Allowing prayer is complicated

Published 12:02 am Tuesday, March 6, 2012

America remains conflicted over its own religious tolerance.

Despite declaring our nation’s independence based on the “unalienable Rights” endowed by our “Creator,” our country’s own self-righteousness views on not discriminating, lead to public discrimination.

Despite printing “In God We Trust” on our nation’s coins — off an on — since the 1860s and our paper currency since the 1950s, our nation hardly trusts God for anything, at least not publicly.

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The reason is the fear that doing so would offend a non-believer and thus make our country’s freedom of religion purity in question.

Any debate about such quickly gets murky.

At the moment, a bill in the Mississippi Legislature would make it legally acceptable for students to pray before school, athletic competition and other school events.

The bill seeks to allow the expressions by couching it as an anti-discrimination measure, the theory being that not allowing prayer is a discrimination against students.

In theory, it would seem to provide a good way in which to allow students to pray if they’d like.

The problem comes into the implementation of the bill, if it becomes law. How will school districts handle the unintended consequences that are likely to happen?

Presumably the authors of the bill are likely Christian, so will they be OK with state school students sharing equal ear-time with Buddist chants, Islamic prayer or Hindu readings?

The conflicts are likely to rile the masses and cause legal battles for years to come unless our nation decides to sort the matter out at the federal level somehow.

We pray that somehow, some way, our nation can find a way to put God first.