Joel:

On the continuum of “ways a government might endorse a religion” I don’t think the picture is all that extreme, but I do think it crosses the line. As I alluded to in my earlier post on the subject, a lot of my feelings on this have to do with the school board’s comments and reactions to the controversy, particularly Mike Queen’s. Prayer definitely has the potential to cross the line in a more significant way.

As for the rest of your comment, I think that’s a very sensible way of looking at things. A lot of other people would probably begin to feel that way as well the moment a school started advocating some method of prayer that went against their own beliefs.

Though I am having trouble seeing the picture of Jesus as tantamount to a school sanctioned religious display, I as a conservative evangelical Christian do have problems with public school sanctioned prayer. First, these often become mere “moments of silence.” But that teaches kids to equate prayer with moments of silence. I don’t like that. Or, if it is a public prayer over a PA, then it is either so generic as to be not in content Christian or it is explicitly Christian, which is inappropriate for the non Christians. And then you have to deal with all the rolled eyes and sarcastic and snide comments of students and staff alike. So, in order to preserve the essential elements of Christian prayer, that is prayer offered to the Father through the Son, I’d rather the public school just stay out of the prayer business. The kids can pray as they wish, to the gods of their choice, and should be allowed to display symbols of their faith, and carry bibles, as teachers ought to be able to do so to an extent (teachers have civil rights too), but, bottom line, I don’t want the public school system teaching my kids about prayer.