As long as algebra is taught in school, there will be prayer in school.
— Cokie Roberts
Undeniable Prayer In School quotations
We seek a constitutional amendment to permit voluntary school prayer.
God should never have been expelled from America's classrooms in the first place.
I'm anticlerical, not antireligion. If somebody believes there is God, I'm not interested in trying to persuade that person there is no intelligent design to the universe. Where I become interested and wake up is about the temporal power of religion, things like prayer in schools, or Catholic-secular hospital mergers.
Some want prayer in school, some want condoms. Printing prayers on condoms satisfies nobody.
I’m not in favor of the government mandating a prayer in school because our country was founded on the fact that no particular religious faith would have ascendance over or preferential treatment over any other.
It was the courts, of course, that took away prayer from our schools, that took away Bible reading from our schools. It's the courts that gave us same-sex marriage. So it is quite a battlefield, and the Supreme Court is the highest court in the land.
The expenses of the paperwork and court fees involved in pursuing the appeal through the courts were not too high. In fact, as I recall, removing prayer from U.S. public schools cost less than $20,000... no Christian organization filed a brief in support of our opponents.
I think the greatest gift we can give our children is the experience of deep quiet. If we don’t help our children cultivate contemplation, reflection, prayer, meditation, or whatever other practice of mindfulness, then they’re likely to be completely spun out of their center by the time they’re in grade school.
In 1962, the Supreme Court banned organized prayer from public schools.
Since then, federal, state, and local courts and officials, including public school administrators, have joined in a nationwide search and destroy mission for student religious practices.
With that in mind and in celebration of National Prayer Day, today I have proposed in the House of Representatives a Constitutional Amendment that would restore voluntary prayer in our Nation's schools.
I'll tell you right now. I'm for prayer in school.
Banning prayer in school in effect made God unconstitutional.
I'm for prayer in schools.
In 1962 and 1963, there were two abominable decisions out of the Supreme Court, and that was taking prayer out of school, and taking bible reading out of school. But you know, if you look at the statistics, two very critical things happened after that date. Number one: teen pregnancy skyrocketed. Number two: violent crime skyrocketed.
I know that some believe that voluntary prayer in schools should be restricted to a moment of silence. We already have the right to remain silent - we can take our Fifth Amendment.
It appears that the Soviets are now going to allow prayer in school.
One wonders how soon the United States will catch up.
You wonder why we're having shootings and killings here in 2017? Because we've asked for it. We've taken prayer out of school.
Once involved in the school-prayer fight, I rapidly became aware of, and appalled by, the political and economic power of the Church in America -all based on the violation of one of our nation's canon laws: the separation of church and state.
My son Bill, who came to me in 1960-he was 14 then, quoted the old parable to me: "It is not by their words, but by their deeds that ye shall know them" -pointing out that if I was a true atheist, I would not permit the public schools of America to force him to read the Bible and say prayers against his will. He was right.
I was shamed.My son, Bill, who was 14 come to me and said: "Mother, you've been professing that you're an atheist for a long time now. Well, I don't believe in God either, but every day in school I'm forced to say prayers, and I feel like a hypocrite. Why should I be compelled to betray my beliefs?" I couldn't answer him.
Perhaps there was a correlation between taking prayer and Bible study out of schools, and what has happened in our society.
We should all without shame enrol in the school of contemplative prayer.
And I'll tell you another thing, you won't find any candidate that supports prayer in school and gay marriage. For that reason alone, people should vote for an independent-thinking person.
You must pray...without prayer, all the schooling in the world will not produce the effect God wants homeschooling to give.
Ask a fellow if he favors organized prayer in the public schools.
If he says 'No' he's a liberal. If he says 'Yes' he's a conservative. If he says, 'Public schools? The Constitution grants the government no power to run any mandatory tax-funded youth propaganda camps,' you have your hands on the wily libertarian.
God...should never have been expelled from America's schools. As we struggle to teach our children...we dare not forget that our civilization was built by men and women who placed their faith in a loving God. If Congress can begin each day with a moment of prayer...so then can our sons and daughters.
Whenever you pray, make sure you do it at school assemblies and football games, like the demonstrative creatures who pray before large television audiences. That is the real goal of the thing. But do not, I urge you, pray all alone in your home where no one can see. That does not get you ratings.
It is interesting to me that the secularizers bend over backward in our federally controlled schools to keep atheists from being offended by the mention of God, prayer, or morality, yet over the federally controlled airwaves Christians can be offended every day of the week by the broadcasting of blasphemy against God and the Lord Jesus Christ or attacks on our moral values.
I'm for prayer in the schools because ritual and ceremony are calming and civilizing, and the little fartlings should be tamped down whenever possible.
... it was religion that saved me. Our ugly church and parochial school provided me with my only aesthetic outlet, in the words ofthe Mass and the litanies and the old Latin hymns, in the Easter lilies around the altar, rosaries, ornamented prayer books, votive lamps, holy cards stamped in gold and decorated with flower wreaths and a saint's picture.
I'm not making light of prayers here, but of so-called school prayer, which bears as much resemblance to real spiritual experienceas that freeze-dried astronaut food bears to a nice standing rib roast. From what I remember of praying in school, it was almost an insult to God, a rote exercise in moving your mouth while daydreaming or checking out the cutest boy in the seventh grade that was a far, far cry from soul-searching.
[The notion of separating church and state with such policies as disallowing prayer in public schools] is a deception from Satan.
Right now religion has the romantic aura of the forbidden - Christ is cool.
We need to bring it into the schools, which kids already hate, and associate it firmly with boredom, regulation, condescension, makework and de facto segregation ... Prayer in the schools will rid us of the bland no-offense ecumenism that is so infuriating to us anticlericals: Oh, so now you say Jews didn't kill Christ - a little on the late side, isn't it?
Zealous groups threaten to infringe civil liberties when they seek government support to impose their own religious views on nonadherents. This has taken many forms, including attempts to introduce organized prayer in public schools, to outlaw birth control and abortion, and to use public tax revenues to finance religious schools.
If you have never felt your soul poured out before the Lord with a consequent exhaustion, it is doubtful whether you have advanced far in the school of prayer.