A DRUM ROLL, PLEASE, FOR STUDENT SOLEMNIZATION AND MEMORIALIZATION
Another Legislature, More News About Public School Praying
Written by Duane Bradford. Last updated Tuesday January 24th, 2012
“Whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, because they love to pray while standing in synagogues and on street corners so that people can see them. Truly I say to you, they have their reward. But whenever you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you” (Matthew 6:5-6)
By DUANE BRADFORD
We stood up by our public school classroom desks first thing every morning and, feigning solemnity, recited the Lord’s Prayer.
I was a little puzzled at first because it didn’t have the ending
 BRADFORD |
But what about some folks in the classroom who didn’t seem to be caught up in this daily religious ritual? They spent that time gazing in silence out the windows or inspecting their fingernails. Would they go to hell?
That was many decades ago. Since then, praying in public schools and football games - well, praying aloud, anyhow - has become fodder for pandering politicians and a cottage industry for lawyers. In Florida today, public school praying is in some disarray. To pray or not to pray; that is the question. But hark, ye of little faith. Hear the sounds of distant bugles. Our Florida lawmakers want to fix all that. Did I mention pandering?
Yesterday, with only a few mild expressions of discomfort, a Florida senate committee passed a bill (CS/SB98) that tells school officials throughout Florida they may establish policies to permit students to say thoughtful things, including a prayer, at unorganized school gatherings. This follows a three-year school prayer legal-political hassle in northwest Florida’s guns, guts and glory territory. The regional war over school praying was concluded last July, most people thought, when a federal judge managed to maneuver hostile litigants to agree that school officials would not organize or direct praying situations themselves. That was not to be the case. There are votes to gained on this issue.
What did senators approve today?
A senate analysis says the bill identifies as its purpose “the solemnization and memorialization of secondary school events and ceremonies” rather than pushing any religious belief. The proposed law permits those school board policy resolutions to “allow student volunteers to deliver inspirational messages, including but not limited to prayers of invocation or benediction, at secondary school commencement exercises or other noncompulsory student assemblies.” This means, for example, that a student quarterback like one I once knew, after struggling from the bottom of the pile of bodies where he was squashed, could without fear of punishment deliver a strong inspirational message to teammates who were supposed to be protecting him from such onslaught.
If this bill becomes law - a likely event - all inspirational messages must spring from the inspired student volunteers themselves, not school staff. It is also a likely event that the new law will be challenged in court yet again, since it comes closely to stepping upon the constitutionality of a school board establishing a policy to permit student-organized praying - inspirational or not.
There is something of an upside to all of this. If this bill does become law, a co-sponsor of this particular bill, Sen. Gary Siplin (D-Orlando), will be able to claim political prowess for helping craft a law other than his legislation last year that requires students to pull up their pants. Now, this will help solemnize the unorganized student gatherings.
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