GOD & KING

Public School Prayer

The call to "Reinstate Prayer in Public Schools" suggests the misnomer that prayer isn't allowed in public schools. It is a First Amendment right that with an appropriate level of discretion students can pray whenever or wherever they want. However, public (government) school representatives (faculty, etc) are not allowed to lead or designate an official period for prayer. This is due to the same 'separation of church and state' clause and freedom of speech of The First Amendment from The Bill of Rights that protects the right to prayer in the first place...

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievance."

What guarantees our freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and to petition the government is not that these rights will be protected *BY* the government but *FROM* the government. To prevent government from suggesting to the people what beliefs are expected of us and when to practice them. That's between each one of us and our maker. We learned this lesson from the Pilgrims...

The Landing Of The Pilgrim Fathers In New England

by Felicia D. Hemans

The breaking waves dashed high

On a stern and rock-bound coast,

And the woods against a stormy sky

Their giant branches tossed:

And the heavy night hung dark

The hills and waters o'er,

When a band of exiles moored their bark

On the wild New England shore.

Not as the conqueror comes,

They, the true-hearted, came;

Not with the roll of the stirring drums,

And the trumpet that sings of fame:

Not as the flying come,

In silence and in fear;

They shook the depths of the desert gloom

With their hymns of lofty cheer.

Amidst the storm they sang,

And the stars heard, and the sea;

And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang

To the anthem of the free.

The ocean eagle soared

From his nest by the white wave's foam,

And the rocking pines of the forest roared,-

This was their welcome home.

There were men with hoary hair

Amidst that pilgrim-band:

Why had they come to wither there,

Away from their childhood's land?

There was woman's fearless eye,

Lit by her deep love's truth;

There was manhood's brow serenely high,

And the fiery heart of youth.

What sought they thus afar?

Bright jewels of the mine?

The wealth of seas, the spoils of war?-

They sought a faith's pure shrine!

Ay, call it holy ground,

The soil where first they trod;

They have left unstained what there they found,-

Freedom to worship God.