BANNING SCHOOL PRAYERS IN U.S

Banning School Prayers in U.S

School Prayer

Congressman James Trificant stated, “A Congress that allows God to be banned from our schools while our schools can teach about cults, Hitler and even devil worship is wrong, out of touch, and needs some common sense.” In an article for WorldNet Daily, Mychal Massie wrote:

Question: If God is so bad for public schools, if God is so intrusive, if the separation of church and state is as clear as some (insert lawyers and socialists) would have us believe--why did it take an atheist and a lawyer until 1962 to figure it out? Question: If saying the Lord's Prayer and /or observing moments of silence is so destructive to the psyche of school children and tantamount to sanctioning religion--why does the U.S. Congress employ a taxpayer-paid chaplain, i.e., preacher, to begin every session of Congress with prayer? (Note: This has continued uninterrupted since 1777.)

Although prayer is banned in public school classrooms, the history of all three branches of U.S. government shows a consistent support of public prayer and belief in God. Robert Bork notes that “The first Congress, which proposed the First amendment for ratification by the states, also appointed chaplains for the House, Senate, and the armed forces. The early Congresses regularly petitioned the president to issue Thanksgiving Day proclamations addressed to God.” Furthermore, eleven of the thirteenth original states required faith in Jesus Christ and the Bible as a qualification for holding public office.

In his presidential proclamation for the National Day of Prayer (May 6, 2004), President George Bush stated:

“In his first Inaugural address, President George Washington prayed that the Almighty would preserve the freedom of all Americans. On the National Day of Prayer, we celebrate that freedom and America's great tradition of prayer…. Prayer is an opportunity to praise God for His mighty works, His gift of freedom, His mercy, and His boundless love…. Through prayer, we recognize the limits of earthly power and acknowledge the sovereignty of God.”

On May 6, 1982, President Ronald Reagan said:

“Our Pledge of Allegiance states that we are 'one nation under God,' and our currency bears the motto, 'In God We Trust.' The morality and values such faith implies are deeply embedded in our national character. Our country embraces those principles by design, and we abandon them at our peril. Yet in recent years, well-meaning Americans in the name of freedom have taken freedom away. For the sake of religious tolerance, they've forbidden religious practice in the classrooms. The law of this land has effectively removed prayer from our classrooms. How can we hope to retain our freedom through the generations if we fail to teach our young that our liberty springs from an abiding faith in our Creator?”

The first public act of President George Washington included a public prayer to God: “It would be peculiarly improper to omit in this first official act my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the council of ...