jenkinsfan, the picture you present is not one that causes me (nor any other NRITPS* folk I know) any problems. In fact, most of the schools here have something along those lines. The (dread) ACLU has protected the rights of extra-curricular religious student groups if the school allows any extra-curricular student groups.
BUT (and for those of us in the Bible Buckle, that is one huge BUT), the picture presented by VarlosZ is what often (if not usually) happens in reality.
For example, the recent USSC decision regarding prayer at football games. [WARNING: VAST OVERSIMPLIFICATION FOLLOWS] The reasoning of the Court was based on these facts: the school had an (~20 year, IIRC) history of mandated school prayer; the school and town had a history of complaints by students & their families of religious discrimination, persecution and harassment (primarily against Jehovah’s Witness & Catholic families); the school administration & school board had essentially stated that the ‘student-led’ prayer was a gimmick to get around previous court decisions that ruled against mandated, school-led prayers; and the ‘majority rules’ nature of the system used to choose the student prayer-leader guaranteed that only Christian prayers by a certain sect would ever be allowed.
I heard radio interviews with some of the high school students. They stated that there should be no problem with prayers at the football games, because they were ‘voluntary’ and ‘student-led’. However, they also said that no students of minority religions should be allowed to lead the prayers, because those were false religions.
IOW, the school (read: agent of the state of Texas and of the US govt) was basically establishing that only one sect of Christianity was a religion valid enough to be allowed to pray publicly.
Did you read this? (Thanks, Opus1.)
I could give you numerous personal anecdotes from my life as well as the lives of my family and friends, examples of how an unthinking majority that assumes everyone believes or SHOULD believe as they do can (sometimes unwittingly) harass, discriminate and even threaten children of minority beliefs (including non-belief).
It is these sorts of incidents that cause many of us to be SO VERY VERY WARY of any religious display or speech in the schools. As I and others have stated, there is NO PROBLEM with students praying in school, as long as it’s something they do on their own, on their own time, without inflicting it on other students.
*No Religion In The Public Schools. I also thought of Separation Of Church And State. Is there a word that means ‘all those of the many & varied beliefs that agree that religion does not belong in the public schools, except as individuals choose to practice it privately’? I sure couldn’t think of one this afternoon.