Prayer in School?

Is that really the problem? Eric and Dylan were outcasts in their school, partly because their classmates harrassed them with accusations of being gay. Wouldn't it have been more helpful if, perhaps, a teacher at the school had stepped in and said "being gay is not a horrible disgraceful thing," and stopped the teasing and harrassment which is painful and inappropriate regardless of the target.

As he said, as a teacher in an elementary school, "I've never seen anyone tell our kids they can't silently pray in school. We've even made accomodations for our Muslim kids to pray during their lunch period. They asked respectfully, don't recruit, and do it quietly and reverently. Some Christians should take note. Our kids CAN pray in school."

In his words, "True or not, why is being gay such a terrible thing, a word used to humiliate others, and in this case to be a factor in causing them to rebel so violently? Why didn't the administration, teachers, or parents do something about that sort of harassment, words so easily used to degrade others: faggot, gay, dyke, lezzy,....? I say we DO look at what 'religion' has done to our children. What crimes has it perpetrated, and allowed? I'm all for spirituality, but not when it involves disrespectful discrimination, stigmatizing, homophobia and all the '-isms', bible-banging, arrogance, self-righteousness. When we all learn to sit at the American table together and be respectful of one another's differences, then the Columbine's will be no more. "

When most people fight for "prayer in school", what they really mean is "christian prayer in school", or even "baptist prayer in school". For some reason, they forget that not everyone has the same belief that they do. Not everyone wants to end their prayer with "in Jesus' name we pray", or even to address prayers to a masculine God. If any of these organizations were truly fighting to have all prayers equally supported in school, I might accept it, but that's not their agenda.

I was once in a work-based club, whose formal meeting structure includes a "secular" invocation. Ours started skewing more and more to southern baptist, until one particular lunchtime meeting, which definitely had non-christians in attendance (two muslims and one jewish man to my knowledge, very possibly more), the person giving the invocation included something about being washed in Jesus' blood. I protested appropriately at that meeting, and the topic was discussed in a later business meeting, and even though the majority of the group agreed with me that the invocations must remain 'non-denominational', the next time this particular guy was assigned the rotating task of invocation, he did it again and just smirked at me. He told me later that it was his duty to speak the truth, regardless of how many misguided people were in attendance at the meeting.

It was an eyeopener -- his 'blessing' was more about showing that he considered himself to be right than any measure of piety or spirituality on his part. A truly spiritual being would recognize that all have a right to their belief systems and spiritual foundations. Not only that, but surely such a being would recognize that his behavior was such an inappropriate model that anyone who might likely be 'swayed' by his mission would instead be turned off by his very lack of humanity and decency and respect! A dear friend of mine, a retired Methodist minister, has it right -- his prayers and blessings at family gatherings and such are non-denominational and considerate and inclusional of all who are present. It's like the AA principle, attraction not promotion. If someone's faith is truly strong, and is working in their life, it will shine enough to attract others to it.

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