Oklahoma School Cancels Bible Study, Morning Prayer Over PA System After Parents Push Back

[Along Came Jones]

Madison and Adams also had words and shared the sentiment for separation.

I wonder, from colony to state, is there a survey listing when each new state dropped their religious clauses from their state constitutions? The Church of England was the official church of Madison's Virginia. Puritanism was the official religion of Adams' Massachusetts and held considerable sway in the remainder of New England. The role of religion in the states did not immediately change with the adaption of the 1787 federal constitution.

 

[Gordy327]

I wonder, from colony to state, is there a survey listing when each new state dropped their religious clauses from their state constitutions? The Church of England was the official church of Madison's Virginia. Puritanism was the official religion of Adams' Massachusetts and held considerable sway in the remainder of New England. The role of religion in the states did not immediately change with the adaption of the 1787 federal constitution.

Individual state religions became null and void when the 14th Amendment was passed.

 

[Along Came Jones]

Individual state religions became null and void when the 14th Amendment was passed.

There were no state religions at the time the Establishment Clause can be said to have been incorporated by the 14th Amendment's Due Process Clause. They were long gone. I believe the incorporation has only been used against the states when they infringe upon some constitutionally supported religious practices. Like say, door to door proselytizing by Jehovah's Witnesses.

But I suppose all this veers off the topic being discussed. Interesting, though.

 

[Gordy327]

There were no state religions at the time the Establishment Clause can be said to have been incorporated by the 14th Amendment's Due Process Clause. They were long gone. I believe the incorporation has only been used against the states when they infringe upon some constitutionally supported religious practices. Like say, door to door proselytizing by Jehovah's Witnesses.

But I suppose all this veers off the topic being discussed. Interesting, though.

Some states did not change their constitutions regarding having an official religion. But it was rendered moot due to the 14th Amendment. Even if a state has an "official" religion still in its constitution, it's completely unenforceable. It was probably never changed or removed.

 

[BabyAugustine]

From the article:

An Oklahoma school district has shut down morning prayers being broadcasted over the PA system at an elementary school after receiving criticism from parents.
Last month, parents discovered that Prague Elementary School had been sending students to Bible study and saying morning prayer over the school's PA system.
An anonymous parent told KFOR News that some students had been 'getting picked on or bullied' because they were not participating in the school-sanctioned religious activities.
"I went to the principal and told her that what they are doing is illegal," said the parent. "But they told me that because it is students technically leading it, it isn’t."
Prague Public School District eventually shut down the morning prayers and Bible study due to the backlash from parents. They released a statement saying the district "is dedicated to following the law and protecting the rights of every student to freely exercise his or her religion."
However, not everyone is happy with the decision. State Superintendent Ryan Walters posted a video on X where he vowed to "take a stand for our students’ freedom of religion, their freedom to express their religious beliefs."
Jeremy Telman, a law professor at Oklahoma City University, said that Walters was '100% incorrect' in claiming that any students' freedom to express their religious belief was under attack 'because the school isn’t allowing prayers over the intercom.'
"In fact, the rights of students of the other students were violated when the school was broadcasting those prayers," Telman explained to KFOR News.
According to the Oklahoman, the Freedom From Religion Foundation called for Walters' resignation.


Clearly this school was in the wrong and violating the Constitution. It's like I always say, the separation of church and state must always be absolute, absolutely!

I KNOW you don't understand your own post. Absolute...but all who have a religious commitment in government (incl right-living atheists) will always be the same person.
Besides, you are absolutely wrong BY YOUR OWN ARGUMENT vis a vis the Founders

In his Farewell Address of September 1796, Washington called religion, as the source of morality, "a necessary spring of popular government," while Adams claimed that statesmen "may plan and speculate for Liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand."

And TWO SCOTUS rulings destroyed your main assumpstions
ABINGTON V SCHEMPP
"We agree of course that the State may not establish a "religion of secularism" in the sense of affirmatively opposing or showing hostility to religion, thus "preferring those who believe in no religion over those who do believe." "

REmember Justice Rehnquist, later Chief Justice
William H. Rehnquist (then an associate justice) wrote, “There is simply no historical foundation for the proposition that the Framers intended to build the ‘wall of separation’ that was constitutionalized in Everson [v. Board of Education].” The First Amendment, Rehnquist argued, “has been expressly freighted with Jefferson’s misleading metaphor for nearly 40 years.”

YOU HAVE BEEN PROVED WRONG FROM WASHINGTON TO NOW

 

[BabyAugustine]

There were no state religions at the time the Establishment Clause can be said to have been incorporated by the 14th Amendment's Due Process Clause. They were long gone. I believe the incorporation has only been used against the states when they infringe upon some constitutionally supported religious practices. Like say, door to door proselytizing by Jehovah's Witnesses.

But I suppose all this veers off the topic being discussed. Interesting, though.

That is wrong in the biggest way it can be.
The law is and always has been that your irreligious thoughts are and should be beyond prosecution but your anti-religous are fully prosecutable

Reynolds V United States destroyed tthe illogical nature of your argument.
In other words your argument leads to the rejection of both your premises !! Yes, you are right a Mormon can believe bigamy is religously acceptable but if he acts on it he is violating the law, esactly what they Founders intended

" This being so, the only question which remains is, whether those who make polygamy a part of their religion are excepted from the operation of the statute. If they are, then those who do not make polygamy a part of their religious belief may be found guilty and punished, while those who do, must be acquitted and go free. This would be introducing a new element into criminal law. Laws are made for the government of actions, and while they cannot interfere with mere religious belief and opinions, they may with practices. Suppose one believed that human sacrifices were a necessary part of religious worship, would it be seriously contended that the civil government under which he lived could not interfere to prevent a sacrifice? Or if a wife religiously believed it was her duty to burn herself upon the funeral pile of her dead husband, would it be beyond the power of the civil government to prevent her carrying her belief into practice?"

 

[Gordy327]

I KNOW you don't understand your own post. Absolute...but all who have a religious commitment in government (incl right-living atheists) will always be the same person.
Besides, you are absolutely wrong BY YOUR OWN ARGUMENT vis a vis the Founders

What you don't seem to understand is that while an individual can have their religious beliefs, they cannot inject that belief into secular government or law or public policy.

YOU HAVE BEEN PROVED WRONG FROM WASHINGTON TO NOW

The civil Government, though bereft of everything like an associated hierarchy, possesses the requisite stability, and performs its functions with complete success, whilst the number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people, have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the church from the State (Letter to Robert Walsh, Mar. 2, 1819).​

Strongly guarded as is the separation between religion and & Gov't in the Constitution of the United States the danger of encroachment by Ecclesiastical Bodies, may be illustrated by precedents already furnished in their short history (Detached Memoranda, circa 1820).​

Every new and successful example, therefore, of a perfect separation between the ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance; and I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity the less they are mixed together (Letter to Edward Livingston, July 10, 1822).​

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I must admit moreover that it may not be easy, in every possible case, to trace the line of separation between the rights of religion and the civil authority with such distinctness as to avoid collisions and doubts on unessential points. The tendency to a usurpation on one side or the other or to a corrupting coalition or alliance between them will be best guarded against by entire abstinence of the government from interference in any way whatever, beyond the necessity of preserving public order and protecting each sect against trespasses on its legal rights by others. (Letter Rev. Jasper Adams, Spring 1832).​

To the Baptist Churches on Neal's Greek on Black Creek, North Carolina I have received, fellow-citizens, your address, approving my objection to the Bill containing a grant of public land to the Baptist Church at Salem Meeting House, Mississippi Territory. Having always regarded the practical distinction between Religion and Civil Government as essential to the purity of both, and as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States, I could not have otherwise discharged my duty on the occasion which presented itself (Letter to Baptist Churches in North Carolina, June 3, 1811)​

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Congress should not establish a religion and enforce the legal observation of it by law, nor compel men to worship God in any manner contary to their conscience, or that one sect might obtain a pre-eminence, or two combined together, and establish a religion to which they would compel others to conform (Annals of Congress, Sat Aug 15th, 1789 pages 730 - 731).​

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[Gordy327]

YOU HAVE BEEN PROVED WRONG FROM WASHINGTON TO NOW

Every new and successful example, therefore, of a perfect separation between the ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance; and I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity the less they are mixed together. It was the belief of all sects at one time that the establishment of Religion by law was right and necessary; that the true religion ought to be established in exclusion of every other; and that the only question to be decided was, which was the true religion. The example of Holland proved that a toleration of sects dissenting from the established sect was safe, and even useful. The example of the colonies, now States, which rejected religious establishments altogether, proved that all sects might be safely and even advantageously put on a footing of equal and entire freedom; and a continuance of their example since the Declaration of Independence has shown that its success in Colonies was not to be ascribed to their connection with the parent country. if a further confirmation of the truth could be wanted, it is to be found in the examples furnished by the States which had abolished their religious establishments. I cannot speak particularly of any of the cases excepting that of Virginia, where it is impossible to deny that religion prevails with more zeal and a more exemplary priesthood than it ever did when established and patronized by public authority. We are teaching the world the great truth, that Governments do better without kings and nobles than with them. The merit will be doubled by the other lesson: the Religion flourishes in greater purity without, than with the aid of Government (Letter to Edward Livingston, July 10, 1822).​

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The settled opinion here is, that religion is essentially distinct from civil Government, and exempt from its cognizance; that a connection between them is injurious to both; that there are causes in the human breast which ensure the perpetuity of religion without the aid of the law; that rival sects, with equal rights, exercise mutual censorships in favor of good morals; that if new sects arise with absurd opinions or over-heated imaginations, the proper remedies lie in time, forbearance, and example; that a legal establishment of religion without a toleration could not be thought of, and with a toleration, is no security for and animosity; and, finally, that these opinions are supported by experience, which has shewn that every relaxation of the alliance between law and religion, from the partial example of Holland to the consummation in Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, &c., has been found as safe in practice as it is sound in theory. Prior to the Revolution, the Episcopal Church was established by law in this State. On the Declaration of Independence it was left, with all other sects, to a self-support. And no doubt exists that there is much more of religion among us now than there ever was before the change, and particularly in the sect which enjoyed the legal patronage. This proves rather more than that the law is not necessary to the support of religion (Letter to Edward Everett, Montpellier, March 18, 1823).​

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I can cite Jefferson and Adams too, among others. But the point is made. You have been proved wrong by James Madison, the Father of the Constitution. How terrible it must be for you to not have the government validate your religion for you!

 

[Ganondagan]

The story also mentions Bible study which the reporter and our fellow commenters do not discuss. The DoE guidance indicates that study groups not led or taught by school employees as part of their employment is constitutionally permissible. Same goes for private prayer and discussion during school hours. Use of the PA system would be, as I've acknowledged, unconstitutional governmental speech.

I'm for keeping mandatory prayers, or public PA prayers out of schools, but not private expressions of faith. A child should be permitted to pray with hands clasped before eating lunch without interference and teachers should be able to pray in school if she's not forcing students to join in.