Quote:
Originally Posted by MarchHare
Whether you think the law is a bad one or not is irrelevant. By holding a public Christian prayer (rather than a private moment of silence in which students can pray to any religious deity they want or choose not to pray at all), the school is illegally violating the constitution. End of story. The fact that you and others don't like the law doesn't mean it's not legally enforcible. The atheist student is 100% in the right in this case as determined by a Supreme Court ruling 20 years ago. The school district's own lawyers even acknowledge that the kid is right, hence why they were forced to remove the public prayer from the graduation ceremony.
Note that the atheist is not preventing the other students from praying to themselves or gathering for an optional prayer session outside of the graduation ceremony. He's not violating their rights to peacefully assemble and practice their religion. On the other hand, by forcing prayer on him, his rights to religious freedom are being violated.
As the expression goes, your rights end where mine begin. I have the right to not be subjected to religion by representatives of the government; you do not have the right to have the government support your religion via enforced prayer at a taxpayer-funded event.
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Of course you embrace this interpretation of the law. It agrees with you. 4 of the justices opposed restricting prayer at this event. Justices die or retire. Hopefully this will be revisited before too long and corrected.
You keep protraying this kid as a victim. He isn't. He wanted to cause a stir and thumb his nose at his peers and the people in authority in his life:
Mission accomplished! Now he can deal with the fallout.