On Saturday, we went to a graduation at a public high school in a small town in Kentucky. Early on, my wife (who graduated from a small city school in Kentucky) turned to me and told me they were about to do an invocation. They did an obviously Christian invocation, then followed that up with the Lord’s Prayer.
My question is, how is this different from state-sponsored prayer?
It’s not. I was taken aback when they did that at my graduation and when my brother graduated my aunt and I sat there and quietly discussed the huge number of individuals in the graduating class who didn’t seem to be Christian (traditionally Muslim names, wearing yarmulkes, etc.) and how they probably didn’t appreciate the forced prayer to a god they didn’t worship. It is an offensive practice that I wish they would do away with permanently.
Out here in the hinterlands (rural Colorado) the decision has been that if the kids want to pray, they can pray. The practice of inviting a local cleric to deliver an invocation has been discontinued, but the first student to address the gathering invariably offers a prayer. The thinking is that as long as a representative of the school district doesn’t offer the prayer, it’s not covered by the prohibition of state-sponsored prayer. Most of the kids even pretend they’re “rebelling” against the secular school administration by praying publicly, as if they’re actually going against the administration’s wishes. Nobody’s fooled.
It’s rude. It’s improper. It’s illegal. If you want some background, you can go to www.au.org That’s the website for Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. They’ve been fighting this fight for 60 years. Maybe I should say “we”, for I am a member.
A public school is an agency of government, not of any church. The first amendment says it must stay that way. If the Christian kids want to have a prayer service before the governmental graduation, that’s quite proper, because they have a choice. When 300 grads are sitting in alphabetical order under the eyes of 600 parents, nobody can nonchalantly stand up and walk out when a speaker starts to pray in somebody else’s tradition. What if the valedictorian was a Hindu, and prayed that way?
Just as a data point, I’ve been to a graduation at a state university in which a Native American spiritual leader (don’t know the proper term here) led a prayer to the Great Spirit. I stood quietly and listened, as did pretty much everyone else even though it wasn’t my religious belief. So, not all the prayers are Christian.
"My is to give to da gods deez cheekin, and weeth him bload I annointy may fellow classmeets so dat dey may be blessed and seeved from the slotter of chaos … "
" EEEWWW!!! "
I don’t think you’re exactly correct.
When a student speaker selected by religiously-neutral criteria – say, for academic achievement – offers prayer, this does not offend the Constitution.
If the valedictorian was a Hindu, and prayed that way, it would be perfectly constitutional.
Help! I can’t stop laughing!
Just a nitpick, but Jews, Christians, and Muslims do worship the same deity, only in different ways.
While I don’t agree with having prayer as part of a civil ceremony, the people there aren’t being “forced to pray” any more than I was ever forced to pledge allegiance in any of the occasions I attended a ceremony where the Pledge of Allegiance was recited - by those who wished to pledge.
Or do you believe I’m sending a Muslim prayer any time I see a car with a short string of prayer beads hanging from its rearview mirror, and a Rosary any time said beads are of that particular brand?
But a lot of them, especially the latter two, get very offended by the way the others worship that same deity.
I understand what you are saying, but there is a HUGE difference between seeing religious beads in a rear view mirror and having someone who is leading you in a ceremony you are participating in asking everyone to bow their heads and praying to a god you don’t worship or worship in a completely different way. Especially at the graduations I went to where they had not 1 but 3 or 4 prayers led by 3 or 4 different people. They don’t have to pray, they can sit there thinking it is all a bunch of shit if they want, but it is still incredibly rude and disrespectful of their beliefs IMO to force them to sit through what is essentially mandated prayer to get to go through a graduation ceremony with their peers. Do you think it would have detracted from your graduation ceremony a little bit if you were forced to face east and kneel with everyone else while they prayed to Allah 3 different times?
You could always make a point of sitting down instead of standing and bowing your head or whatever.
I agree that it’s rude and offensive. I’m baffled by people who don’t see this.
Yes, it’s more evidence for the claims of people from other nations that we don’t really separate church and state (add to this “In God We Trust” on our money, Presidents swearing on the Bible for inaugurations, etc.).
One thing I’ve come to realize as I’ve aged is that some things may be flat-out illegal or otherwise not completely kosher, but until and unless someone challenges the practice, the laws of inertia keep it going. E.g. if you’re the only Muslim family in rural America and the public school has a Christian benediction for its graduation, maybe you could challenge it in court and win. But are you willing to be the goat, piss off the community you live in, etc.?
This is pretty much what the upper courts have concluded. I was just reading about this a few days ago, and can come back with cites if desired. But pretty much, the courts have said that the school cannot direct that a prayer be a part of the program, or even so much as let the kids vote on whether there should be a prayer. The school is responsible for the proceeding no matter what the kids want, and for them to allow (however it may be, through class vote or principal directive) a prayer to occur, it’s no longer separation of church and state. Even the claim that the ceremony is optional doesn’t wash with the courts.
Is it really any different than a high school football team praying together before a game? I’ve never seen one that didn’t.
I went to my sister’s high school graduation in June, 2007, and there was an opening prayer and a closing prayer. It was right there in the program that was handed out. People prayed “In Jesus Name, Amen” and so forth.
But this is rural West Virginia, and here is where the ACLU types have backed themselves into a corner. What will be done about it? Arrest the principal and the school board?
Who, the county sheriff? He was there at the graduation and he didn’t seem to mind.
I can’t imagine who would have the political will to slap a pair of handcuffs on teachers and administrators for having a prayer at a graduation or a football game. Could you imagine the fodder that would give to the 700 Club types?
What makes you think the ACLU arrests anybody, or that any arrests would be desired?
The recourse would be a suit in federal court. Don’t think that can’t happen, even in Backass, West Virginia, if somebody really wanted to press it.
Also, WTF do you mean by “the ACLU types have backed themselves into a corner?” What “corner,” and how have they “backed themselves” into it?
It’s not a crime for the school to encourage prayer. It’s a tortious act. You don’t go to jail, you get sued.