The Right to Pray

School prayer has been an issue in the lives of many Americans since 1962 when the U.S. Supreme Court threw prayer out of public schools in the Engel vs. Vitale case. Today school prayer is still an extremely questionable issue, since it touches many Americans hearts due to their beliefs and religious tolerance. Education is mandatory for all children so many feel that the school should maintain separation from any religion.

Many religious people are in favor of school prayer. However, many pastors and teachers of religion are actually against prayer in public schools. They believe that most students attending public schools are not ready for prayer. Teachers, untaught in the ways of spiritual motivation and communication, can hardly hope to succeed where parents and professionally trained teachers and pastors have failed (Nieset). What are non-church going teachers going to be able to instill in students in non-religious environments. But in addition to the typical public schoolteacher being totally unprepared to teach prayer, meditation or discernment of values, the school environment is intrinsically fraught with anti-prayer situations (Nieset). As Nieset clearly stated in his title, Prayer in Public School? Don t be Ridiculous we can clearly see that this pastor, religion teacher, and high school principal of a Catholic School, is clearly against prayer in public school.

On the other side of the issue, there are those who desperately think that prayer should be allowed in our public schools. Supporters of public school prayer feel that starting the school day with a prayer could not possibly harm our society. Supporters of the School Prayer Amendment believe that our children have lost respect for our country, their peers, and themselves (Kramer). Many Americans want to promote their religion in public schools and feel that the prayers will make our society a better place. The supporters believes that prayer can cause students to become better people, better citizens, and better parents for our future children (Kramer).

There are also those who stand in the middle. Many people like Tim Madigan feel that prayer should be allowed in public schools but have different ideas on the way the prayer should be handled. There are many different cultures and religions represented in our public schools. What better way to show this than by letting every religion have their turn? Start the school day not with a bland one size fits all prayer, but rather with a specific incantation from an actual congregation-from the Adventist to the Zoroastrians (Madigan). This would satisfy those for prayer and those against it, because there would still be prayer but it would be a prayer to a different religion each day, it would not be promoting Christianity or any certain religion every day.

This issue is very controversial, not just in the past; it is still talked about greatly today. I chose this issue because this subject has many different positions and is one that is very interesting to me. I agree with Madigan, I believe that the different religion each day is a wonderful idea. The children might actually be interested or look forward to the morning prayer. Children especially teenagers are looking for something to believe in, maybe a prayer would spark an interest, and just maybe the child would find some security in a religion of their choosing. This is an issue that I feel will never totally disappear. There will always be someone who says that they are not being treated fairly.