the 1st Amendment.
This idea that we Atheists are delicate creatures who turn to blubbery jello when confronted with anything pertaining to "God"; it's bullshit. By some estimations there are about 400,000 Chrisitan Churches in the USA. Pretty much any town, you'll find a church. There are crosses and plaques and Gideon bibles in the hotel rooms and big giant touchdown Jesii and ALL SORTS OF BIG REVERENTIAL REFERENCES TO DEITIES, everywhere you look.
And that's fine. Believe it or not, we don't -at least, I've never met an Atheist who does- expect nor do we even desire to somehow scrub all religious expression from reality.
But INSIDE A PUBLIC SCHOOL is not the place for heavenly father banners, prayers over the loudspeaker, reverential displays of the 10 commandments, or any of it.
All your arguments about how ecumenical and harmless this thing was are the exact same ones people have used to defend mandated school prayer, too. "Oh, how is little Johnny hurt by having to say thanks to Jesus every morning?" -sniff!-
Are you saying, then, if they WERE being forced to recite the Lord's Prayer every morning (again, with its friendly, all-inclusive "heavenly father" language) you would understand the Establishment Clause issues at stake?
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