Religion and Prayer Must Not be Permitted in Public School Essay

This amendment evidently states that everyone in the United States is entitled to practice the religion of his or her choice and the right to voice his or her opinions. After a careful analysis, the District Court “question[ed] whether the First Amendment impose[d] any barrier to the establishment of an official religion by the state of Alabama” (Wallace V. Jaffree). The District Court considered the First Amendment of the US Constitution as clearly prohibiting the federal government from setting up a state church. Yet, when the First Amendment was ratified, there was no section preventing state governments from establishing a church. The District Court interpreted the First Amendment as emphasizing freedom of religion to all, including in the state of Alabama. Shortly after this analysis, the District Court concluded, “the establishment clause of the first amendment to the United States Constitution does not prohibit the state from establishing a religion” (Wallace V. Jaffree). Thus, the one-minute period of meditation or voluntary prayer in Alabama’s public schools was acceptable because the state was entitled to freedom of religion.

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

Jews, but how does that differ from a small country town in Oklahoma where the

Since the founding of America, there has been concern with the church manipulating government. The separation of Church and State was to make sure the church did not become more powerful than government. In spite of wanting a separation of church and state, The United States of America became one nation under God. The earliest test of the separation of church and state with respect to education is McCollum versus Board of Education. This was a landmark case the United States Supreme Court in 1948 ended the power of a state to use its tax-supported public school system in aid of religious instruction. “The court case which prohibited the state from sponsoring specific prayers in public schools was Engel v. Vitale, decided in 1962 by an 8-1 vote.” (Cline p) It is unconstitutional to compose a school prayer and make students repeat it daily. Although these cases protect our religious freedoms, there is some fear that expelling God from public school has adverse effects. God can still be present; teachers can lead by example and teach behaviors and ethics that

In the case of Engel vs. Vitale, the main topic dealt with prayer at school. The New York State board of regents composed a non-denominational prayer to be used in the state’s public schools.

School prayer is a very controversial issue in today’s society. The issue of school prayer is about whether the public school systems should let the students pray, at the start of the school day, as a class. The issue of school prayer began in the late sixteenth century when people in England did not approve of the way one religion was forced upon them, so the Puritans, known as the Pilgrims decided to come to the colonies. Even in the colonies the Pilgrims had problems with religion they had to sometimes resort to highly creative strategies in order to pray. When people were caught having a secret service they would have to face the consequences that the law enforced, whether it was going

The prayer was, “Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and beg Thy blessings upon us, our teachers, and our country” (Oyez 1). The state of New York approved the prayer, and the prayer was nondenominational. Children whose parents did not want them to recite the prayer did not have to participate, and were excused; reciting the prayer was voluntary. Therefore, the prayer was not mandatory and was supposed to serve as a purpose of moral education only for those who wanted to acknowledge God as the source of all blessings. However, New York Lawyers argued that the prayer offended the Establishment Clause, suggesting that the state of New York was officially approving a religion by approving the prayer. This action eventually led to the Supreme Court ruling the prayer as unconstitutional. With the success of ruling Engel v. Vitale unconstitutional, the case set a precedent for many more court cases in which the Supreme Court used the Establishment Clause as a jurisdiction for removing religious practices in public schools.

In conclusion, I believe that the decision made in the Supreme Court case of Engel v. Vitale was correct. Although this case was the springboard for many of the more radical ideas of the likes of Madlyn Murray O’Hare, this case did uphold the ideas and beliefs of America’s Founding Fathers. Many have made the dispute over school prayer out to be a point of division in our nation. Yet the majority believes religion should be a part of our school systems. According to an article by John C. Green and James L. Guth, a “1983 Gallup poll found 81% of the “aware” public favoring a

U.S. Supreme Court Case number three was Engel vs. Vitale 370 U.S. 421 1962. The petitioners were the parents of ten pupils in the New York public school district. The parents argued that the prayer mandated by the school was contrary to the beliefs, religions, or religious practices of both themselves and their children. These parents challenged the constitutionality of both the state law authorizing the School District to direct the use of prayer in public schools, and the School District ordering the citation of this prayer by the students.

The Court decided that having the prayer in public school was unconstitutional and conflicted with the Establishment Clause. The prayer violated the Establishment Clause because the prayer was established by government officials. Based on the idea of the separation of the church and state that was greatly pursued by the founding fathers, the court continued with the ban not because they were anti religious but because it violated the First Amendment.

Since the expression is not in the Constitution and not even fundamentally examined by the composers (e.g., The Federalist Papers), it is interested in wide understanding and error. The main clear proclamation about religion in the Constitution can be found in the First Amendment and we will take a gander at its administrative history later in this article.

The issue of school prayer is not one of religious freedom, as it is already legal for children to pray in school, either individually or in groups. Since the Engel decision in 1962, religious advocates have been assailing the Supreme Court for "taking God out of the classroom." In an effort to reverse this trend, conservative religious groups have been fighting for the passage of a school prayer amendment to gain greater leeway for religious activities in schools.

Those 10 words — the first phrase of the Bill of Rights — have been the focus of hotly contested debates and countless lawsuits seeking to reach a consensus on precisely what the framers of the U.S. Constitution intended when they drafted what has come to be known as the establishment clause of the First Amendment. Interplay between religion and government is a decidedly sensitive topic, and determining just how much (if at all) one sphere can interact with the other is difficult and inevitably opinion oriented.

This all began in 1955 when the New York Board of Regents approved an inclusive prayer to be used in the public school system. The prayer was “Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependency on Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers, and our country.” Engel v. Vitale made it unlawful for the public recitation of the Regents’ Prayer in public schools.

The debate on religion in the public school is complicated by the fact that there are two clauses dealing with religion in the First Amendment (Warnick, 2012). The Establishment Clause, which disallows the establishment by the government of any particular religion, and the Free Exercise Clause, which prohibits the state from proscribing the practice of religion, are a source of