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Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 11:42 am
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Last week, my high school held its official commencement exercises, in which, I'm proud to say, I officially started my "parole." What I'm not proud to say, however, is that I graduated in an atmosphere of coerced religion. A prayer was conducted before commencement began, and as if that wasn't enough, another was given in dismissal. I've heard several different opinions on this, ranging from the all-too-common-around-where-I-live "Yes, because without Jesus how can you manage your life?" to the more reasonable "No, because it's against the Establishment Clause" to even "Why does it matter?", which, most of the time, is really just a badly disguised "yes."
Because this school is part of a public school district, prayer has no place in its graduation ceremony. Some students can't afford to attend private school, and some just may have their own beliefs, so why should they be forced to attend a school which establishes an official religion?
The purpose of a belt is to hold up one's pants. But the Bible Belt has a recurring habit of dropping its collective pants and mooning - in the most subtle way possible - people who choose to hold up their pants with a belt of equality.
What are your thoughts on this? How would you react if your school incorporated prayer into their commencement exercises?
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Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 2:38 pm
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Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 3:07 pm
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Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 5:35 pm
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Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 7:38 pm
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Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 7:50 pm
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Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 8:10 pm
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Posted: Wed May 23, 2007 10:02 pm
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Posted: Thu May 24, 2007 12:40 am
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Tenth Speed Writer As annoying as it is to have to sit through a religion-based ceremony (And believe me, I would know), there isn't any point in complaining if the intended audience is almost entirely Christian. I could just as easily ask that they stop the morning prayer at my school for myself and the two or three agnostics around, but what would that do but upset the other 897 theist students?
Yeah, I didn't say anything at the time; I just walked across the stage and got my diploma, no questions asked. It didn't seem worth it to ruin the entire ceremony over what would seem to be kind of a trivial issue.
Of course, more than 85% of my school is Christian. Although there are quite a few atheists, agnostics, and open-minded people all over the school. But when you're discussing a breach of the Constitution, demographics don't matter; a largely Christian school has no more right to undermine the Constitution than does a more diversified school. The Constitution is the Constitution. Not toilet paper. End of story.
I also happened to find the decision of a court case on a similar issue, in which a rabbi was invited to offer the prayer: Lee vs. Weisman. Fortunately, it turned out to be a victory for non-establishment.
lilraine could you not report something like that to the ACLU?
As far as I know, that's the best place to report stuff like this. In fact, I'm working on a letter to the ACLU right now. Coercion to participate in religious activities and appearance of respecting the establishment of religion should be strong enough ammo. I'll post the letter here when I'm done, if anyone's interested.
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Posted: Thu May 24, 2007 2:29 am
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Posted: Thu May 24, 2007 10:52 am
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Posted: Thu May 24, 2007 4:17 pm
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Posted: Wed May 30, 2007 7:37 pm
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Posted: Wed May 30, 2007 8:17 pm
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Posted: Thu May 31, 2007 8:56 pm
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