Prayer in Schools in IL?

[ToLiveIsToFly]

So Illinois passed a "mandatory moment of silence to encourage prayer" law a couple years ago. One of the few good things ex-Gov Hair did was veto it, but it was overridden.

Our local "separation of church and state" zealot (does every state have these? I hope so) sued and got it overturned. The state's appealing.

Original sponsor offers another bill with the "to encourage prayer" parts taken out, making it just a moment of silence bill. Zealot is totally fine with this and offers to drop suit.

Education committee is totally surprised by this. Decides to table vote on without-prayer and wait to see what happens in the courts on appeal.

If this was just about the value of a moment of silence in the teaching day in our schools, it'd be well on its way to becoming law. But instead we're spending taxpayer money fighting a lawsuit everyone knows we're not going to win.

Well, we'll win in the sense of ending up with what's best for the state. But the state gov't won't get what it wants in this case.

[ne1410s]

(An evergreen):

As long as there are math tests, there will always be prayer in school...

[TheConfessor]

If one minute of silence is considered a good thing, wouldn't two minutes of silence be twice as good? Illinois could have the world's best schools if they would mandate silence for the entire day.

[Beebs52]

What's just amazing is that anybody, ANYBODY, can take a moment of silence and pray in school. And no one will ever know you did it, which is, if you're Biblically disposed, how you're supposed to do it. Quietly. With no fanfare.

I must say, the church that I used to attend, of the Lutheran persuasion, never had a problem with no state sanctioned moments of prayer in school. For which I'm glad. Because, I may not pray to the same god that you do.

Pharisees still reign.

[BigDrawMan]

if tptb wanted to make sure that kids grow up hating prayer, they should make it compulsory.

[lilyvonschtupp26]

I agree, Beebs. you are right on. We don't need a mandated moment of silence. It was a joke when we did it in our school anyway.

[peacock2121]

What's just amazing is that anybody, ANYBODY, can take a moment of silence and pray in school. And no one will ever know you did it, which is, if you're Biblically disposed, how you're supposed to do it. Quietly. With no fanfare.

I must say, the church that I used to attend, of the Lutheran persuasion, never had a problem with no state sanctioned moments of prayer in school. For which I'm glad. Because, I may not pray to the same god that you do.

Pharisees still reign.

Or not to a god at all.

[silverscreenselect]

In our school, the "moment of silent mediation" was an excuse for all the boys to stare at the good looking girls for a minute.

Whatever they were meditating about, it sure wasn't religious.