Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, November 20, 1994                   TAG: 9411220046
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                 LENGTH: Medium

RELIGIOUS DON'T LOVE PRAYER IDEA

Some think Republicans have failed so far to capture the best language for a school-prayer amendment. Others believe there might be a better way to end what they see as hostility toward God in public schools.

Most surprising, there's even open opposition on the religious right.

``We don't need Newt Gingrich to raise our consciousness about the importance of prayer for our youth,'' said Steven McFarland of the Christian Legal Society.

``Amending the Constitution is unnecessary. The effort will leave blood all over the floor of Congress and divert attention from more needed measures to protect religious freedom,'' McFarland said in an interview.

Forest Montgomery of the National Association of Evangelicals said a constitutional amendment ``may or may not be the best way to address a basic problem in our society - public schools have been sanitized of all mention of God and our nation's religious heritage.

``There could be a statutory solution, or perhaps some other better way,'' Montgomery said.

Gingrich, the Georgia Republican congressman likely to become House speaker in January, has called for hearings and a House vote by July 4 on a school-prayer amendment. He has said the amendment will allow ``voluntary prayer'' in schools.

The Supreme Court ruled in 1962 that organized prayer in public schools violated the constitutionally required separation of church and state.

Many Catholic, Protestant and Jewish groups have supported the 1962 ruling and subsequent Supreme Court church-state decisions that flowed from it.

``We are not opposed to prayer,'' said J. Brent Walker of the Baptist Joint Committee. ``It is precisely because we believe so fervently in prayer that we do not want the government to meddle in it.''

Before the 1962 ruling, schools across the nation featured prayers to start each day, recitations of the distinctly Christian Lord's Prayer before all assemblies and use of state-written prayers.

Republicans are not advocating a return to state-written prayers, but would a new amendment undo the rest of the 1962 ruling?

There's no definitive answer. Backers are hesitant to discuss all ramifications, but liberal critics charge that the amendment is designed to turn the clock back to before 1962.

A likely model of what the House will vote on next year is the proposed constitutional amendment introduced in the current Congress by Rep. Ernest Istook Jr., R-Okla.

It states: ``Nothing in this Constitution shall be construed to prohibit individual or group prayer in public schools or other public institutions. No person shall be required by the United States or by any state to participate in prayer. Neither the United States nor any state shall compose the words of any prayer to be said in public schools.''

Istook told The Associated Press that alarm about the amendment is unwarranted. ``I think it's part of the trend of modern thinking that exposure to someone else's faith is a danger,'' he said.

The Christian Legal Society's McFarland disagreed.

``I don't believe the nonbeliever should have to listen to my child's prayer,'' he said. ``It's not that I don't value prayer; it is the quintessential religious experience this side of heaven. But it's not something appropriate for the government to force on anyone.''