Prayer In Public Schools

Introduction: Prayers in schools are one of the most controversial issues of our generation. The heart of the issue revolves around whether schools should be allowed to mandate prayers? Conservatives argue student led prayers instill morals into students. Liberals on the hand, argue that while prayers are legal by the First Amendment, there should be a balance between church and state. Religion plays a major role in everyday lives and for students, school takes up half of their daily lives. Thus, it is important to fully understand where religion lies in regards to public school education. Religious leaders such as ministers reject the idea of amending the Constitution as well. They believe that prayers themselves are intimate conservations …show more content…
When issues became political, key figures such as presidents and Congress members can exert opinions that have tremendous influence over the general public. Both president Bush and Reagan have lobbied for a “constitutional amendment allowing children to pray and depicting those persons who oppose school prayer as liberal and anti-religious” (Durso vol. 36, no. 1, Winter94, p. 79).These opinions fuels the supporters and causes it to become a political issue. But the underlying reason on the president’s input on these controversial issues is to gain support; “Former Attorney General Ed Meese's [confessed] that school prayer and other social issues were never a top priority with the Reagan Administration despite the former president's public stance” (Durso vol. 36, no. 1, Winter94, p. 79). On the other hand President John F. Kennedy subsequently commentented after the precedent of Engel V. Vitale that families should respect the Constitution and incorporate religious practices more often at home to fill the gap and that “it is important for us, if we are going to maintain our constitutional principle, that we support the Supreme Court decisions even when we may not agree with them” (Walker, Todayinchl). In order to protect the rights guaranteed to every individual, it is imperative that officials remain impartial such as Kennedy who did not state his opinion …show more content…
In the past, there have been several cases where prayers have been involved during gradations or sport games. In Santa Fe Independent School District vs. Doe, “Santa Fe High School's student council chaplain delivered a prayer, described as overtly Christian, over the public address system before each home varsity football game” (Oyez, Santa Fe (2000)). In cases such as these, the entire audience listens and prays along with the school even if they are of a different religion. But since these were considered student-led prayers, they argued that it was constitutional, but it would be inconvenient for those of different religions to exit the stadium just for that brief moment. Thus prayers performed in big groups such as an football stadium are deemed unconstitutional. But that does not mean that prayers in general during schools should be overlooked, there just has to be a fine line drawn. For example, students should only be allowed to pray individually during free periods. This prevents quick prayers turning into prayer sessions where even faculty joins along; "there is a crucial difference between government speech endorsing religion, which the Establishment Clause forbids, and private speech endorsing religion, which the Free Speech and Free Exercise Clauses protect” (Board of Educ. v. Mergens, 496 U.S. ). Religion to most is a private matter, and there are

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