{"id":1637,"date":"2001-12-02T14:25:09","date_gmt":"2001-12-02T19:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/?p=1637"},"modified":"2001-12-02T14:25:09","modified_gmt":"2001-12-02T19:25:09","slug":"god_help_us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2001\/12\/02\/god_help_us.html","title":{"rendered":"God help us"},"content":{"rendered":"

As InstaPundit<\/a> puts it about this story<\/a>, “Let’s see: we’re at war against religious fanatics who want to create a theocracy. What’s an appropriate response? Hey, how about government-sponsored prayer! Yeah, that’ makes perfect sense.” <\/p>\n

West Covina trustees were careful to emphasize that they intend the moment [of silence] to be secular, though individual students may pray if they wish. But parents at the meeting were delighted and said they were sure their children would use the time to pray.<\/p>\n

Of course they will. I mean, kids usually fall all over themselves to take a moment to pray. Oh, wait, no, they need a moment of silence to be mandated in order to remember to pray. No, wait …<\/p>\n

[…] “I think our children are hurting and I think they are afraid,” said Kathy Smith, a member of the Anaheim Union High School District Board of Education who is leading the petition drive. “Our children need and deserve to live in a country of renewed spirit which will help bind us as one.”<\/p>\n

And this has to do with mandating school silence how?<\/p>\n

I mean, are you praying with your kids at home? If not, why not? And if so, then how is adding a moment of silent prayer — er, silence — going to help “bind us as one.”<\/p>\n

And why do I hear the voice of Landru in the background?<\/p>\n

I don’t have a lot of problem with a moment of silence, to be honest. Hell, when I was teaching I would have killed to have a mandated moment of silence. Maybe stretch that into several minutes to an hour. What worries me, though, is the automatic leap that is made from moments of silence to moments of prayer. To my mind, as soon as we cross that line, we’re into the realm of state-sponsored religion, a bit no-no as far as the Constitution goes, and bad public policy (in my opinion) to boot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As InstaPundit puts it about this story, “Let’s see: we’re at war against religious fanatics who want to create a theocracy. What’s an appropriate response? Hey, how about government-sponsored prayer!…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":974,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2001\/10\/29\/its_everywhere.html","url_meta":{"origin":1637,"position":0},"title":"It’s everywhere, y’know!","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 29-Oct-01 9:23am","format":false,"excerpt":"InstaPundit notes that anthrax spores occur in nature, as any rancher knows. How sensitive is the testing they are doing on post offices, etc.? What's the possibility\/probability that they are...","rel":"","context":"In "Homeland Security"","block_context":{"text":"Homeland Security","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/homeland-security"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4023,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/02\/25\/ruh_roh_reorge.html","url_meta":{"origin":1637,"position":1},"title":"Ruh-roh, Reorge","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 25-Feb-03 9:54pm","format":false,"excerpt":"How evil are you? 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