by Jeremy Milburn

Created on: February 19, 2009   Last Updated: July 21, 2010

The idea that mandatory moments of silence in school are anything but backdoor attempts to reinstate state sponsored prayer are ridiculous. The Lemon standard, used to determine if the church and state are being entangled, lists its first standard as: Is there any legitimate secular purpose? Is there any secular purpose for a moment of silence? No. Silent Reflection and Student Prayer should not be mandatory, it should not even be an option. There are plenty of opportunities for children to pray or reflect privately without dedicating classtime to it. It does not matter what these kids use this moment for, it has no place in the classroom. If kids absolutely need to pray then they should take care of it before class, in between classes, after class, in meetings with various clubs they may be involved in, etc.

Since 1962, when state sponsored prayer was taken out of schools, Christians have been trying to backdoor through these ridiculous moment of silence laws. When people complain they whine that the minority is trying to control the majority again. How about we stick to the law and ask ourselves what this moment of silence accomplishes? Nothing, meanwhile we have serious problems in schools that need to be addressed. Maybe if our lawmakers weren't so busy trying to appease their Christian base with these veiled attempts at reintroducing religion into the classroom these more serious problems might be addressed more quickly.

A moment of silence has one purpose, to allow kids to pray in the classroom. Not every kid needs it, nor would they be upset if it wasn't there. This argument has nothing to do with the kids and everything to do with parents beliefs. Eliminating the whole thing would not only stop this nonsense, i.e. tying up the courts with lawsuits challenging the law (which win quite often). Nobody is fooled by the rhetoric, this is religion trying to intrude in the class. We have a seperation of church and state for a reason, and nobody in the world is telling kids not to believe how they want to, whether it be Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Atheist, whatever. These battles just belong out of the school systems, religious clubs are allowed to form (if they aren't then they should be), and kids have numerous chances to pray or "reflect" throughout the day. So why the fuss? By making this law voluntary it gives communities and teachers the choice of whether or not to allow this to happen. If you want it at your school, knock yourself out, go to your local school board (or better yet run for school board and get involved) and ask for it to be instituted. The state, however should not sanction these attempts at reintroducing school prayer.

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