Cobb County Planning Commission Essay

Constitution's First Amendment requirement that the District neither establish religion in the schools nor prohibit students’ free exercise of religion according to pertinent interpretation and application of those constitutional provisions by the courts. Any religious characters need to conform to policy 8800” (Markesan District School, 2013). “Decisions of the United States Supreme Court have made it clear that it is not the province of a public school to advance or inhibit religious beliefs or practices” (Markesan District School, 2015). Under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution, this remains the “inviolate province of the individual and the church of his/her choice. The rights of any minority, no matter how small, must be protected. District staff members shall not use prayer, religious readings, or religious symbols as a devotional exercise or in an act of worship or celebration” (20 U.S.C. 4071 et seq.) (Markesan District School, 2015). Having examined the Markesan District School First Amendment related to this topic the next step is to conclude my research on this topic.

The appeals court decision came almost 40 years to the day after the Supreme Court decision in Engel v. Vitale. In that case, the court ruled it unconstitutional for public schools to allow prayer, even though the prayer was non-denominational and students were allowed abstain from the exercise. When

When planning assessment you need to gauge a clear idea of what level the candidate is at to see if they are ready to complete your planned assessment. There are many ways of achieving this knowledge. One method is observation in performance or another by taking an initial assessment test which have seven levels with the basic entry level 1 being the first.

Galindo analyzes that the fundamental “mission” of a congregation is the same as any other congregation that exists in any part of the world. He argues that though every congregation has a mission and a vision, at the same time, it shares a basic common mission. (43) This reminds me of my home church The First Church of Evanston and my Field Site, The Evanston Vineyard Church. Both churches have a common mission of welcoming people to the church, irrespective of their ethnic, cultural, racial, and economic and, gender backgrounds. The mission is to help people be received in the house of God with due and deserved Christian love so that they feel loved and welcomed. Both these churches encourage church attendees to attend the service and receive the Eucharist.

It is important for me and the Archdiocese of st. Louis to come together for the annual

The case of Wallace v. Jaffree calls into question the constitutionality of an Alabama statute that authorized teachers to lead a one-minute period of silence for “meditation or voluntary” prayer in all public schools. Ishmael Jaffree, the parent of three students in the Mobile County Public School system filed a complaint that two of his three children had been “subjected to various acts of religious indoctrination,” as a result of Alabama statute 16-1-20.1 and asked for an injunction prohibiting Mobile County schools from “maintaining or allowing the maintenance of regular religious prayer services.” The purpose of Jaffree’s complaint was to prohibit the devotional services occurring in his children’s school and the consequent mockery of his children that occurred when they refused to recite the prayers to “Almighty God” (Stevens, 40). This type of law in Alabama public schools was not the first of its kind. Prior to statute 6-11-20.1, Alabama passed law 16-1-20 authorizing one minute of silence in public schools for meditation. After the authorization of statute 16-1-20.1 came 16-1-20.2, which allowed teachers to lead “willing students” in a prayer (Stevens, 40).

In response to the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Santa Fe Independent School District V. Doe (SFISD V. Doe) case, Chief Justice Rehnquist commented, “It [the ruling] bristles with hostility to all things religious in public life” (“United”). Separating religion and state has always been a matter of concern for the United States, as shown by the Establishment Clause in the First Amendment of our constitution. Although there have been many cases revolving around the relationship between the church and the state, SFISD V. Doe is among the most notable. By examining the background, reflecting on the decision, and analyzing the impact of the SFISD V. Doe case,

In 1995, Doe v. Duncanville Independent School District centered around a female student-athlete and her unwillingness to participate in prayer activity. She claimed her refusal to engage in team sponsored worship subjected her to ridicule from teammates, peers, and spectators. The Supreme Court ruled that the school district had failed the Lemon Test by endorsing religion through employee-led prayer, which is a direct violation of the Establishment Clause (Lee, 2005). As a result, “school officials, administrators, and employees were prohibited from initiating, leading, sponsoring, or promoting prayer at athletic events, or using the public address system for similar purposes” (Willett, 2014). This may not have been the popular decision, but

Application/Analysis: The court agrees that the state has a legitimate interest in protecting its citizens from fraud, but in this instance, the court takes issue with the fact that a sole authority, the secretary of the Public Welfare Council, can decide what is considered a valid religion. The court states that the secretary “is empowered to determine whether the cause is a

Another example to support my statement involves the case R. V. Big M Drug Mart. Before this case, the Lord’s Day Act prevented people from opening shops on Sundays because that day was for Christian people to go to church and spend time with their family. Big M Drug Mart was charged in Calgary for unlawfully opening their store on a Sunday. They disagreed to the Lord’s Day Act because not every Canadian citizen had to have a religion. This case was later released and the law was struck down due to violation in section 2 in the Canadian Charter, which protected fundamental rights.

It’s a reasonable question Hoosiers might ask after my office filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the U.S. Supreme Court in a case that could decide whether the widespread practice of prayer at the start of legislative meetings is constitutional. In analyzing the long history and tradition of opening meetings with prayer, our brief contends that prayers initiated by citizens themselves — including prayers that invoke God, Jesus, Allah and other deities — do not violate the First Amendment prohibition on government establishing religion. Our brief argues government assemblies are not proselytizing if they allow citizen expression of such prayers at the start of meetings. The Texas attorney general co-authored our brief and a bipartisan group of AGs from 21 other states signed it, reflecting the legal importance of the question.

Town of Greece, New York v. Susan Galloway was a Supreme Court case that posed the question of whether or not the town of Greece should be allowed to open their board meetings with voluntary prayer that was almost always Christian prayer. The defendant in this case was the town of Greece, which is located in the state of New York and has a population of 94,000 people (opinion p.1). In 1999, under new leadership, the town of Greece made the transition from opening each town board meeting with a moment of silence to opening with a prayer (opinion p.1). The opinion states that the prayer was supposed to, “place town members in a solemn and deliberative state of mind, invoke divine guidance in town affairs, and follow a tradition practiced by Congress and dozens of other state legislatures (opinion p.2).” The prayer was given each month by an unpaid volunteer clergyman. After this person gave the prayer they were then named the “chaplain for the month” (opinion p.2). Anyone could volunteer to be a chaplain no matter what religion they practiced or even if they practiced no religion at all (opinion p.2). However, almost every single chaplain was Christian (opinion p.2). One very important fact about the case is that the town of Greece did not provide any guidelines or suggestions about what the prayers should include. In fact, they didn’t even read the prayers beforehand because they believed that would be impeding the chaplains’ first amendment right (opinion p.2). This meant

During the 1970s the court reviewed the constitutionality of compelled exemptions for religiously motivated conduct (1673). In Wisconsin v. Yoder the Court held that there was an important state interest in universal education but the law to compel students to go to school infringed on the free exercised rights. Chief Justice Burger, “lauded the virtues of the Amish and their social practices. In Employment Division v. Smith, the Court held that the use of peyote for religious purposes does not protect the persons from a denial of unemployment benefits. Justice Scalia stated, “We have never held that an individual’s religious beliefs excuse him from compliance with an otherwise valid law prohibiting conduct that the State is free to regulate” (1676).

For centuries, the debate has existed whether or not to allow prayer in public schools. Many Americans feel it is not right of the schools to teach religion. With all the diversity associated with the United States, public schools cannot select one standard religion to practice, due to the cultural and religious differences in the country. Not only are schools the storm center of controversy involving religious differences, they are the principal institution charged with transmitting the identity and mission of the United States from one generation to the next. If we fail in our school policies and classrooms to model and to teach how to live with differences, we endanger our experiment in religious liberty and our

Leaders are appointed to serve here on earth on behalf of Christ since Christ is the good and chief shepherd. Leaders should lead the believers based on how Christ related with the church when he was on earth[5]. Shepherds had to feed the people of God and to protect them from predators[6]. Churches today ought to do things how the New Testament churches did[7].