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MEDIA ADVISORY, October 30 /Christian Newswire/ -- The Illinois House of Representatives recently passed a law requiring public schools to observe a brief period of time "for silent prayer or for silent reflection on the anticipated activities of the day." Andy Norman of Mauck & Baker law firm in Chicago is a Christian Legal Society member who concentrates his practice in issues of religious freedom. As other states look into passing similar measures, Norman has put together a list of things that every student, parent and teacher needs to know about his or her rights and how the "moment of silence" law might affect them.
It sounds good to me, also. When I went to school (not all that long ago) we used to have a "moment of silence" as well. That disappeared about the 8th or 9th grade. IMO, there's nothing wrong with a "moment of silence" or "reflection". There's no direct religious implication. As was said, some kids will just make faces.
And, given the current situation in a lot of schools around this country, a moment of prayer before beginning the daily battle isn't a bad idea.
There is a direct religious implication, because the law specifically indicates that the purpose of the act is to promote prayer in public schools. That's unconstitutional.
I hope so. These "moment of silence" laws are garbage.
For you the moment of silence might be "garbage", but for the majority, it's needed.
The way I see it, if students don't want to participate, they can walk out of the classroom during those silent moments, they don't have to participate.
There is a direct religious implication, because the law specifically indicates that the purpose of the act is to promote prayer in public schools. That's unconstitutional.
Did you read the article? The purpose was very clear: "for silent prayer or for silent reflection on the anticipated activities of the day."
The article further outlined exactly why it's not unconstitutional.
A moment of silence is exactly that - a moment of silence. It is each individual's decision on what to do, if anything, during that silence. No one is being told they must pray or anything of the sort. It's not unconstitutional.
The article does try to apply the Lemon Test to the Illinois law, but it doesn't refer to case law to show that it's interpretation is correct.
In Wallace v. Jaffree (1985), the Supreme Court determined in a 6-3 decision (Rehnquist writing the majority decision) that an Alabama law authorizing a one minute period of silence for "meditation or silent prayer" was unconstitutional. In the decision, Rehnquist indicated that if a law has a primary purpose of advancing religion it is unconstitutional. The title of the law in Illinois is the "Silent Reflection and Student Prayer Act" - which clearly indicates that the purpose of the law is to advance religion. The decision was based in large part on the records of the Alabama legislature which made it very clear that they were passing the law to promote religion.
The Act took an existing Illinois law that permitted a moment of silence and changed it to require a moment of silence and prayer.
Some US district courts have upheld moments of silence, including a decision in 2000 that upheld Virginia's statute because the legislature carefully considered the ramifications of this religious accomodation.
I think this will probably be looked at by the Supreme Court again. I still think that students can pray whenever they want, but things take on a different shading when their matters of conscience are mandated by the state.
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