

Essay by columbia_33College, UndergraduateA+, March 2003

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Prayer in schools has become a very controversial subject. This topic has two basic sides, people who are for the allowance of prayer in schools, and people who are against the allowance of prayer in schools. The controversy is more widely seen among public schools rather than private schools, because historically private religiously based schools provide instruction with an environment that is accommodating to various religious denominations. Within the public schools, the individual rights of the students are unconstitutional after and protected more so than private schools, with the issue of prayer.


Our Government has been based on religion from the beginning, with the Protestant, Catholic and many other religions that have been fleeing religious persecution to find religious freedom. The controversy over public prayer in schools began when the Catholic immigrants objected to required readings of the Protestant King James Bible and the recitation of Protestant prayers in most public schools. A bitter conflict erupted, including riots, and expulsion of Catholic children from public schools.

In the 1950's as diversity in religion grew, so did the controversy of prayer in school. Saying...