Soviet Union survivor: President spits in face of every U.S. citizen

(Yawn....), here it is again, in black and white for your reading pleasure, Article III (The First Amendment) to the U.S. Constitution....

Now, let's be clear....I acknowledge your point (and others siding with you in this argument) about "the need for silent prayer." Frankly, had I gone to public school, I probably wouldn't have spent that time (had it existed then) praying. Not the point of the discussion. The issue, as I see it, is "is allowing a moment of silent prayer a violation of the First Amendment?" By my interpretation, so long as Congress does not mandate that the "silent moment" must be spent in prayer to a particular diety, be he God, Yahweh, Allah or Buddha, then it has not established a religion. If anything, preventing a child from praying if he/she chooses should constitute "prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Really, the words aren't that difficult if you're willing to accept what they say.

edit: and for the unnamed poster who is about to question why I can't understand "separation of church and state," I ask, please show me where those words are printed in the U.S. Constitution?

 

That's funny, dude. Or is it? As we all know, many companies do exactly that, even dedicating a "smoking area" along with the time for smokers to stop working and fuel their nicotine addiction. I'm not going to go research it, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if this began with someone taking their boss to court because he/she instituted a "no smoking" policy. Had the workplace not been so flexible on the matter, is it really that far-fetched to think that a law could have been on the way? (The only reason I as a non-smoker don't complain is that while they're smoking, I'm free to surf tigerforums.com :lol

 

Creating a moment for public prayer is endorsing prayer, therefore religion.

That's not the issue. Making everyone else recognize the prayer moment is the issue.

Where does it say that silence is required in order to say a prayer? One can pray at any time and no one restricts it.

It forces them to stop what they are doing for the benefit of someone else's religion.

 

Then what would happen if a child chose to pray out loud in school? Not while the teacher was actually teaching, but say, during a change of class period. Let's be intellectually honest here...you know what would happen. The ACLU would drop in on this kid like a SWAT team and all Hades would break loose.