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Religion and public schooling, is one of today's most controversial issues in society. The question at hand is whether the teachers in the public schools should teach religion in America's school systems or not. This controversy has been the issue of many Supreme Court rulings within the past thirty-five years. Separation of church and state seems inevitable for this nation. Problems keep arising and court rulings are handed down nearly every day. The issue at hand has never been taken care of directly at the source. Why has religion in schools never been taken care of, and what will happen if it is allowed to remain a conflict? How much longer will this great controversy last? One day, this controversial issue will turn into a reason why humanity is so blinded to the meaning of religion. Maybe there will be a time when answers to this dilemma are finally found. And if no answers are found, what is going to be done next? No action would literally destroy thirty-five years wort!h of court cases and basically drain the pool of all water, allowing the fish to drown. This scenario fits the American people. If religion is lost, what will the people use as the context of the freedom that America's forefathers fought so hard to preserv
e trash on TV, but you can't read the Bible" (More 8). Watson's statement is the truth from any perspective: the very rights the Constitution was written to protect, freedom of religion and speech, are now the very rights the Supreme Court is trying to take away. In 1962, Madalyn Murray helped her son, William J. Murray III (at the time, age fourteen) journey down a long and hard fought road toward his future as an atheist. William Murray, known as Bill, would begin his fight while attending Woodbourne Junior High School in Baltimore, Maryland. Woodbourne, in 1905, adopted a mandatory curriculum to recite the Lord's Prayer and to be reading daily from the Bible. Included in this adopted curriculum was the fact that no student would be allowed to be absent from these proceedings. It was mandatory for the students to participate. After Murray found out that her son was subject to participate in religious activities, she pulled her son out of school as protest to his being involved with religion. After attempting to talk with the Vice-Principal to the Superintendent of Schools, and failing in her attempt to clear up this matter, Murray brought this issue to the attention of the newspapers, radio, and local television stations. This issue ! ed as a safeguard to protect the rights of the Americans. This Bill of Rights became known as the first ten amendments to the Constitution. In 1892, the Church of the Holy Trinity vs. the United States was ruled on by the Supreme Court. Supreme Court ruled that "No purpose of action against religion can be imputed to any legislation, state or national, because this is a religious people. . . This is a Christian Nation." In this case alone, sixteen pages of notes are in the court records. Eighty-seven precedents were provided to defend the case. Even though the court had sixteen pages in the records, the court still quoted the founding fathers of this great nation. As the court continued to quote the acts of the founding fathers, the acts of Congress, and the acts of the state government, all of the precedents that were used in the decision of the Holy Trinity case concluded that this is a Christian nation. America's founding fathers meant for this nation to use its heritage as a guide for times to come. Most of the 55 founding fathers were Orthodox Christians. The rest of the founding fathers were either atheist o! e? Those "Drained" cases should be used for future reference in case other controversial cases occur. About 80 percent of Americans want to have prayer in the classrooms (Religion 124). When they, the Supreme Court, first banned prayer, grades dropped; dropout rates increased; and students started to smoke, do drugs, and drink. Society needs to get religion and prayer back into the schools so that students grades will rise, dropout rates will decrease, and the students will stop doing drugs, drinking and smoking (Religion 124). If all that increased when prayer was taken out by the Supreme Court, what would happen if the Supreme Court were to reinstate prayer back into the public school curriculum? The possibilities are endless to imagine what could be fixed in the society by the simple action of allowing prayer to be re-initiated into America's culture. This would regenerate the heritage from the founding fathers' point of view. lls, president of the student council. The students asked their principal, Bishop Knox, if they could have a prayer. Knox said they could if that is what the student body wanted. The student body voted, with 491 wanting school prayer and 96 opposing. Afterwards, Bishop Knox got fired for allowing the prayer to be read. After their principal was fired, "300 students fled their classes to march on Knox's behalf." One hundred fifty-five students were suspended for walking out of class (More 8). "I'm not sure what the Lord will have me to do," Knox told Jet. "I've come to realize that God has placed me in this position. God is faithful and I trust he
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 3187
Approximate Pages = 13 (250 words per page double spaced)
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