Disquiet over schools' moment of silence - Page 4

That is an odd bit of reasoning adda. The purpose of the moment is silent thought. The fact that students can use it as such seems to mean you think they could do this any other time of the day. The fact that students can do what we would call daydreaming during a moment of silence shows how permissive the moment is in definition. The definition for math, science and other subjects is not permissive of such thoughts in fact it would punish them. Students are frequently admonished for and punished for being mentally off-task throughout the day.


I agree. I think kids have loads of opportunities to handle this outside of the classroom. However I also know that there are religiously intolerant people who challenge these rights continually. As we have seen in this thread, people believe not just that the state shouldn't endorse religion, but any tolerance of religion anything that keeps a school from being "religion free" is an endorsement.


I don't think she would be laughed out at all. There have been hundreds of cases attempting to clarify this issue. As an example, suppose the school doesn't have a moment of silence but does have a student led prayer group/club at lunch time. All student groups/clubs are given an allotment of copies. The prayer groups uses their allotment as every other group does, to make fliers to hang and create awareness of the group. Is this a religious endorsement? If the group meets in a room instead of on the grass, is that an endorsement? A faculty member must likely sponsor, aka agree to supervise even while not participating the club for it to have a room.

These issues are going around all the time. If 100 students at lunch all knee silently and pray in the same fashion lead by one other student who prays out loud is it a prayer or a demonstration? The courts receive and handle such complaints frequently.


In Ohio the legislation was sponsored by Democrats. The state itself is pretty evenly divided and it is not at all in the Bible belt. So caricatures aside, giving the voters what they want is not automatically pandering.

Several of the points I have mentioned can be affirmed in this ACLU Joint Statement. While I am sure you will label them a "red meat fundie dog whistle" for echoing the points made here, I doubt they are pandering as well.

First Frank I want to thank you for contributing substantively to the thread. You are quite enjoyable to discuss items with when not launching into ad-homs. I hope you keep it up.

I'll note a couple points about the injunction and we can go from there. First it doesn't appear to me to be engaging in a slippery-slope. Rather it appears to note that the law in moving from may to shall, engendered a legal challenge which hit at how vague it was written. This could lend itself to abuse since theoretically a teacher could hold a five hour silence and still have it be legal. The judgment even notes the law could be completely legitimate in what it addresses, but if the vagueness lends itself to possible problems, it is likely to be ruled against. The other law could have been vague as well but if no one ever sought an injunction or ruling against it, this wouldn't have been revealed.

So in short the move from may to must hasn't changed the constitutionality, it has changed who will challenge it. When challenging the law if they prevail, it will be because of vagueness, not because of lack of constitutionality. This would likely lead to a revised law that has exactly what people here have been complaining about, a very specific length of time, a specific time of day, perhaps even the wording all teachers must use to insure there is no state advocacy.


Realize that when several different people bring forward different points, I attempt to respond to all of them and when I answer, people can attempt to claim X or Y about a different point that the answer did not address related to their point. Adda and others (you a bit of the time) have contended that no one would ever challenge prayer or religious activities outside of the classroom. The conclusion is that since this challenge would never occur, the only true motivation for the moment of silence would be that they are... to use the popular pejorative here, are fundies. If you look at the link in the context of the whole statement, I think you will see I am addressing this point.

However the reality is that those rights have been challenged outside of the classroom frequently. They are not the simple forgone conclusion that those participating in this thread assume. The ACLU joint statement affirms several of those rights but it has to be affirmed because they have been challenged in court. Some of them I seem to even recall being challenged by the ACLU. If you can find their friend of the court brief on this, I would be interested in reading it.

I meant that the moment of silence will not be found to be unconstitutional. Instead the vagueness of it will be found to be unconstitutional.

Better? Disagree?

We are in total agreement. I'll have to add that Ron Sherman really strikes me as a self-promoting dirtbag who is exploiting his daughter and teaching her to be intolerant in order to promote himself.


You again show the problem Tonton. When a Muslim prays toward Mecca five times a day, it is not he school forcing them to do this. It is the school getting out of the way of allowing their expression. When exactly is their "own time?" They are compelled to go to school seven hours a day.


I agree with you completely. It is a complete waste of time. I would consider them completely laughable s well. You also note that the devote kids do not influence or harm the non-religious kids which is a very good thing as well. You sound like you handle it exactly like I would handle it.


This is different than me. I do care about the time. I want it back. I'm thanking the Baby Jesus right now that we only say the U.S. pledge and not the state pledge as well.


This is the part where you are just flat out wrong though Grove, and I say this as someone who wants the same outcome as you with regard to my time. There have been loads of lawsuits all related to religious expression and endorsement and what constitutes each. There are those out there that absolutely believe schools should be religion free zones and by that they don't just mean free of religious endorsement, but free of religious expression.


A lot of folks in this thread appear to prefer dealing with motives as opposed to the actual acts and outcomes. That saddens me because it means they would rather take devote folks, paint them as evil and then jerk their knee instead of just dealing with reality.


So do it now. Inform your administration that you are doing this. Contact the press and let them sit in your room during the non-moments of silence. Link to it and we will read the accounts of your actions. I like the be silent so baby Jesus can hear the prayers line. Can you toss it in during the press conference? There are legal foundations out there that love fronting and filing on behalf of folks. Find the one you believe would defend your position and have them lined up before you get started.


I'm not sure it is the same way in Texas, but in California we are liable for the students from the moment they leave their front door, to the time they return. Because of this fact, every second they are under our care, they must be supervised. During instructional time they are supervised by teachers and during non-instructional time they are supervised by lunch supervisors, administrative staff, etc.

The students are still under the control of the institution. The ed code isn't suspended.


I agree 100%. However if you are a person who complains that your tax dollars are going to an institution that is tolerating religious expression and not maintaining a religion free zone, that would still be true if the group of students is praying during lunch. It wouldn't be teacher supervising the kids and rolling their eyes at the ridiculousness and wasted time. It would be an administrator or lunch supervisor instead. However it would still be on state time, state property and state supervision. That is all I was pointing out.

You have to understand that I am addressing the types of folks who sue to insure boy scouts do not use school classrooms for meetings after the school day is done due to it being a religious endorsement and entanglement in their view. You and the others on this thread appear to be more tolerant than that but that doesn't mean such lawsuits are not filed and that the views do not exist. They have been filed for even putting up fliers on bulletin boards advertising a lunch or after-school club for example. They have been filed because a teacher like yourself, sat in the back and graded papers, or read their newspaper when they met in the classroom at lunch but needed supervision.

I linked to the ACLU statement not because as Frank thought, I was addressing the moment of silence during instructional time, but rather to show that religious expression has been thoroughly attacked from every possible angle during non-instructional time.

I honestly think they have much more than 15 seconds. What hasn't been addressed by yourself and others is how the moment of silence becomes constitutional during the free period but not in the time between the pledge and announcements.

I prefer that all Christian kids and any other religion handle their needs during non-instructional time. What hasn't been addressed is this, if allowing the kids to take 60 seconds of supervised time after the pledge to have their moment of silence is a religious endorsement, how is allowing the kids to take 60 seconds of supervised time during lunch not the same thing? It is still state land, state buildings, state money paying for the supervision of that prayer. It is not in any form or fashion private.

Your preference is my preference. Could you explain how the preference that still has dollars paying to supervise prayer is not an endorsement because I am sure you consider the class-time an endorsement.

I think you are not realizing how arbitrary these labels happen to be.

At my school for example, recess is unstructured. The kids can go to the yard and play where they want with who they desire. However at other schools recess is completely structured. The kids have assigned play areas and can only play that game for that week with the other children assigned to that area.

You say the moment of silence time is instructional time and structured. The state would argue that it is completely unstructured and has been set aside from instructional time as free time for religious expression. In fact I would bet that the state lawyer would argue that it is expressly no different than recess or lunch.

I think people think of these free times as completely wide open. In this day and age, especially with the common level of overcrowding that has occurred, they are more structured than ever. At my school the children have to go eat in 15 minute shifts during the 45 minute lunch because the cafeteria cannot accommodate them all at once as an example. It isn't just go wherever and do whatever you want. The state imposes structure, but it is non-instructional structure. They approve of clubs, announcements, fliers and activities that can occur during this time. If they give approval, does it amount to endorsement?

Never forget that the entity that sets and controls the definitions ultimately wins. It is sort of like how government cannot truly go broke because they own the printing presses that print the money. If you want to hit the state with its own definitions, they will just change them.


No I don't see how it does advance religion at all. However certainly you know complaints have been filed on such matters. If the school provides a bulletin board for clubs and the religious club puts up a flier noting they are praying at lunch, is that religious entanglement for example? Suits have been filed for such things initiated only by students desiring to use this free time in the manner they prefer.

I think it a fallacy to suggest that just because religious expression occurs during what we call "free time" that no atheists have a problem with it or fail to consider it a state religious endorsement. I know the people in this thread might not have a problem with it, but clearly others do. All it takes is one to file the complaint, seek the injunction, etc. Heck one is all that has filed in the moment of silence law we are discussing.