In response to the ACLU’s lawsuit against the Santa Rosa County school district, we have the inevitable, inaccurate statements from the Daily News’ spout-off column:
“Why is it that students can go around wearing shirts that support gay pride but we can’t pray or support the Lord?”
“Without (the ACLU), kids wouldn’t get to learn the merits of homosexuality and they might actually be praying in school.”
Nothing prevents kids from praying in school. They have the right to form prayer groups, say grace at lunch, pray before they take a math test or form Christian after-school clubs (or Wiccan clubs, Judaism clubs, Muslim clubs, etc.). That’s their constitutional right (for brevity, I’ll let the spouters’ freaking out about gay rights pass without comment).
What isn’t a Constitutional right is for schools to hold prayers at school events, have teachers preach to students about their religious beliefs and offer Bible readings during non-religious student meetings, which are among the allegations in the lawsuit.
In the letters page, a DeFuniak minister suggested anyone who doesn’t like religious presentations at graduation should just “abstain.” I wonder, if Christians in parts of Hawaii (where the religious makeup is heavily Shinto/Buddhist, due to the high Asian population) were told “Well, this is a Buddhist community, if you don’t want to listen to Buddhist prayers, stay home from graduation,” would he say the same thing? Or does he feel that only Christians have the right to flaunt their religion at public government events?

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