Prayer in the School. Hmm...I've got mixed feelings.. I'm not sure the Lords Prayer in the public school classroom is right. I recited it in elementary school, in the 50's, along with my classmates, all who were either Lutheran or Catholic. I'm sure it's not a bad idea where all kids are Christian, but In NYC, we've got Jewish kids, Buddist kids, Muslim kids, Christian kids, Atheist kids and who know's what else. I would probably die before having to bow down to Allah..I was offered a job in Saudi Arabia, years ago, and turned it down, because I would not be able to practice my Christian faith (You can be arrested in Saudi Arabia for having anything but a Muslim religious service).....After moving to NYC in the 60's I met Hindu and Buddist and Muslim children, as well as Black 7tth Day Adventists, and Puerto Rican Catholics. Talk about a cultural wake up call!!.. I remember a young Hindu girl running out of my junior high classroom in Queens, because she was embarrassed by the teacher, who had singled her out because of her clothing. Kids hate to be outsiders..Would a Christian prayer (ie the Lords Prayer, first prayed at the Sermon on the Mount) be appropriate to all American children?? Should some form of Christianity be manditory for citizenship??
I agree that the United States would not have been created without the imput of fundamentalist Christians like the Pilgrims and liberal ones like the Quakers. Catholics, of course, were not allowed in for a very long time, due to their penchant for torturing people of other faiths.. There was a time when Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and Columbia were church schools for Protestant children, only. (I think they've lost their spiritual thread, but that's another story.) If we wish to establish ourselves as a Theocracy, are we to go back to our earlier policies, which excluded, in the 17th century, Jews from being allowed to immigrate to the colonies? Would we make Muslims and Hindus and Buddists leave?? (Polygamists were deported in the last century...)..Would we exclude Jews from owning property? I believe in God, the Father and the Son, but I also respect the Creators creation of Free Will, which allows each person to make up their own mind about their own faith, or lack of it. I'm all for prayer in religious schools, and I'm all for released time, but in a place like NYC, a Christian prayer in the school is sort of prejudiced.
