Recently I have noticed several references to the Indian River controversy in regard to prayers being held in public schools. As I remember correctly, a school system in southeastern Delaware insisted on allowing prayers in school, and were sued by a Jewish family whose children had no choice but to attend one of those schools.

Throughout history schools have always said prayer until fairly recently when it became controversal. So did every court and every legislative session also open with a reverent moment. Can someone tell me why it is becoming a controversy in schools especially at this time?

Conservatives will blame the liberal members of the bench. Liberals will blame it on the unabashed flaunting of one sect of one religion, over all others by strict conservatives on a case by case basis. I am here to say that unfortunately both incidents may be true.

Our right to religion says explicitly that “Congress” cannot create a “state” religion. This clause has slid the slippery slope to mean that any government agencies and those entities which report to them, are prohibited from endorsing a “state religion” One has to wonder how a teacher saying” let’s bow our head in silent prayer” is any endorsement of a Congressional state religion, but the athiests had to chime in and say, “we don’t pray at all.” and courts reluctantly agreed that to be bent-over-backwards equal, any religious references had to be expunged from any and every government entity.

So where does that leave us? It leaves us with a black hole in the development of our youth. One has only to walk through a public school during class change, and realise that “good” as in good and evil, has vacated the school grounds.

That leaves “evil” as the leftover on the school grounds. And” evil” roams the halls with no checks of balances. If someone is bullied, he may have to resort to “evil” to defend himself and smuggle a gun in under his coat. If someone undesirable asks you out, you may have to say yes, otherwise your broken, unconscious body will be found face down on the tile floor of the restroom. If five guys jump you, it is long over before security can gather the numbers needed to intervene.

So what can balance out those negative influences that dominate in this jungle environment, where one is concerned more with survival than with learning?

And that is ethics. Someway, somehow the need to realise right from wrong, needs to be instilled in our youth today. One needs to realise that our youth spend 8 hours of their daily time in the school environs. This is where the change needs to come.

Some may say that the responsibility for ethical training comes from the parents. As a parent myself, I wish I could find the time to teach a class of ethics to my children. Others may say that the responsibility lies with the religions, and churches and other institutions who bear the responsibility of teaching ethics to our children. After 8 hours of school for five days, who would want to absorb another hour of ethical knowledge, especially if it is on your mental day off?

And so if one combines the need to offer an opposing view to the jungle environment in our school systems, and the lack of influences able to penetrate young minds from either their parents or religious institutions, one is left with the realization that the schools are the source that need to provide the balance themselves.

How? Is it in a class that talks about why we need religion? Is it in a class that promotes religious values like abstanance and non smoking? Should that class challenge the fields of science, especially when it covers the big bang, geology or evolution, Is it in a class that explores why a society needs ethics, and then covers that topic without ever mentioning religion?

These questions illustrate how challenging this problem will be to overcome. One can split and split again the issues that will surface if religion is brought into our schools in the form of a taught science.

And so if we see the necessity of bringing religion into our schools and see the pitfalls of teaching it openly, how else can it be done?

The answer is with prayer. “Let us bow our heads and pray” is all that needs to be said. Those who believe will pray, and those who don’t, will wonder how they became the 1% who don’t believe in a God of some type. Although some may be skeptical that something so easy could rectify the atmospheres of our schools, one could argue in return that since the atmosphere of our schools are quite bad, this option if deemed not effective in the longterm, certainly does not hurt anyone or anything.

As for the athiests and their arguments, I would railroad them on a technicality. And that technicality is this. It is well known that Congress cannot create a state religion. But it says nothing about rights of a NON religion. Since it says nothing in the Constitution about offending those rights, such actions are not covered by the Constitution. The idea that having “no” religion is the same as have a”religion” of not believing in a religion, is as bonkers as the idea of saying having no peanuts in your hand, is the same as having peanuts in your hand that are not there. It is time the courts come to their senses.