RateItAll: The Opinion Network

Of course it should be legal.

It just shouldn't be mandatory, as some folks seem to desire.

All public areas, including schools, are, well,... public areas, where any and all citizens have the constitutionally protected right to freely express their beliefs. Any prohibition is a violation of the constitution.

Yeah;and I just heard about a guy in England who sued-and in a suit he brought against the secular school system that they had no business forcing one-sided global warming "religion"on kids as uh, like religion.

It should be legal to pray in school but the school should not mandate the prayer or require it.

I think it depends on the situation. Muslims must pray at a certain time of day, no matter where they are. Of course, I don't know of anyone ranting about being "offended" by Muslims, so maybe it's a moot point. As far as schools, it should be left to the school itself to decide what is appropriate. When people talk about pray in school they aren't talking about a special time of day set aside for prayer. It's prayer at graduation, before football games, etc. Some people's twisted view of the Constitution aside, if a school in a community that is 98% Christian and 2% "I don't care" wants to say a prayer before a football game, they should be able to do it.

I don't care a rat's behind if it's legal or not to pray in public. When I need to talk to the man upstairs, I'm gonna do it right where I stand. I don't need to make a scene about doing it, mind you. That sorta defeats the purpose of praying when you steal God's glory for yourself.

Hey, if it's not illegal to curse in public, than it shouldn't be illegal to pray there as well...and if anyone takes offense to either of the two, I say f**k 'em.

It shouldn't be ILLEGAL to be able to pray in school and other public areas. So long as there are no laws prohibiting the practice of one's faith, then society is respecting the rights of the individual. It should be illegal for a public school to sanction the practice of one faith over that of another by having teachers or school officials deliver prayers in school. If students and parents want religion to be a part of their educational experience, then they should choose private faith based schools.

This is a straw man. Nobody proposes that it should be illegal to pray on public grounds. The issue is solely whether the school or public institution should be sponsoring such a prayer, or appearing to do so.

It should be legal to pray whenever and wherever a person wants to. I dislike how ultra liberal activists have tried to make it so that prayer is not allowed in schools. This is a blatant misinterpretation of our country's laws. Freedom of speech allows people to say what they desire, even if it is the opposite of what others want to hear. There is no freedom from speech that I don't like. Whether or not you pray, you shouldn't have a legal problem with other people who do choose to pray.

SZinhonshu -Please point out exactly where in the Constitution it forbids government from allowing a moment of silence that students may use to pray if they choose? Go ahead and explain how that is "CONGRESS establishing a religion" -which is the ONLY body of government forbidden by the Constitution with regard to religion? Apparently you are another who thinks the Constitution says a bunch of stuff it doesn't at all. Isn't it amazing that our own founders apparently never understood the very document they created? After all, not only were children praying in public schools all during the time they were drawing up the Constitution, they continued doing so for the next 185 years or so. And not one of them ever said it violated a darn thing -which means they apparently had a totally different interpretation of the document THEY created than you do. As for the person who said to let him know if someone was told not to pray? Apparently he hasn't heard about numerous children who were told they could not even carry their Bible to school with them to read on their own time, children who prayed before eating who were ordered to stop etc. Or the very recently threatened lawsuit against teachers in NC -who before school starts, go to a room out of sight of kids and those teachers who do not wish to participate, in order to share a prayer before the start of the school day. Ordering people NOT to pray is just as great a violation of the Constitution as ordering people to pray and I can find where that violation really is in the Constitution. There are no exceptions in the Constitution regarding public schools or because one is an employee of a public school district. Government is NOT to interfere with the free exercise of religion -and that doesn't mean "except for school".

To attempt to take prayer out of school is ridiculous. Why, what is the point if it makes you feel better about your self or gives you a confidence boost whats the problem. If your dumb enough to pray to satan then you probably don't belong in school.

It is legal to pray in school and other public areas. Go ahead and try. See if anyone tries to stop you. If someone does, please contact me. I'd love to have you as a client. What is unconstitutional is reserving a moment acknowledged by a government authority to do so ... there's that pesky Federal Constitution again!

It IS legal. Fundamentalists have been whining ever since 1962 that prayer was "taken out" of public schools. Nothing could be further from the truth. Every September, hundreds of thousands of kids participate in See You At the Pole (SYATP), where they gather together and pray in a circle around the flagpole outside of the school. There are numerous clubs and organizations that can be formed within a school. I went to a fairly small high school, but we had a Bible study club, Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and several other Christian organizations. While in high school, I personally witnessed a person at school pray silently to himself every day in the cafeteria before he started eating. Nobody ever said a word to him. Know your rights - schools are LEGALLY construed to allow students to form Christian Bible study groups and the like. But SCHOOLWIDE school prayer - where prayer is proffered over the intercom - was rightfully struck down (was it in the '80s?). It's one thing to pray silently to yourself or in a group. But to assume, in our present time when our country is a cultural and religious melting-pot, that all the students are Christian, is wrong. It is not the business of the school or the school board to continue where church let off the day before. Educating our children is the realm of the state, not religion, just as faith in God is the realm of the church, not state matters. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the separation of church and state. But that doesn't mean that kids must leave their religion outside before they enter their school. As long as they are respectful of other people's belief (or non-belief) in God, there will be no problem.

It isn't? Every Saturday in New York in the malls, at around 6 pm or so the Hasidics will stand in corners publicly praying, and I have yet to see anyone objecting. I don't see why anyone should stop anyone from this although I can see other kids ridiculing those other kids who are.

If someone has a problem with someone else talking to their best friend during school, that's their problem. It doesn't seem fair that people are allowed to take the Lord's name in vain anytime they want, but other's aren't allowed to pray to him? That's doesn't make any sense. Think of it this way. If you were somewhere, and you heard someone bashing your father, and you tried to stick up for him, but you weren't allowed to, that's what people are doing by not allowing us to pray. Heck, I pray anyway, just cause I don't do it out loud, doesn't mean I don't do it.

Pray anywhere you want. Just don't include anyone else. Scheduled times to pray, like everyone stopping before a football game at High School for a momment of prayer is worthless and offensive. Religion is personal and should stay that way.

Seeing as how prayer doesn't work (we both flunked physical science and mechanical drawing together in high school), why bother? There's 300,000 churches in North America alone; if you can't do it there, then why keep all those (tellingly empty) buildings around? And if you find yourself having to pray at EVERY turn just to get by in the world, then perhaps the world is just too tough for you, and you should consider staying in bed. Ditch superstition, and start relying on your OWN abilities.

i dont believe in prayer in schools, but as long as i'm not being solicitated to, prayer in public areas is fine with me.

I'm an athiest, so I don't pray (I don't say the pledge either), but I don't think it should be made illegal. As long as they aren't forcing people to do it, and they aren't hanging church posters in the wall, I'm fine with it. I just want people to stop shoving it in my face and stop trying to convert me to Christianity.

YES!!!! Just as it is legal NOT to pray if you don't want to.

Absolutely!!! I think prayer can be construed both as freedom of religion and freedom of speech!!! Scarletfeather's comment makes no sense. She said legal prayer would be forcefeeding Christianity. Just because you pray does not make you a Christian. You could be praying to Buddah or the Sun God! How would that be forcefeeding Christianity??? Please explain.Update:I actually agree with DJahuti on something?This can't be happening.

No, praying in public school and other areas provide unnecessary, controversial distractions. The ACLU will have to step in.

It isn't so much that it should be legal. It's that it should NOT be ILLEGAL! The government should make no laws establshing a religion or prohibiting the free exercise of religion.

Pray in a church. . .God wants your illiterate kids to read at school and improve board scores that are an embarrassment when compared to other first world countries. Where are your priorities, people? If I couldn't skateboard in a public park as a teenager, then you can get your pious ass to church to pray.

Of course it should be LEGAL to pray in school.I don't think anyone has ever been arrested for that! However,no specific prayer should be sanctioned by the school or forced on its students.There should be a moment of silence when anyone who wishes to can say their own prayers and anyone who doesn't want to pray can just sit there quietly.This will foster respect for the ways of others.

It should be and is legal to pray anywhere. No one can stop me from praying and likewise no one should be forced to pray.

It is legal to pray in school. Check out recent study of 63 Supreme Court case that confirms this. Find out who initiated the study and how this information was witheld from the parents for over 40 years by logging onto the book section of www.pray-in-school.com.

Of course we should respect a person's right to say a silent prayer to himself. If a child gets mocked for bowing his head before a cafeteria meal, then I would hope educators would have the common sense to defend the child's right to his peers. Public school prayer only becomes controversial when varying groups ask to get their individual thoughts reflected back from kids who may be from a different religious background from them. That is when respect turns into disrespect. It's a challenge to negotiate this, and there's no shortage of impassioned folks on both sides making sure their individual rights aren't infringed. However, I believe it to be possible to affirm mutual respect for our differences without the agenda clash.

i'm with you on the praying in public places part. if you want to praise Jesus before you have a slice of pizza in a food court, or wanna praise allah in the can at your office, go ahead. but in schools--PUBLIC schools. no. if we do that, i'd like to have my tax money withheld, b/c i'd be homeschooling my kids.

A 5 minute time of silence should be provided for each class to pray,meditate,think,calm down-whatever their faith instills in them-but no bible thumping teacher telling the children what their version is or what god wants them to do.Parents and churches should provide this.I think the pledge of allegiance should keep under god.

Not allowing people to pray constitutes an establishment of an atheist religion and is a direct violation of the first amendment. This unfortunately is what we have thanks to the liberal activists turning the constitution on its ear.

Approach it from the other direction. What law exists outlawing an individual person's prayer, in any setting? Courts, manipulated by activist groups, like the ACLU, have caused people like you and me to believe that our government somehow has the authority to govern this issue. You have freedom, in this country. The US Constitution LIMITS what the government can meddle in. Its purpose is to limit the scope of what oppression of YOUR freedoms the government can legislate. Like it's illegal to pray! How stupid!

Any private citizen can pray anywhere that they like, public or private. So, of course, it should be legal to pray in school or in any public areas. This is fine so long as people who are employed by the government don't pray while they are working. When a teacher is teaching a class he or she is an agent of the government in that they are highered by the government and paid by public funds. They are therefore representative of the government when they fulfilling their capacity as an educator. To have them endorsing prayer or praying themselves would therefore be tantamount to state endorsement of a religion. This is especially true in public schools since attendance is mandatory and they recieve grades from teachers. No matter what the scenario a public institution or its members, when they are wroking, should not endorse or even allow prayer because it is unfair to both people inside and outside of that institution.

No punk-butt government can stop me from praying. Truth is, that it IS legal to pray anywhere. I wonder why the ACLU doesn't stand up for the first amendment, you know the part where it says... Congress shall make no law prohibiting the free exercise of religion. Is prayer part of free exercise? Is prayer part of religion? Anyone who will try to deny the Freedom of Prayer to the individual is a tyrant in need of a lesson in American Freedom. Since the ACLU does not defend the rights of prayer, they are by default an anti-American subversive cabal of bigots. PS, has anyone ever heard them stand up for the second amendment?

Ralph has a point about not making a show of prayer, but that point is not connected to this issue. The issue is that little ACLU freaks are slowly trying to outlaw Christianity, which kinda spits in the face of what those fools are supposedly for, standing up for our rights!

The question is not should it be legal, but rather should it be illegal? I think it should be legal to pray, but not required.

It IS legal to pray wherever you want to. Its just the state sponsoring of religion that is banned.

it should be legal and allowed as long as it is not forced upon people who do not want to participate, or it becomes a disruption. personally i believe that prayer is something sacred between man and his god and is something that should be done privately.

We've expelled a record-high 500 students this year. No, not for guns or drugs. For praying.

It's hard to put a rating on this subject. The separation of church and state refers to state sanctioned religions; ei, The Church of England. Our Constitution is clear and well thought out. As long as the 'state' isn't the guiding body for a single religion,as long as the state does not endorse one religion or fund one religion, we have the right to pray when and where we want. The government does however retain the right to govern religious practices that impact society as a whole. It is only recently(last 20 years)the secular way of thinking has gotten a foothold in our courts and in our media. In reality a very very small minority of people the are 'offended' by religion. You may not believe in God or have a religion, but you also DO NOT have the right to slant the Constitution to impede a legal and private act between a person and their spirituality. Prayer in school and public areas should not be restricted, but it must be kept private and it must consider time contraints in school. Once again this debate is made possible by the very document we keep trying to change, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights contained therein. Read it sometime.

I see no reason why a student or person should not be able to pray in a school or public place. Honestly I'd like to know how anyone would plan to enforce it. While I don't believe schools and such should force or promote anyone to pray, I fail to see the problem of allowing someone to send up a few words to whomever they believe in.

Yes, of course it should. But it should neither be promoted nor discouraged by anyone in an official capacity.

It is legal to pray in public areas, as many have already said, thats not the issue. I don't think there's a need for a moment of silence or a school-led prayer at the beginning of the school day. If a student feels the need to pray before school, then that can be accomplished during their morning preparations. To me, prayer is a personal issue, and best left out of the educational system altogether.

School prayer should not be mandatory, but it certainly should be allowed. At my school, we have a moment of silence each day. That is perfectly fine by me. I pray during that time- I pray for our brave soldiers in Iraq and elsewhere, risking their lives for our country. I pray for the safety of my mother, my family, and my friends. What do other people do during that one moment of silence? I don't care. They can lay their head down and sleep if they prefer. That is their right, just as it is my right to say a silent prayer. I believe that it is my right to say it out loud as well. However, the school itself shall not recite a prayer out loud, because it is a federal facility, and the federal government shall not endorse any specific religion, but the federal government also shall not prevent me from exercising my right to freedom of religion and expression. Out of respect for others, I recite the prayer silently. And I appreciate those who don't follow His word remaining quiet during that Moment of Silence. It shows that we can all respect each others' beliefs, and not force those beliefs on our peers.

No, it should not be legal to pray in schools because making prayer legal in public schools would be in effect force feeding Christianity on everyone. Hard as it may be to realize not everybody in this country is Christian. We have Jews, Buddhists and people who are Islam, and we even have agnostics and atheists! Yikes!

It ain't broke, we don't need to fix it. We already have an admirable compromise worked out with the moment of silence which is widely used. It IS legal to pray in a public place--it just is not legal for an authority to LEAD others in a prayer, for that would explicitly violate the First Amendment. If I were a Hindu, I wouldn't want to be part of a class that prays to Jesus Christ to deliver me from Hell. Would Christians want to be led in a prayer to Krishna, and punished or ostracized for not going along with it?

This issue is at the heart of the so-called culture war. I don't believe that the government has any right to be influencing the religious behavior of other people. Freedom of Religion is a restriction on government action; it's not about imposing standards on others. I understand that atheists and agnostics may be uncomfortable in public demonstrations of faith, but I believe that we as a society should be mature enough to respect other peoples faiths. When you restrict one's right to pray, then you're restrict their right to free speech and religion. If people approve of a monument to the ten commandments, then they should be allowed to post it. The reasoning behind freedom of religion is to prevent the state from sanctioning any particular church. Posting the ten commandments isn't sanctioning any religion; those words are part of the religious heritage of three faiths. Those are guides to live life by. I believe that there are elements within our society that want to see God taken out completely from the public square. We're setting ourselves up for a dangerous precedent here because this is banning peoples right to express themselves; when you take that away, the government can ban whatever speech it wants. It's not about religion, its about our right to free speech, religion, and yes even assembly. The people in the ACLU who say they are advocates of free speech are actually restricting it.

I seem to recall something about the seperation of church and state. Oh, yeah, that US document thingy, whatever. :) Seriously, people should not be allowed to pray in schools, because the school is a state-controlled organization. Public places are a different matter, since they are public, people should be allowed to do what they want (as long as its not illegal, immoral or crude).

Would that allow for praying to Satan? If you were to allow it at all then I feel all religions and their practices no matter how contrary they may be to others beliefs should be included. There's the problem.

Freedom of religion is not a privelidge, It is a right.

Of course. As long as it's not disruptive, mandatory or sponsered by the school or government, prayer in public areas is a good thing. Is it not allowed now? I thought the issues were only about disruption and being mandatory, not about the legality of prayer in public.

It should be legal as long as it isn't being forced on anyone or have any other negative effects.

PBeavr, Solenoid, and several others seem to have hit the nail right on the head. Of course, it should be legal to pray in public! Is this not one of the very rights promised in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution?!

It is already legal to pray in public areas, even in public schools. These prayers can not be lead by officials. Each to their own prayer, provided this is not disruptive, who cares?

I have no problem with it. Just don't enforce it on me.

You should be allowed to pray whenever you want. No one should say you can't. Anymore than someone should be forced to pray if they do NOT want to. It is a matter of choice. I for one have said a silent prayer for someone when I pass a bad looking accident. Or on other occasions. NO one can stop me from praying If I want to.

Of course it should. That's why people came to America to settle in the first place; to be able to do just that without anyone stopping them! Deny the truth all you want folks, but that's how it is.

The real question should be: should the government own property? Answer: No. eliminating government ownership of property allows for individual citizens and property owners to make their own decisions on issues like these with no confusion whatsoever. As far as prayer on properties considered public, I say yes. The public means EVERYONE, doesn't it? Therefore, one person is not to enforce their beliefs over another on peoperty that everyone owns. I can pray, you can complain, and we can all agree to disagree... it's our property, after all.

Completely agree with the well put posts of SolenoidDH and PBeavr. I don't remember praying much back when. But I do now when and wherever the mood strikes - I'd like to see someone try and stop me!

I totally agree with PBeavr...great point...everyone else wants to e hear and have their culture and beliefs noticed, but prayer is not allowed, they can't have their culture? That is such a hipocrisy.

Sure, people should be able to pray wherever and whenever they want. Just so long as they don't FORCE anyone to do it if they don't want to, I don't care.

I prayed in school all the time... and it never helped my French grade. Why all the fuss about this? If a kid wants to pray, let them. If they want to sit there and meditate until they levitate, let them. If they want to waste prayer time writing notes or sleeping, well, what can you expect?