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CHICAGO (AP) — A 14-year-old girl and her outspoken atheist father filed a federal lawsuit Friday challenging a new Illinois law requiring a brief period of prayer or reflective silence at the start of every school day.
Since when was it a violation of the first amendment to have a moment of reflection/prayer at the start of the day???? The way I read it, it said that the government can not establish a religion..........Can someone please tell me how this is establishing a religion???
Well, they could have just said " Ya'all just hush up for a minute and think whatever you want.."That way the christians could pray if they want and the athiests could wonder what everyone is thinkin' about..Point is.. you can not tell a person what to think about
I've never posted in the subforum but I'll throw out this thought. I don't believe that a 14 year old has any idea about the ramifications of this action and she's just being used by her father who's promoting his own agenda. Yes, I'm an atheist but I don't see any harm in a moment of silence. It seems to be religiously neutral because a religious person might pray or a nonreligious person might have a moment of reflection. For the most part the kids will probably just sit there and stare off into space. This is not a threat to anyone who's not a believer.
In Wallace v. Jeffries, the Supreme Court overturned a moment of silence law because it was created to allow students a moment to pray, thus making it's primary purpose to advance religion. The government cannot make laws that advance religious purposes.
It would probably be legal to mandate a moment of silence if there was no religious reasoning given in the statute, but in this case the name of the act itself includes the word "prayer" in it. It's going to be overturned.
I think there's also a question as to why the state legislature is imposing its will on the schools, too. This isn't a matter that affects the cirriculum or funding of the school, so it really seems to be the state legislature using the public schools for political purposes.
Since when was it a violation of the first amendment to have a moment of reflection/prayer at the start of the day???? The way I read it, it said that the government can not establish a religion..........Can someone please tell me how this is establishing a religion???
Give me a break........
The word "establish" means far more than what you interpret.
There have been countless court cases concerning this. You can find all of them on the internet and read for yourself.
Since when was it a violation of the first amendment to have a moment of reflection/prayer at the start of the day???? The way I read it, it said that the government can not establish a religion..........Can someone please tell me how this is establishing a religion???
Give me a break........
It's prayer via the backdoor. Religious activists hit on this after they finally realized that they could never introduce prayer back into American schools.
It's prayer in sheep's clothing, nothing less. School is for learning, not for praying. They should pray on their own time.
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