Every Illinois Student Now REQUIRED by Law to Pray at School Every Day

Originally posted by Sunsetspawn
Exactly, but it's worse than it looks. It's called the Silent Reflection and Student Prayer Act, and that directly violates the part of the constitution about respecting an establishment of religion.

How does the name of the bill directly violate the First Amendment? The word prayer does not denote any specific religion regardless of your understanding and context of the word.

The word itself can mean the following:

A reverent petition made to God, a god, or another object of worship. -or-
A fervent request -or-
A slight chance of hope

Given that people of faith will apply it to their practice of communicating with their god, but the next child might use it to 'pray' for snow so they get a snow day.

In fact, it's a law respecting all establishments of religion and uses religious wording right in the name of the law. Two of the three judges should be fired for wasting taxpayer money even addressing this crap when they know damn well that it's unconstitutional and will eventually be struck down.

The government in this case is not respecting any religion. They are recognizing that there are people of all walks of life. It would be a violation if the teacher led in a prayer specific to a religion, but in fact it is 15 seconds set aside for reflection. If that reflection includes prayer than so be it. If that reflection includes wondering what color underwear the teacher is wearing, so be it. Excluding the word prayer from the bill would only serve as a point of entry during the time of silence for over zealous teachers and administrators from imposing what they deem to be acceptable.

A good example would be as following: Little Johnny uses the 15 seconds to pray. He takes out his cross necklace and holds it during the 15 seconds. A teacher sees this and feels it is inappropriate and chastises little Johnny for using the time of silence and reflection to pray.

Seriously, forget for a moment whether or not you believe that prayer should be in schools, and just think about the enormous waste of time and money this law is going to cause.

Prayer is already allowed in school. A child can sit and pray as long as he does not disturb those around them with the prayer. Being in a public building does not abdicate ones right protected under the First Amendment to exercise in our personal beliefs.

Eventually some teacher is going to violate the law intentionally, and then the dog and pony show will start, and guess who foots the bill? That's right, judges and state's attorneys are paid for by the taxpayer. And the law WILL eventually be found to be unconstitutional.

This is non-sequitur! Each law could be deliberately violated. A law requiring me have a dog on a leash could just as easily be violated.

My ire is directed at the judges alone, and the dummies responsible for them being there. And it's not because the judges are religious. It's because the judges are blind to the fact that they have basically just allotted a large chunk of yet-to-be-determined future time, and personnel, to fix their ideological message.

What ideological message are they portraying? It is not the duty of government to decide for the People what is and what is not acceptable in forms of expression of faith or not. This bill does not establish and ideology, does not establish a church, does not force anyone to pray or not, does not give teachers the ability to lead a prayer, does not give public schools a blank check to suppress a child's thoughts or violate the First Amendment.