How the Right Is Bringing Christian Prayer Back Into Public Schools

[Nevilledog]

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Mark Joseph Stern
@mjs_DC
The Supreme Court will soon hear arguments in a case engineered to return Christian prayer to public schools. It features some of the most unscrupulous and dishonest lawyering I've ever seen before SCOTUS. It's built on a series of brazen lies.

slate.com
How the Right Is Bringing Christian Prayer Back Into Public Schools
Conservative lawmakers and judges have recast religious neutrality as anti-Christian bigotry.
7:23 AM · Apr 15, 2022

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/04/how-republicans-recast-christian-indoctrination-as-religious-freedom.html

On April 25, the Supreme Court will hear Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, a case that was carefully engineered to return prayer to public schools. Kennedy marks an effort to overturn nearly 60 years of precedent protecting schoolchildren from state-sponsored religion by flipping the First Amendment on its head. The case erases the rights of children who wish to avoid religious coercion at school, fixating instead on the right of school officials to practice their religion during the course of their formal duties. It is the culmination of a decadeslong battle to reframe government neutrality toward religion as unconstitutional discrimination against people of faith. And it is chillingly likely to succeed.

It would be a mistake, however, to view Kennedy as a mere doctrinal shift in constitutional law, as radical as that doctrinal shift would be. This case is also the product of the Republican political campaign aimed at restoring public schools’ authority to indoctrinate students with Christianity. The campaign is on the brink of success in the courts because proponents of school prayer have perfected a tactic that reverses the victim and offender.

Today, school officials who coerce students into prayer go on the offensive, claiming that any attempt to halt their efforts at religious coercion is actually persecution of their religious beliefs. Supervisors, lawmakers, and judges who attempt to shield children from being indoctrinated are recast as anti-Christian bigots.

If there were any doubt about this inversion of the First Amendment, the House of Representatives recently decided to dispel it. Late last month, the House was considering a bill to name a federal courthouse in Florida after Joseph W. Hatchett, the first Black man to serve on that state’s Supreme Court.The bipartisan bill was sponsored by Florida’s two Republican senators and backed unanimously by its 27 House members—until, suddenly, it wasn’t.

*snip*

[azureblue]

1. just watch

for their reaction when a Catholic kid recites a Hail Mary...

[Mossfern]

3. Or better yet

when a Jewish kid recites the Shema or Muslim kid brings out his prayer rug.
They don't realize that they're opening up a huge can of worms.

[GoodRaisin]

8. They wouldn't put up with a Muslim prayer. nt

[jimfields33]

4. It's interesting that politicians think that with prayer kids will behave themselves.

I went to Catholic school where prayers were said. We were not any better behaved then the public school kids.

[Ilsa]

2. Indoctrination?

Hermione sez in her sing-song-y voice, "It's not going to wor-rk."




I grew up in a school that had a daily morning prayer. I never met anyone converted by that practice.

I just hope some other religious folk exercise their religious prayers in school as well, whether they are in one of the languages of India, or Farsi, or Arabic, or Hebrew.

[aocommunalpunch]

5. One of MANY issues with this is the PRAY-2-PLAY bullshit

Coaches have the pressure on kids to participate in this utter contemptible fucking nonsense by keeping non-participants off the field. Stay classy, Xian warriors. Skygawd says thanks. Toodles.

[Girard442]

6. Sure sounds like grooming, doesn't it?

[Runningdawg]

7. OK would get a HUGE surprise at their public schools located in areas with a high Native population.

The days of telling us who to pray to and in what language, are over.

[Initech]

9. Yeah and they're concerned about gay people grooming their children.

[tanyev]

10. They're cool with teachers of other faiths leading students in prayer?

[rownesheck]

11. It's shit like this

that makes me wear my good Friday shirt. It's picture of Jesus hanging on the cross with him saying, "Hey! I can see my house from here!"