Brazoria pushing school prayer

By Desirée Evans, The Facts, (Brazoria County, Texas), April 13, 2007

Brazoria -- The city already made national headlines this year by trying to stop people from saying an offensive word. Now, instead of trying to outlaw a word, city officials want "the word" spread through public schools.

City Council unanimously passed a resolution urging organized prayer be reinstated in public schools and is hoping other governments statewide follow Brazoria’s lead.

"With all of the problems kids face today in society, it is very important that God be brought back into our school systems," Brazoria Mayor Ken Corley said Thursday.

The start of a school day should begin with open prayer in the classrooms led either by the school or students, Corley said, and a lot of people feel the same way.

"Non-Christians can pray, too, if they want to," Corley said. "Who knows, maybe we can convert some of these non-Christians."

Corley added that non-Christian students would be allowed to pray in the manner of their own religions.

Corley asked City Manager Teresa Borders to send a copy of the resolution to every Brazoria County city urging them to join his grassroots effort to reinstate prayer by passing similar resolutions.

Since prayer has been taken out of schools, the crime rate among America’s youth has skyrocketed, and anyone with a pair of eyeballs can see that, said Councilman Randy Jones, who also is a Texas Department of Public Safety sergeant.

"We’ve taken prayer out of schools," Jones said, "and put police officers into schools."

Corley said he knows the resolution will spread to other areas of the state because there is a strong movement in the country to get back to religion and Christianity. The movement was caused by problems with the war in Iraq, problems in public schools and an overall decline in morality, Corley said.

He’s also quite positive the resolution will go statewide, Corley said.

Jones said he prays Corley is right.

Prayer was banned in schools because atheist groups spoke out loudly against prayer and the Christian community did not answer loudly enough in defense, Corley said.

Brazoria’s resolution states the banning of organized school prayer through "court decisions and certain interest groups have contributed to the deterioration of those religious beliefs and ideals," which the United States was founded upon. It also states that putting prayer back in public schools will propel the country back to those founding beliefs and that schools are "in a unique position to influence and guide the lives of this nation’s youth."

"The need for it is strong," Corley said. "It’s something we never should have lost in the first place."

State law already allows some forms of school prayer, however.

Individual public school students have a right to pray in a "nondisruptive manner," and schools can have a moment of silence when the school day starts, said Texas Education Agency Communications Director Debbie Ratcliffe.

"That’s, in fact, what the Legislature mandated in 2005," she said.

State and federal law currently would not allow for a school employee to lead a prayer, Ratcliffe said, but students can lead prayers at school functions.

"There have been efforts to restore prayer to schools since it was outlawed four decades ago, and it hasn’t happened yet," Ratcliffe said. "The situation may have softened a bit in the last 10 years, but courts have been firm on the separation of state and church doctrine."

Ratcliffe said she thinks reinstating organized school prayer would be an uphill battle.

The Legislature this session is taking further steps to protect religious expression in schools.

State Rep. Dennis Bonnen, R-Angleton, is co-author of House Bill 3678, the Religious Viewpoint Anti-Discrimination Act. A hearing on the bill took place April 4 in the House State Affairs Committee, but no action was taken.

"The bill spells out the rights of students to organize prayer groups and religious clubs, to meet before, during and after school, and to openly express their beliefs about religion in homework, artwork and other assignments free from discrimination," Bonnen wrote in his April 5 "Insider’s Report" e-mail.

Bonnen could not be reached Thursday for comment about the bill.

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