In <1993Apr24.214843.10940@midway.uchicago.edu> eeb1@quads.uchicago.edu


If the ONLY people proposing a "moment of silence" are doing so as a
sham to sneak in prayers, then it MUST be opposed.  What the HELL have
prayers to do with public schooling?  [I ask this question as a devout
Christian.]



Their kids can bloody-well pray any God-damned time they WANT to.  And
nothing, on heaven or earth, in government or the principal's office,
can prevent or in any other way deal with their doing so.  *Especially*
if the prayer is silent (as bursting out into the "Shema Yisrael" or
some other prayer *might* be construed as disruptive if audible :-))
No one ever prevented ME from praying in public school!  They hardly
even prevented me from masturbating in study hall.

I should have thought better of someone posting from a UChicago address.
How can you manage to say such nonsense without shame?

Muslim students might have a complaint, if they are prevented from setting
out their rugs and doing the proper ablutions before prayer at the times
specified in the Qu'ran.  Jews would probably like the opportunity to daven
with tefillim and whatever else *they* require, at *their* appropriate times.
I do not see THEM complaining (though Muslims and Jews have a case that no
Christian I have ever heard has been able to make.)

The "Christian" insistence on a PUBLIC, UNIVERSAL, ENFORCED "moment of
prayer^H^H^H^H^H^Hsilence" is nothing but the Inquisition "naturalized"
into the American context.  It is offensive to the Gospel of Christ.