Illinois makes school prayer mandatory

Just when we thought the Pat Robertson types had finally abandoned this crusade, it pops up again without warning!

Illinois has just passed a law - which takes effect immediately - requiring all public school students to take part in a mandatory "moment of silence" every school day. The law doesn't call it a prayer. But, in effect, it is. Everybody who knows how to pick up a newspaper, open it, and read it knows it. And everyone knows they're not going to call it a prayer because if they did it would just be easier to strike down the law for violating separation of religion and state. Obviously the law's supporters want mandatory school prayer, but they just think nobody will notice that a required "moment of silence" is more or less a thin disguise for this goal.

You also can't convince me the purpose of the new law isn't to advance a specific set of religious beliefs and practices. Depending on a student's religion, the "moment of silence" could be seen as actually violating a student's beliefs, perhaps even blasphemous.

The bill sailed through the legislature early this year, but the governor vetoed it. Last week, however, both houses of the Illinois legislature voted to override this veto. The change in the wording of an older law makes the new law seem even more chilling. There already was a law in Illinois that schools "may" observe a "moment of silence", but the new law simply changes "may" to "shall." So much for local control of the schools, huh?

Count on the historical revisionists to butt in with their support of the new law. Freepers who are the same age as I am like to boast that they support mandatory public school prayer because "that's how it was in our day." Even though that's not "how it was in our day" - so they're lying again. I went to public schools for 6 years in elementary and high school, and we never even had this "moment of silence" of the type Illinois has now - let alone more obvious forms of mandatory prayer. That was back in the days when people filed lawsuits when their constitutional rights got violated, ya know.

(Source: http://media.www.chicagoflame.com/media/storage/paper519/news/2007/10/22/NewsBriefs/Law-Requires.Moment.Of.Silence.In.Illinois.Schools-3045559.shtml;
http://www.mcall.com/features/religion/all-relbrief.6099839oct20,0,1207430.story)