Re: columbine and god

[melyndah@mail.wsu.edu]

It seems to be a pretty common misconception that prayer is outlawed in
public schools.  Of course it is not, and couldn't be.  Students and
teachers are free to pray if they wish.  What is unconstitutional is the
performance of public prayers or other rituals of a particular religion as
school activities.  Often, as in this case, discussions of school prayer are
actually about whether or not a particular brand of Protestant Christianity
can be legislated or mandated in public school classrooms--I have yet to
hear a proponent of public school prayer suggest that all students ought to
bring prayer rugs from home and take part in (or leave the room while others
take part in) traditional Islamic prayers, or that Buddhist shrines should
be set up in all classrooms so that students can practice chanting, or that
students learn to pray the rosary.  Likewise, the whole question of
"creationism" v. evolution focuses on teaching one version of the first book
of Torah, rather than on the extraordinarily wide-ranging creation stories
of world religions and cultures.

But the real point of interest to us as a community, I think, is what makes
this subject one which inspires such venom.  Surely we should be able to
talk about violence in our schools, and the role religion might play in that
violence, without threatening each other. . . 

Melynda Huskey
melyndah@moscow.com