THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, June 27, 1996 TAG: 9606260006
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: 48 lines
Thirty-four years have passed since American public children last recited official prayers. The anniversary of the 1962 U.S. Supreme Court decision outlawing official such prayers was Tuesday.
Despite continuing controversy over the issue, the anniversary passed almost without notice.
The landmark case was Engel vs. Vitale. It began in Hyde Park, N.Y., where a group of parents objected to the daily recitation of a ``Regent's Prayer'' composed by the state's education authority. Contrary to popular folklore, atheist Madalyn Murray O'Hair had nothing to do with the first school-prayer case. Hers originated in Maryland, and reached the Supreme Court one year later.
Ironically, Engel vs. Vitale was not a difficult case for the highest court to decide: The Warren Court vote was a decisive 6-1.
While some say God was banished from classrooms on that June day so long ago, what the Supreme Court really did was put the government out of the business of writing prayers and coercing children to say them.
Prayer has never been banned in public schools and couldn't be. Indeed, prayer - heartfelt and silent - may be widespread. It was Ronald Reagan who said that there would always be school prayer - as long as there were algebra exams.
Yet the Supreme Court decision which spared minority-religion children and atheists from participating in prayers they didn't mean, has been blamed for everything bad in American society from the AIDS epidemic to drive-by shootings.
Yes, the U.S. is wracked by social ills: an epidemic of single-parent families, drugs, violence and crime. It is simplistic to the point of stupidity to trace these horrific things to the abandonment of prescribed school prayer.
The forces pulling families apart are many. The media - both television and motion pictures - undermine traditional values which once helped cement families. Economic pressures often force both parents into the work force, often reluctantly. Those same financial problems often lead to marriage break-ups which can have devastating effects on children.
The fabric of American society is indeed frayed. But it isn't because children are no longer forced to pray in schools.
As conservatives are fond of pointing out, citizens cannot look to the government for everything; they need to find their own solutions. If children and society would benefit from prayer, parents should show them how its done. At home. And often. by CNB