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From: dyer@vaxuum.DEC (Where's the falafel?)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Silent Prayer in Schools is *Not* Illegal
Message-ID: <6546@decwrl.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 28-Mar-84 09:35:01 EST
Article-I.D.: decwrl.6546
Posted: Wed Mar 28 09:35:01 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 29-Mar-84 23:39:05 EST
Organization: DEC Engineering Network
Lines: 33

| Silent Prayer in Schools is *Not* Illegal |

.------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| The law states a little more than that.  It is also illegal for you to si-
| lently pray, if you do so in front of others.  It is also illegal for the
| school to set aside a little "quiet time" where you may pray if you like,
| silently to yourself.  It is also illegal for a group (2 or more people) to
| get together by themselves on school property, and pray.
`------------------------------------------------------------------------------
	This is dead wrong.  The Supreme Court ruling on this says two things:
(1) schools my not force a prayer on the students, and (2) organized religious
activities are not to use school property.
	There is no law anywhere, nor is there a court ruling, that prohibits
a student from silently praying.  And if there were, it would be impossible to
enforce.
	Many schools, the high schools I went to included, already practice a
"quiet time" period; it's entirely legal.
	If a group wants to pray together *silently* on school property, who
could stop them?  I'm not quite sure if that's illegal or not; it's a question
of whether or not school property is being used for religious activity.
	I would tend to think that a group of students praying silently toge-
ther on school property would not be breaking the law; the Supreme Court ruling
was strong (if not very clear) in its intent that the schools' resources not be
used to impress a specific religious view on students.
		<_Jym_>

| Jym Dyer | DEC Documentation Production Software | Nashua, New Hampshire |
	   | ...{allegra|decvax}!decwrl!rhea!vaxuum!dyer |