> a teacher at Newton County Elementary School had been leading children in a prayer <
Children should be allowed to silently pray before a school lunch. That should go without saying.
But a teacher should not be leading the prayer. No way. It’s not the job of a public school teacher to be giving religious instruction of any kind. After all, suppose your child is Christian, and the teacher is Muslim. Would you really want that teacher to be leading your child in prayer?
As a side note, I’m old enough to remember (as a student) when public school teachers did lead classes in prayer. Those prayers were nondenominational, and they were a good thing.
But times are different now. Can we really trust a school board or a teacher to pick the “right” nondenominational prayer? Nope.
No one is forcing a child in this setting to join in.
If that were the case, I’d accept your objection. But it’s false.
Not being allowed to lead prayer is just a religiously loaded as allowing it. Neither ruling is religiously neutral.
Axiom: It is impossible to have a culturally, politically, or religiously neutral education. Impossible!
For this reason, government should not have any role in education on any level. There is one exception: military training.
re: Non-demoninational
The lesson taught was that religious belief is bland, neutral, and **lukewarm**. This is **not** a religiously neutral lesson.
Axiom: It is impossible to have a culturally, politically, and religiously neutral education.
Solution: In an ideal world government would have **no** role in education. In a less ideal world all students would get a voucher.