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First Amendment: Mandatory Prayer In Public Schools

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First Amendment The First Amendment provides: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise.” These two clauses are referred to as the “establishment clause” and the “free exercise clause.” The free exercise clause protects the religious beliefs, and to a certain extent, the religious practices of all citizens. The more controversial Establishment Clause prohibits the government from participating in religious activities and/or organizations. Mandatory prayer in schools would constitute an improper establishment of religion and would also interfere with the free exercise rights of those students who did not believe in that particular prayer or prayer in general. There is, however, a very thin line between the two clauses. If the …show more content…

Many of the Baptist organizations had made a significant amount of monetary donations to communities throughout the southern states. When it rose to attention of the state legislature that many of the churches would close down their doors. Despite the fact that the stadiums were rented out between five thousand and twelve thousand dollars per event. The legislature passed a special bill which allowed the churches to use the facility rent free which ran afoul the Establishment Clause. The establishment clause was set in place to set a fine line to separate church and state. The establishment clause is when Congress shall make no law “respecting the establishment of religion. There shall be no legal ruling that regard religion nor shall it be interpreted in various ways. Thus, separating church and state in the United States. Although there is a separation, the people can only be left to wander on how high and wide that wall is. It can be tall and thin, but short and definitely set in

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In discussing freedom of religion in this case, the key principles at odds are free exercise clause versus the establishment clause. In determining, the establishment clause one needs to consider both the participants and location of

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In a small place called Salem Village, Massachusetts, over 200 people were accused of being witches and 20 people were executed, 1 being pressed to death. One woman, a woman who dared to do the impossible, a woman who dared to challenge the government, a woman by the name of Mary Dyer, was executed for practicing her religion which was declared illegal by the Puritan church. Why? It was because of suffocating grasp, the theocratic government, or the Puritan Church, had over the people. It all would have been different if the Puritan society was introduced to a document, we, as citizens of the United States, are so fortunate to have, which is called the Constitution, but more specifically, if they were introduced to the establishment clause.

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Engel v. Vitale: Prayer in the Public Schools is a book written by Julia C. Loren. Loren’s main purpose for writing this book is to inform us about the history of the Engel v. Vitale trial, an important trial which determined that prayer was not acceptable in the public schools quote as the book says the “In 1962, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down one of its most controversial decisions of the twentieth century.” In this book, Loren was not bias towards either Engel’s or Vitale’s side of the case as she did not appear to be very fond of one particular side and gave information regarding both sides of the case. With that being said, I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in history or even the Engel v. Vitale case itself because the author was very straightforward in telling about both sides of the case without leaving anything out. Engel v. Vitale:

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Although public school prayers violate the separation of church and state, that doesn’t mean the U.S supreme court can replace freedom of religion with freedom from religion. Most of them argue the gov’t is meant for everyone, it should be neutral while protecting all. Alabama, Montana, north Dakota and Maryland are the only state out of 54 states to allow public prayer and religious groups, club and programs in public schools, but on conditions like students will not be forced to cooperate in prayer, furthermore students are allowed to have a moment of silence (in Virginia) and teaching of the positive-negative side of different religion. There is a possibility someday, someone will sue a Virginia school because of it moment of silence time. The justice system needs to draw a clear line between religion and the people 's

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I don’t agree that the Pledge of Allegiance violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment because you are not praying to anything or anyone. I would agree that the nondenominational prayer does violate this clause. The reason being is that schools are not allowed to require that there is to be a prayer because it comes down to the separation of church and state. Church is where you can go and pray, as well as practice your religion. The state, however, cannot mandate that there be prayer in school because it is not something that they can do because of the First

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The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment was incorporated in the 1947 Everson vs Ewing Township BOE. The Establishment Clause created a basis in which states have to keep the church and state separate. In the Everson vs Ewing Township BOE case, taxpayers claimed that the governmental funding of religious private schools was against the constitution. In the constitution it says that no state can support religion and doing so with taxpayers money directly violates this statement. Due to many issues regarding the cross between religion and state, the court was forced to come up with a test to determine whether or not states were crossing the line in terms of the state's involvement in religion.

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While religion is in no way defined in these two clauses, the Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clause, we do know that laws respecting religion 's establishment are prohibited, as are laws precluding its free exercise. The interpretation and application of the First Amendment 's religion clauses has been the peculiar province of the judiciary, especially the U.S. Supreme Court, and particularly since roughly the midpoint of the 20th century. Although several cases concerning these clauses transpired in the 19th century, the effective "making sense" of the two clauses began in the 1940s, beginning with the case of Cantwell v. Connecticut in 1940. In Cantwell, the Supreme Court ruled for the first time that the Free Exercise Clause applied to the states as well as to the national government. However, for most of the rest of the 20th century, the primary work of the Court with the religion clauses centered on the Establishment Clause, beginning with the case of Everson v. Board of Education of Ewing Township, New

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Chapter three does a good job pointing out that compulsory attendance laws served as an impetus for challenging schools over both their segregationist and exclusionary policies toward students of differing race and ability (Yell, 2016, p. 36). At the time our government was sending a very ambiguous message to students and their families. On one hand, the law of the land dictated that students must attend school, conversely schools continued to exclude students with disabilities. This inherent contradiction let to parent advocacy groups challenging schools for the fair and equal treatment of their children.

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There are many views and opinions of the state of the United States on this subject. It has long been a puzzling issue that never seems to seize. America should have religious freedom, because it is a constitutional right to Americans. Prayer in school, gay marriage, and governmental control, are among some of the main issues in this topic.

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