Prevent Coercive Prayer In Public Schools

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schools are for everyone, whether they are Buddhist, Catholic, Muslim, or
Taoist. The practice of organized prayer in schools invades the student's right
to an education free of the discrimination which organized prayer would
encourage.
Many people mistake the religious indifference of public schools for
hostility. Public schools must to be very careful to neither discriminate for
nor against any single religion, and people often incorrectly perceive the
schools' attitudes toward religion. The non-discrimination requirement may seem
wrong to many, but when religion has a home in public schools, it singles out
the students who disagree with the theology being taught. Prior to the Supreme
Court's decisions against school prayer, it was standard practice to put the
students who didn't agree with the theology being taught in places of detention
during Bible readings and prayers.
One argument in favor of the practice of school-organized prayer draws
its basis from ...

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to quote statistics and percentages, a practice which is not usually
useful to the debate in general because there is rarely any proof to link the
rampant rise of "sin" with the practice of school-endorsed prayer. "Since the
court outlawed prayerŠdivorce doubled, teenage pregnancy went up 200%, and teen
suicide went up 300%Š abortion increased 1000%. There is a strong correlation
between the expulsion of prayer from our schools and the decline in morality."
(Geisler) The question one must ask is, "What do these things have to do with
the ban on coercive prayer?" The answer, of course, is, "Nothing." Anyone who
is convinced that there is a cause and effect ...

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