Public Prayer Fanatics Borrow Page from Enemy's Script. (Up Front: News and Opinion from Independent Minds)

Ebert, Roger, The Humanist

The Bush administration has been dealt a setback in its campaign to allow prayer in our public schools. The full 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has voted 15-9 to back the 2-1 vote by its earlier panel finding the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional because of the words "under God."

The pledge, written in 1892, had those words added to it in 1954, during the Eisenhower administration, and I remember a nun in our Catholic school telling us we had to say it because it was the law--but it was wrong, because it violated the principle of separating church and state.

We started every day with classroom prayer at St. Mary's School, of course, but Sister Rosanne said …

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Publication information: Article title: Public Prayer Fanatics Borrow Page from Enemy's Script. (Up Front: News and Opinion from Independent Minds). Contributors: Ebert, Roger - Author. Magazine title: The Humanist. Volume: 63. Issue: 3 Publication date: May-June 2003. Page number: 6. © 1999 American Humanist Association. COPYRIGHT 2003 Gale Group.

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