Seperation Of Church And State

7 Pages 1713 Words

Public schools exist to educate, not to promote religion. Children are a captive audience. Making prayer an official part of the school day is wrong and invasive. What five-year-old could view prayers recited as part of class routine as "voluntary"? Religion is private, and schools are public, so it is appropriate that the two should not mix. To introduce religion in our public schools builds walls between children who may not have been aware of religious differences before.
Our public schools are for all children, whether Catholic, Baptist, Quaker, Atheist, Buddhist, Jewish, or Agnostic. The schools are supported by all taxpayers, and therefore should be free of religious observances and oppression. It is the sacred duty of parents and churches to instill religious beliefs, free from government dictation. Institutionalizing prayers in public schools takes over the rights of parents.
People for school prayer mistake government detachment toward religion as lack of sympathy. The record shows that religious beliefs have flourished in this country, not in spite of, but because of the constitutional separation of church and state (Dye). When religion invades our public school system, it can single out the lone Jewish student, the class Unitarian, or the isolated Agnostic, the children in the minority. Families who protest state/church violations in our public schools invariably experience persecution. It was routine prior to the court decision against school prayer to put non-religious or non-orthodox children in places of detention during bible-reading or prayer recitation (Dye).
The children of Supreme Court plaintiffs against religion in schools, such as Vashti McCollum, Ed Schempp and Ishmael Jaffree, were beaten up on the way to and from school, their families subjected to community harassment and death threats for speaking out in defense of a constitutional principle (Dye). We know from history how harmful and destructive religio...