School Prayer- Unconstitutional or the Way to Uplift Moral? The danger of school prayer becoming reinstated into the United States’ public schools is ever more increasing. Representative Ernest Istook and more than 100 House members have introduced the “Religious Freedom Amendment” to the U.S. Constitution. The proposed constitutional amendment would permit school prayer and other religious expression on school property. The article “10 Reasons for Voluntary School Prayer” by Norman L. Geisler argues to support this unconstitutional act of bringing religion within our public schools. Although Norman L. Geisler gives ten reasons for voluntary school prayer, for the purpose of the length required for this paper, I will only discuss three. Geisler’s reason number six for voluntary school prayer is not sound. When diagramming this argument (1), but this is not valid because the fact that school prayerwas practiced for 200 years in this country does not make it valid by precedent. Slavery was also practiced in the Untied States for 200 years although it was an unconstitutional act. Just as slavery, prayer in public schools was found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court when it was proven as such to the members of the Supreme Court. Just because a practice is followed for so many years does not deem it as correct or valid. Therefore (1). In Geisler’s seventh argument he states that the court’s outlaw of prayer has a direct correlation with moral decline. Geisler’s argument can be proven invalid by examining it through the use of the method of difference. o,d,p,s,c,v,a -* M. Geisler does not show that these factors are a direct correlation to moral decline. He does not discuss what the cultural indexes were when prayer was in public schools. He also does not take all factors into account that might have caused an increase in these indexes during these years. A factor...
