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Originally Posted by transplant99
Nobody is "forced" to do anything...if it is so "stressful" to listen to a 2 minute prayer...get up walk outside, sip a soda and go back in. The reasoning is nonsense.
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The Supreme Court decision applies explicitly to this argument.
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(d) Petitioners' argument that the option of not attending the ceremony excuses any inducement or coercion in the ceremony itself is rejected. In this society, high school graduation is one of life's most significant occasions, and a student is not free to absent herself from the exercise in any real sense of the term "voluntary." Also not dispositive is the contention that prayers are an essential part of these ceremonies because for many persons the occasion would lack meaning without the recognition that human achievements cannot be understood apart from their spiritual essence. This position fails to acknowledge that what for many was a spiritual imperative was for the Weismans religious conformance compelled by the State. It also gives insufficient recognition to the real conflict of conscience faced by a student who would have to choose whether to miss graduation or conform to the state sponsored practice, in an environment where the risk of compulsion is especially high. Pp. 15-17.
(e) Inherent differences between the public school system and a session of a state legislature distinguish this case from Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U.S. 783, which condoned a prayer exercise. The atmosphere at a state legislature's opening, where adults are free to enter and leave with little comment and for any number of reasons, cannot compare with the constraining potential of the one school event most important for the student to attend. Pp. 17-18.
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This is not about personal stress or suffering. It is about principle and his constitutional rights.