Anyone who’s known me for any length of time knows that once I make my mind up about something, it’s damned near impossible to get me to change it. For that to happen, you’ve got to come up with something pretty solid and substantial, something that will tell me in my own stubborn mind that, hey, maybe I’m wrong about this.
Well, mark this day down on your calendars, friends and neighbors, because I changed my mind about something today that I’ve had the same opinion on since I was a teenager…and that was a long time ago.
Ever since I was old enough to understand what it was all about and form an opinion on it, I’ve always believed in prayer in public schools. Mainly because I grew up with it, also because I thought that it was just a good idea considering that we live in a country that was founded on Christian principles, so why not start the school day off with the Pledge of Allegiance and the Lord’s Prayer? Yep, I’d held that opinion all my life.
Until today. Today is the day that my opinion on prayer in public schools changed from one of support to one of non-support. And the reason why is both very simple and surprising at the same time.
As I said, our country was founded on Christian principles, and at the time of the founding of our country the majority of the people in it, including the Founding Fathers, were all of the same religion. And since the vast majority of people involved in the founding of the nation were of the same religion and held the same beliefs, then it was only logical that they should include this religion in the dogma of the new nation. That’s where the “In God We Trust” on all of the currency comes from, by the way. But as our country evolved over the centuries, the makeup of the people changed drastically. The larger we became as a nation, the more immigrants we attracted. And the more immigrants who came here, the more the makeup of the nation changed in its religious beliefs. We are now to the point where there is no “vast majority” of people holding the same religious beliefs as there was two hundred plus years ago when our nation was formed. You can find just about every type of religion known to man being practiced right here in the United States, and in very many ways that’s not a bad thing.
But for those who support prayer in public schools, it’s a very bad thing, and here’s why.
The reason I changed my mind about prayer in public schools comes from something I read on another web site today which caused me to sit back, go “Huh!” about my beliefs, and then immediately change them. It’s very simple, really, and it’s like this:
If the government decides to allow prayer in public schools, then they have to allow prayer FOR ALL KNOWN RELIGIONS, not just Christianity. The government can’t say, “Well, we’re only going to allow Christian prayers in public schools” because that’s a clear violation of the First Amendment. So if the government ever decides to rescind the banning of prayer from public schools, that opens the door for prayers from all religions no matter what.
Think about it. How effective would the school day be if you had to stop teaching twice, once in the morning and once in the afternoon, to allow the Muslim students to say their daily prayers? Islam requires prayers five times a day, by the way, and they must be done out of view of “infidels” (non-Muslims) which means that the schools would have to set up and establish a private area for them to do this.
How difficult would it be to schedule activities on the weekend since those of the Jewish faith cannot operate motor vehicles on that day, since Saturday is their Sabbath and their religion prohibits it?
How long would it take to say prayers in the morning if you have students of five or six different religions in the class? How fast do you think the students themselves would get tired of it?
As much as I believe in God and the power of prayer, and as much as I was a firm supporter of prayer in public schools, I can no longer support that idea for the reasons I’ve stated above. If this were 200 years ago and the primary religion in our country was Christianity, if there were no Muslims or Jews or Christian Scientists or Buddhists in our country, then I’d be all for it. And so would the rest of the nation, just as they were 200 years ago.
But it’s 2009 now, and things have changed. I am by NO means “politically correct,” but I do like to think that I am fair. And in the interest of fairness, if you’re going to allow Christian prayers in public schools, then you’re going to have to allow prayers of ALL religions as well.
And that’s just not practical.
IHC
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