Prayer in Public Schools

According to a recent poll from Rasmussen Reports: http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/lifestyle/general_lifestyle/february_2011/65_of_americans_favor_prayer_in_public_schools , 65% of adult Americans favor prayer in public schools.

Wow!

Ok, forget about separation of church and state. I have heard all the arguments there. The US Constitution doesn't have a separation clause, it has an Establishment Clause that prohibits establishment of one religion [presumably over another or all others]. The courts have interpreted this a bit more broadly to generally preclude the spending of taxpayer dollars where they judge there to not be a separation of church and state. Both sides point to the intent of the founding fathers ... as if they know.

Look! I can see into the past and the future as well as the next person (since this is my blog, I can do it better here). And, you know what? I have no idea what was going through Thomas Jefferson's (or whomever else may have written it) mind when he drafted the Establishment Clause.

Let me repeat: I don't know exactly what Thomas Jefferson was thinking. Neither does Glenn Beck. Madalyn Murray O'Hair http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madalyn_Murray_O'Hair didn't either.

Here's what I do know. Too many American children need to be praying in school because they don't have a clue what is going on in school. But, there's the rub. They shouldn't be. If they spend, say, 7 hours per day in school and sleep 8 hours (I doubt that most of them manage that), that gives them 9 hours per weekday and 32 hours per weekend for a total of 77 hours per week to pray. That's a lot of prayer. What they need is more time to be learning so that they don't have to pray for good grades.

I have a strong opinion on the legality of this one, but that's beside the point here. The point is that school hours are dear. Our students need them for education. Perhaps they should be giving up video game time to pray instead.