Another case filled against a school, supposedly to protect people’s rights. But what about the rights of the people who want to pray? This is not about a school forcing students to pray. It’s not about a government establishing a religion. It is about allowing people to exercise their religion:

Medina Valley ISD Sued Over Prayer
Controversy is brewing at a local school district. The group Americans United for Separation of Church and State says it filed a lawsuit today against Medina Valley ISD. They want to prevent the district from allowing prayer at its June 4 graduation ceremony. According to a press release, the suit was filed on behalf of an agnostic family that has two children attending school in the district. No word yet from Medina Valley ISD.
~FOX 29 San antonio [May 26 2011](emphasis added)

So essentially this is a case against religion, it is a lawsuit to force a government institution, the school, from even allowing students to exercise their religion.

The suit was filed on behalf of Christa and Danny Schultz, who have two children in the Medina Valley Independent School District, including one graduating on June 4, according to the San Antonio Express.
The group wants the school district to remove a student-led invocation and benediction, but the school district says that the remarks do not violate any laws or school policy, according to the Express.
“Public schools can’t require students to take part in religious worship as the price of attending their graduation. This is settled law, and the district needs to stop resisting it,” the Rev. Barry Lynn, the group’s executive director, told the paper.
~FOX News.com

Here is an idea, if you don’t want to pray–Don’t pray! If you are so offended by it that you cannot handle it, do not go. Problem solved. I’m having  a hard time here understanding how someone can be so worried about witnessing a prayer.

According to the Schultz’s attorney, they previously asked the district to stop public prayers during school events.

“They’re not atheists, they’re actually agnostic, and (the parents) don’t believe a school-sponsored prayer should be part of a school-sponsored event,” attorney Don Flanary told the Express.

The group says their son might not attend his graduation if they don’t eliminate the prayer during the ceremony.

Apparently they are so offended that they cannot even let their son be exposed to it. Or perhaps they are worried that somehow the exposure to a single prayer might instantly change his mind and turn him into a devoted religious man.

Call it whatever you want, but this is an attack on religion, nothing more. This lawsuit is nothing more than pushing their religion on others. They are atheists, oh sorry”agnostics” and they want to force that upon everyone else.

Over time the distortion of the non-establishment clause has been pushed incrementally further and further. It’s to the point now that the  rights of people to practice their religion are infringed by being prevented from doing so at schools and such. Places where they are compelled by law to be. Then they are not allowed to practice their religion because someone might see it. Or someone might think that it is an endorsement by the government if they are allowed to do it.

The establishment clause[1] was also only meant to restrict the federal government–not municipal, country or state governments. If it were not, it would not have stated “Congress shall make no…”[2]. Our founders were very specific and careful in the wording of the Constitution & bill of rights.

It is only in recent history that courts have changed this with their rulings to apply to the states[3]. However, it was not until the middle to late twentieth century that the Supreme Court began to interpret the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses in such a manner as to restrict the promotion of religion by the states.[4] This is made even more clear by the 9th & 10th Amendments. There has been no amendment[s] to the Constitution to allow restrictions of anyone other than congress. Yet it goes on.

It is absurd, a mockery of the US Constitution.

1. http://republogs.com/knCr1S
2. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”
3. Everson v. Board of Education (1947)
4. Board of Education of Kiryas Joel Village School District v. Grumet, 512 U.S. 687 (1994)
5. “The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”
6. “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

Another case filled against a school, supposedly to protect people’s rights. But what about the rights of the people who want to pray? This is not about a school forcing...