This is bound to come up for discussion, so I will post it here:
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011...hool-football-games/
http://www.waaytv.com/news/loc...v2kynHGt0ImmThg.cspx
The articles describe the decision of John Mullins, superintendent of Arab City Schools in Arab, to discontinue pregame prayer at Arab High School after receiving a letter from the Freedom From Religion Foundation.
Please note that this is a case where an official of civil government obviously considers himself to be vested with civil governmental authority to decide whether or not a public prayer is to be allowed to be uttered over the public address systems of those stadiums in his governmental jurisdiction where official school athletic events are held.
How long will it take for some civil governmental officials in Alabama and elsewhere to come to grips with the well-established legal reality that state-controlled religious observances in public, government-supervised venues are UNCONSTITUTIONAL!!??
And before any of you theocrats out there get your ecclesiastical panties in too tight a wad, consider this question:
Do you truly believe that officials of the civil government should have authority to tell public school children when to pray, to whom to pray, for what to pray, or in whose name to pray? THAT, dear friends, is what happens when “school prayer,” as practiced in the past, is allowed in public school classrooms or other public school venues.
I continue to be astonished at the dissonance, within the conservative ranks, exemplified by those who favor that kind of prayer in the public schools. The same people who insist that “the government needs to stay out of our private lives” and that the “government which governs best is the government which governs least” are nevertheless willing to allow government to design, prescribe and control the religious exercises of captive audiences of public school children in public (i.e. GOVERNMENT-operated) public school classrooms.
Go figure!