Title: School Prayer: Separation of Church and State
Headings: School Prayer: Separation of Church and State
School Prayer: Separation of Church and State
Why Johnny Can't Pray -- At School
School Prayer Declared Unconstitutional
How the Supreme Court Decide Issues of Religion in Government
The Lemon Test
The Coercion Test
The Endorsement Test
Church and State Controversy Will Not Go Away
The Roots of 'Separation of Church and State

Content: Neither the fact that the prayer may be denominationally neutral nor the fact that its observance on the part of the students is voluntary can serve to free it from the limitations of the Establishment Clause ... Its first and most immediate purpose rested on the belief that a union of government and religion tends to destroy government and to degrade religion ...The Establishment Clause thus stands as an expression of principle on the part of the Founders of our Constitution that religion is too personal, too sacred, too holy, to permit its 'unhallowed perversion' by a civil magistrate..."
In the case of Engel v. Vitale, the Board of Education of Union Free School District No. 9 in New Hyde Park, New York directed that the following prayer must be said aloud by each class in the presence of a teacher at the beginning of each school day: "Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our Country." The parents of 10 school children brought the action against the Board of Education challenging its constitutionality. In their decision, the Supreme Court did indeed find the requirement of the prayer to be unconstitutional. The Supreme Court had, in essence, re-drawn constitutional lines by ruling that public schools, as part of the “state,” were no longer a place for the practice of religion. How the Supreme Court Decide Issues of Religion in Government
Over many years and many cases mainly involving religion in public schools, the Supreme Court has developed three "tests" to be applied to religious practices for determining their constitutionality under the First Amendment’s establishment clause. The Lemon Test
Based on the 1971 case of Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602, 612-13, the court will rule a practice unconstitutional if: The practice lacks any secular purpose. That is if the practice lacks any non-religious purpose;