School Prayer & Separation of Church/State Again and again the long settled legal issues of school prayer and posting of "The 10 Commandments" (whichever version) rears it's ugly head in Texas. The Religious Right and vote pandering politicans continue dredging up this divisive, inflamatory and long settled issue. Worse yet, these politicians who are expected to be 'unifiers' not 'dividers', 'law makers' not 'law breakers'; who profess to be unbiased and pluralistically fair-minded, wear their claimed Religious bias like a Badge of Courage instead of the Symbol of Intolerance (to all faiths other than theirs) or outright vote prostitution that it is. The School Prayer Issue is but a part of the much larger issue of Church/State Separation and goes lockstep with its sister issues of posting of "The 10 Commandments" and "In God We Trust" on every available school wall, blackboard and Government Building not yet so occupied. The Religionists hopes, in continuing to press these issues, is not just fostering religion in our schools and communities , but in establishing a specific religion: the Christian Religion. We don't hear Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus or for that matter Wiccans, carping over the these issues. No, in fact they are generally against such efforts as they recognize the inherent regressive, restrictive and dumbing-down dangers of mixing Church and State. These are small steps toward the ultimate goal of the far Right Christian - to break down the Wall of Separation between Church and State and establish a Christian dominated country; a Theocracy. This is clearly dangerous and destructive. The Holy writings and religious tenets of all "Revealed Religions", Christian, Islamic and Jewish stress 'tolerance', 'brotherly love', forgiveness' and 'non-violence'. In reality, the results are quite different when Religion becomes the "rule of the land". Then religion IS the problem. To see these results one only has to look at history's Dark Ages, The Crusades and Witch-hunts or at the present day Islamic Middle East where the strict fundamental word of Allah 'reigns', but brutality 'rules' making it a major source of much of the evil, violence and ignorance in today's world..... or Northern Ireland where Christian warfare continues under the twin banners of Catholic or Protestant..... or the East Bank where Palestinians and Isrealites want nothing less than the total anniliation of eachother. In fact everywhere religion rules supreme, society takes a step backward toward a return to the Dark Ages of ignorance, superstition and barbarity. Religion contains, within itself, mankind's two opposite ultimate ethical extremes - 'utmost good' and 'vilest evil' both justified under the guise of Religious credo. In the vast spectrum between these two extremes lies all human ethical action. Need the obvious 'great unspoken' be stated: Like it or not, Religion IS a root cause of much of today's terrorism, barbarism, slaugher and tragedy. Is it any wonder when the incessant loud and clear chants for "School Prayer" and the "Faith Based Funding" of religion, the posting of "The 10 Commandments" and "In God We Trust", sound out what many of us hear as nothing less than the heavy breathing of Religion's Camel trying, once again, to sneak into Government's Tent. The specific complaint that our "children be allowed to pray in school" is clearly a fictitious, Red-Herring issue. Silent prayer by individual students or anyone else, for that matter, to and for themselves is not and has never been prohibited in school or anywhere else. It never will be because it is protected by the very Constitution that Relgionists are trying to overturn, amend or plainly ignore as many of their actions now demonstrate. They should know, these religious sentiments are not a "Majority Rules" issue. The Bill of Rights of our Constitution was written to specifically protect the Individual Minority's Rights from the majority's imposition of laws favoring their own biased causes over universal individual freedoms. We hear pleas for Christian-like "tolerance", which are whole heartily supported, however much of the 'intolerance' of today comes from the Religious Communities themselves, which refuse to accept the fact that, with over 2200 different religions and sects in the U.S. alone and with over 1/2 the world population having no religion at all, not everyone shares their particular brand of religious dogma. With this in mind and a history of at least 2000 years of religious warfare, religions "all praying to the same God" and determining a comfortable dogma, prayer, pledge or commandment, suitable to all, IS and WILL BE not only a problem, but an impossibility. It is inevitable that society, in general, and children, in particular, will be "coerced, forced and intimidated" by the authority of law and/or pressure of their own peers, to pray, pledge alligence to or conform to an entity in which they do not believe and/or their own parents don't endorse. When it comes to prayer perhaps the Religious Community should heed one of it's own tenets: "And when thou prayest, thou shall not be as the hypocrites are; for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly." (Matt. 6:5-8) In fact maybe a lot less hypocrisy in both religion and politics is an answer to many of todays troubles. Practicing what one preaches would be a refreshing and constructive change, particularly from preachy, vote pandering political ploys. A simple question in closing: If every morning in school your children were required to get down on bended knee, face Mecca and recite a prayer from the Koran praying to "Allah, the one true God", or read the "Seven Pillars of Islam", how "tolerant" would you be? Leave religion to home and to the church - let the schools educate, not indoctrinate. Suggested Readings: Bill of Rights of U.S. Constitution School Prayer rulings of U.S. Supreme Court for past 38 years 1995 Federal Guidlines - "Religion in Public Schools...A Joint Statement of Current Student Law" Recent Decisions in School Prayer and 10 Commandment Case Any writings by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, People for the American Way, ACLU, Texas Freedom Network, Freedom From Religion Foundation, etal