Banning Prayer in Public School

For the answer to this question we have to go back to what the Founding Fathers were thinking when they structured the framework for this nation. They believed that a free society could not survive as a republic without a broad program of general education. The Electorate must be literate and educated.

John Adams said, "The education of all ranks of people was made the care and expense of the public, in a manner that I believe has been unknown to any other people, ancient or modern...A native of America who cannot read and write is as rare...as a comet or an earthquake...Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people...They have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied knowledge--I mean, of the characters and conduct of their rulers."

Do you begin to see where we have gone wrong? We do not really care so much about education any more. We throw a lot of money at it but we are no longer first in the world. Public education has been taken over by unions who do not have the best interest of the students at heart. They serve their own agenda. Do you know that our country had a higher percentage of literacy in the 1700s than it does today?

Most people today do not realize the role that religion played in the founder's plans for the first really free nation in modern times. The founding fathers planned for religion to play a big part in our country both then and now.
Have you ever heard of the Northwest Ordinance? It was very important to the founders to have religion and morality taught in the schools and this document underscores that.
Here is a quote from the Northwest Ordinance:
"Article 3: Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged."

They did not single out any one sect or denomination but knew that most of the major religions embraced the same tenets. This is what they wanted to be taught in the schools:
1. Religion: "fundamental system of beliefs concerning man's origin and relationship to the cosmic universe as well as his relationship to his fellowman."
2. Morality: "a standard of behavior distinguishing right from wrong."
3. Knowledge: "an intellectual awareness and understanding of established facts relating to any field of human experience or inquiry (i.e., history, geography, science, etc.)."

It was their belief that our type of government would only work with a virtuous people. They did not think that you could have morality without religion so they wanted this always to be taught. Their goal was to have public virtue. A moral and educated people is a free people. Freedom was their ultimate goal in everything they did.

The Northwest Ordinance followed the principles outlined by Thomas Jefferson in the Ordinance of 1784, and was passed by Congress in 1787. The authors of the Northwest Ordinance are thought to be Nathan Dane and Rufus King.

Let Freedom be the Mistress of thy Heart by PatrioticAmerica
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Everything changed in 1962 when the Supreme Court handed down a decision in Engel v. Vitale, and in 1963 with the Murray v. Curlett case and Abington v. Schempp. These cases struck down the practice of prayer and Bible reading in public schools. There was no legal precedent for these decisions and they spawned a whole different climate for expressions of religion in the public square. Many more lawsuits were brought to remove God from our public places. Cities and states went even farther than the federal government, some even forbidding the word "Christmas" to be used within the school house walls because it contained the word, "Christ." Overturning 170 years of settled law, the Supreme Court had re-interpreted the meaning of the phrase, "separation of church and state" and the meaning of the word, "church."

The First Amendment says, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

What this meant to the founders was that Congress could not make a law saying that everyone must be a Catholic or a Quaker or any other religious denomination. It was to protect religion from Congress. It was never meant to keep religious expression out of public places, least of all schools.

The Supreme Court decisions of 1962 and 1963 were very wrong. This is one reason that our presidential selection is so important. The president has the power to appoint Supreme Court justices who serve life terms. These judicial activists took it into their hands to create new law which was not within their Constitutionally prescribed powers.

Supreme Court Justices should be educated in the Constitution and the intents of the founders. They take an oath to uphold the Constitution and they certainly shirked their duty in these cases. They perverted the meaning of the First Amendment.

That Supreme Court was filled with mostly politicians, not judges with Constitutional experience. The Supreme Court did not have jurisdiction over this and this ruling was unconstitutional.

Here is a prayer commonly used in schools up until 1962:
"Almighty God we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers, and our Country."
What happened in the United States in the years following the banning of prayer and Bible reading from public schools?

These are just some of the statistics covering "us", the students.
*Pregnancies in Teen Aged Girls - By 1994 had gone up 400%-Highest rate of teen aged motherhood in the West.
*Sexually Transmitted Diseases - Cases of gonorrhea up almost 400% among students age 10 to 14.
*Two Thirds of teenage boys say they've had sex. By the time they are 18 they've had on average, 5 partners.
*Rapes committed by 13-14 year old boys increased 186%.

These are statistics about the parents.
*Divorce rates - up 120%
*Single parent families - up 140%

What about the teachers?
*SAT scores declined sharply
*American students often place last in international scholastic competitions
* When attention focused on teachers to find the reasons for students' failure, many teachers failed certification tests.
*Dramatic increase in school violence
*Student suicides up 253%
*Students lack basic information - poor skills - bad for the business community
*Military forced to provide remedial education for recruits

Our Country
*Between 1962 and 1993 violent crime in the US increased 660%
*Alcohol use increased dramatically
*National productivity decreased
*Drug use
*Illiteracy
*72 million adults functionally illiterate
*26 million can't read at all

The founding fathers knew that these kinds of problems are controlled by the heart. When you take religion and morality away, you have taken away the restraints and the training of the heart. The heart does not respond to laws and laws cannot stop these kinds of things. All of the groups mentioned in that prayer, the students, teachers, parents, and our country, have paid dearly since 1962.

Statistics are from America: To Pray or Not to Pray by David Barton. He drew statistics from the Department of Justice, The College Entrance Exam Board, Department of Health and Human Resources, Department of Commerce, the Census Bureau and other official sources.

If a Nation Expect to be Ignorant and Free... by PatrioticAmerica
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Our founding fathers had studied history, civilizations, governments, nation building, philosophers, and the Bible. They labored long and hard to give us the best possible government to allow us the most freedom. They foresaw what would happen if we strayed from the Constitution and they warned us about it. Why do we feel that we need to tinker with the Constitution that they gave us? Why do succeeding generations think they can reinvent the wheel and do it better? It always gets us into trouble. Every high school student, college student, congressman, senator, judge and president should be required to demonstrate a thorough knowledge of the Constitution.

The Constitution, Made in the USA by PatrioticAmerica
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