question

Bob posted, in part: "The 1995 document, "Religion in the Public Schools: A
Joint Statement of Current Law," can be accessed on the Department of
Education web site at www.ed.gov/Speeches/04-1995/prayer.html. You can also
find it on the Baptist Joint Committee, ACLU, and a dozen other sites. Just
Google the title. Read sections 5-8 and you'll see how much latitude is
there for teaching about religion in the classroom... ."

Thanks much for this reference. I appreciate it.

It should be required reading for those who get exercised over this issue unduly.

To David & Bill: Help me out here. Regardless of Jones' rationale (which I also do not entirely share), it seems to me that the First Amendment, along with the 14th, does bar any church-state alliance. And should. But I may be missing something. Tell me one or two examples where a church-state alliance ought to be permitted.

Reasonable people differ on these issues, I know. I am familiar with the SCOTUS decision that said a gov't could not compose a prayer (to a nonspecific god) which was to be mandated upon public school children. The ramifications of this decision are still being worked out, of course. For instance, a prayer to a god by a valedictorian at commencement does not seem, to me, to be prohibited by the amendments, although some courts (I understand) have ruled otherwise. Of course, a prayer by a school official is something else.

Specific examples of what you guys have in mind would help. Bill worries that some school administrators haven't got it right yet. In this, they are like most of the rest of us.

Burgy
Received on Thu Jun 1 21:30:25 2006