get the point of the email! It’s sarcasm, you dolts! See, since the secular government won’t allow God fearing teachers to teach religion, or to have an organized prayer every day, that obviously means that they’re outlawing religion! A lead to B, don’t give me that “slippery slope” bullshit! Spare me that “seperation of church and state” argument! It makes my head hurt!

I especially like this part

For a variety of reasons, not least of which that it sounds about as hip as Carmen rapping. Did you know that apples and oranges are both fruit?

5

Unfortunately, Elwood, you will have to be frustrated with the prayer in school issue. Much like my worthless cousin Scott, it is not going away and will have to be dealt with from time to time.

Have no fear, though, for your loyal consigliori would humbly suggest the following strategy should the issue arise at a school near you (and if you live in the south, it will arise just about the time the School Board is up for re-election).

  1. Identify the person or group clamoring for the return of prayer to schools, etc.

  2. Attend the home church of the person/group. Do not dress outrageously. Do not attract attention to yourself (at first).

  3. Halfway through the sermon, begin reading loudly from a chemistry textbook.

At the very best, you will perhaps get your point across. At the very least, you will have gotten some frustration out of your system.

6

Just for fun, snopes has this letter up in the “What’s New” section, if anyone’s interested in reading their POV.

7

One of my student teaching cohort members sent that bit of glurge out to the whole cohort, using the email group I set up. I saw it at the end of a long, bad day, and wrote an incredibly nasty email to her, deleted it, wrote a second nasty email to her, deleted that, and then wrote her a curt email asking her to please preface emails containing offensive material with her own remarks so we knew where she was coming from. The flame I got in return would have crisped my eyebrows if the cunt had any command of language. Instead, I rolled me eyes and promised myself I’d reply to the next one with Snopes’ debunking.

Glurge whore.

And the worst part of it all is that she’ll be teaching. Science. And she can’t scrape enough skepticism together to question any of the stuff she blindly forwards to us. I fucking hate her.

8

I remember hearing some Christian peers of mine getting extremely mad because our school (supposedly) has a Muslim prayer room located in the library. I guess it’s not enough for my Xian peers to have FCS (Fellowship of Xian Students), FCA (Fellowship of Xian Athletes), and regular prayers around the flag pole (all offered as school clubs).

As a side note, one thing I’ve noticed about my Xian peers is that they prefer not to associate with anyone non-Xian. Hmm…is it just me, or does the Bible say to love everyone? Maybe it meant only everyone Xian. Stupid hypocrites.

P.S. I know not all Xians are like this. Just the ones in close proximity to me.

9

Tut tut, I’m disappointed to see that the “glurge sabotage” verses I wrote for this piece of lying cr*p back in the “Public Prayer and the ACLU” thread have not yet snuck into its viral spread. Here’s what will make you feel better, folks, I promise: when you get that idiotic “Now I sit me down in school” spam from anyone, do not flame the sender, simply insert the following extra verses into the original content and spam it on its way. I recommend putting them in between “No word of God must reach this crowd” and “It’s scary here, I must confess” for maximum inconspicuousness. (And of course, adapt the layout as necessary.)

And if you ever subsequently get a copy of the revised version spammed back to you by an earnest glurgebot who failed to notice the addition, don’t forget to post and let me know! :slight_smile:

Of course, I’m still completely free
To pray in classes silently,
Or lead a group in spoken prayers
Before each class in halls or stairs;

And then at recess or at lunch
I’m free to join a vocal bunch
Of kids and teachers praying too
(Supported by the ACLU),

And then in Bible Club at four
We meet and pray to God some more
(Since we’re a student activity
We get to use school property);

And we can talk to any kid
About Our Lord and what He did,
Or offer Chick tracts at our lockers—
We can’t be bullies, thugs, or stalkers,

But if our witnessing’s polite,
We’re free to witness day and night
And cover bookbags, if we wish,
With crosses, prayers, and Jesus fish,

Commandments printed on our T’s,
And deck ourselves like Christmas trees
With all kinds of religious stuff—
But Pastor says that’s not enough!

He says the school has got to teach
All kids to practice what we preach,
And when our faith we want to mention
It has to make them pay attention.

He says it’s a disgrace and shame
We can’t be scheduled at the game
To fill the silent stadium air
With real official sponsored prayer!

I’m not sure why the great I AM
Needs so much help from Uncle Sam,
And government’s endorsing it
Can’t give more truth to Holy Writ;

But Pastor says our population
Makes this by rights a Christian nation:
Since our religion is the best,
We’re just more equal than the rest!

So government neutrality
Is very bad for folks like me
And God dislikes it. And I know
That’s true, 'cause Pastor told me so.

And he said maybe if I wrote
A poem that everyone could quote
About how sorely I’m oppressed,
These awful wrongs might be redressed.

10

Nice try, Kimstu, but the iambic tetrameter makes it stand out a mile. The authors of the original poem (?) have obviously never HEARD of meter.

11

My goodness, but the people on this board are impressive. Bravo, Kimstu. I am tempted to spread the glurge myself just so that I can show off your delightful parody.

12

Okay, I’m going to talk about not just prayer in school, but their religous views.
My sons teacher is Jewish.
Now, we get winter break (christmas vacation), spring break (easter vacation).
If she wants to take off for Passover, or chuanakka (sp) she may do so without pay, while the other teachers get their holidays paid.
I will give the school a thumbs up for their winter play about the holidays of winter. They actually did them all! To include Yule.
But, we don’t have Halloween parties. We have story book day. Where your child has to dress as a story book character and then carry the book with them to show who they are. They were trying to get rid of kids comming as witches and bums and un-pc things.
So, out of six children my friend and I have attending the school, we had Teen Witch, Sabrina the Teenage witch, Joan of Arc, Bast, Hercules, and Nobe Sibot (from the video game Mortal Combat). They all had books to carry with them too!
Put that in your pipe and smoke it you stiffling, conformist, freaks.

I have no problem with prayer in school. Just don’t make the kids who don’t have a religious up-bringing go along for the ride. Or those who are of a different religion. And do not make these children feel singled out for not having or conforming to religion. That is damaging.
I am Wiccan, but my children are free to choose as they will. We do both Pagan and Christian holidays since my husband is Baptist. So, they do see both sides of it equally.

13

Go Kimstu!

uh, that’s all.

Redboss

[sub]stamp out “Me Too” posts![/sub]

14

I hate to ruin a very nice rant, but, are you sure that’s why the school decided to have that theme? Perhaps they decided to encourage, y’know, reading? Sounds like a good idea to me.

If you’re right about their motivations, however, then they are a bunch of jackasses. Idiots too. What, witches aren’t in books? So, L. Frank Baum, he just made up that character for the movie, did he?

15

My school had both Halloween dress up and Reading dress up.

–John

16

Here in the UK, most schools have an assembly each morning. All pupils gather in the main hall, and the head teacher addresses the whole school. In most schools, prayer still features in morning assembly. Indeed, in many cases, the entire session has a religious theme, often with hymns.

Recently, this has started to get people’s backs up. Many familes (mine included) do not practise a religion, and therefore do not feel comfortable with the religious theme. Other pupils may practise an entirely different religion, which speaks for itself.

Things have started to change, however. Many schools now allow parents to request that their children are excused from assemblies with a religious theme. Same goes for RE classes. Some schools are moving towards non-religious assemblies altogether, with some running after-school religious social groups instead. It’s taking a while, but they’re slowly starting to cater for all groups.

My last school had it about right, in my opinion. Non-religious morning assembly, RE lessons covered ALL religions equally (still with the option of exclusion), and pupils were given space in private if they wished to participate in prayer during the day.

Pupils and parents alike were happy with these arrangements, and nobody felt like they had to participate in something which has no meaning for them. None of this required any extra effort or resources - which begs the question, why don’t all schools work this way?

17

Yeah, that is exactly what they were up to.
One of the teachers was pretty upset about the deal. Some of the kids either because of lack of money, or crappy parents, don’t have costumes anyway, and then they go and really exclude them. Lots of low income families in the area and more than a few of the children need better parenting.
But that is a different rant about foul mouthed little first graders.
In her oppinion and mine about that situation, just let them be kids for a while. Some are having to grow up to fast the way it is.

They promote reading everyday. So much time allowed for silent reading, and then the teachers read fun books out loud every other day.

18

Kimstu, have I mentioned lately that I worship the ground you walk on?

That was wonderful. I may have to send that out to the people on my email list.

I really was a teenage Jesus freak, and (thank the Lord) I can’t say my friends and I ever felt the need for any help from the school administration - we witnessed in the plethora of ways you listed, and that seemed to more than suffice.

My reaction when I first met Christians who were for what’s commonly known as ‘school prayer’ was, ‘that’s just plain wrong, and why would we need that anyway?’ That’s still pretty much my reaction, but with a bit more intellectual backing.