school prayer – Blue Cereal Education

Moment of Silence – Bown v. Gwinnett County School District (1997) / Brown v. Gilmore (2001)

Blue Cereal — Sun, 12 Feb 2017 16:38:11 +0000

Two cases in the early 1960s largely eliminated state-sponsored prayer from public schooling. Engel v. Vitale (1962) and Abington v. Schempp (1963) are to this day touted by the far right as responsible for having kicked God out of schools – leading inevitably to sex, drugs, violence, rock’n’roll, corduroy, divorce, the pill, AIDS, the Clintons, terrorism, and a Kenyan sleeper-cell Mooslim illegitimately seizing the White House for eight long, painful years. The solution, of course, is to get God back IN our schools by requiring regimented recitation of state-approved chants. He LOVES those! Do this, we are assured, and America’s problems will vanish faster than you can say “civil liberties!”

A Wall of Separation – Bown v. Gwinnett County School District (1997)

Blue Cereal — Wed, 08 Feb 2017 19:46:11 +0000

Wall of Separation (Supreme Court Cases & Such) – Updated

Blue Cereal — Sat, 14 Jan 2017 21:34:05 +0000

A few months ago, I started blogging about Supreme Court cases delineating the relationships between religion and public schooling. In order to use some of the case summaries in class, I started editing and reformatting them afterwards. Then I figured since the work was already being done, and this effort at providing classroom resources in PDF format was already underway... why not just post them as I go?

Santa Fe ISD v. Doe (2000) – Part Three: A Little Leaven Leaveneth The Whole Lump

Blue Cereal — Wed, 11 Jan 2017 00:27:30 +0000

I suspect you would never intend this, but this is what happens. When you attempt to live by your own religious plans and projects, you are cut off from Christ, you fall out of grace. Meanwhile we expectantly wait for a satisfying relationship with the Spirit. For in Christ, neither our most conscientious religion nor … Continue reading

Santa Fe ISD v. Doe (2000) – Part Two: If She Weighs The Same As A Duck…

Blue Cereal — Fri, 06 Jan 2017 15:32:41 +0000

{History makes it clear that} religion and Government will both exist in greater purity the less they are mixed together… James Madison, Letter to Edward Livingston (July 10, 1822) In Part One I introduced the basics of Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe (2000), in which the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional for schools … Continue reading

Santa Fe ISD v. Doe (2000), Part One: Overview

Blue Cereal — Tue, 03 Jan 2017 17:54:20 +0000

On the surface, Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe (2000) rose out of fairly mundane circumstances to become a defining moment in jurisprudence involving prayer and public schools. Santa Fe is a rural district in southeastern Texas, not far from Galveston. They typically began home football games with prayer, and included similar expressions of faith during graduation. A Mormon family and a Catholic family complained, and the case worked its way up to the Supreme Court. The school modified its policies along the way so that students first voted on whether or not to have an opening prayer at games, and when they voted 'yes' (there was never really any doubt about that part) they’d cast ballots to see who would lead it. The district hoped this would make the prayer a student-driven activity and insulate it from constitutional challenges. It didn’t.

A Wall of Separation – Wallace v. Jaffree (1985)

Blue Cereal — Fri, 23 Sep 2016 22:50:48 +0000

So far we’ve done a brief overview of the concept of a ‘Wall of Separation’ between church and state, and covered a few early Supreme Court Cases involving religion and public schools. We looked at Everson v. Board of Education (1947) in which the Court determined it was perfectly acceptable for the state to reimburse … Continue reading