School prayer in its common usage refers to state-sanctioned and/or mandatory prayer by students in public schools. Depending on the country and the type of school, state-sponsored prayer may be required, permitted, or prohibited. Countries which prohibit school prayer often differ in their reasons for doing so: In the United States, school prayer is proscribed in accordance with the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution (which provides the foundation for the separation of church and state). In Canada, school prayer is disallowed under the concept of Freedom of conscience as outlined in the Canadian Charter on Rights & Fundamental Freedoms. Simultaneously, school prayer is disallowed in France as a byproduct of its status as a laïcist (religiously neutral) nation. Countries that allow school and/or state-sponsored prayer include Greece, Iran, Australia, Italy and the United Kingdom.
Famous quotes containing the words school and/or prayer:
“The school system, custodian of print culture, has no place for the rugged individual. It is, indeed, the homogenizing hopper into which we toss our integral tots for processing.”
—Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980)
“At length, having come up fifty rods off, he uttered one of those prolonged howls, as if calling on the god of loons to aid him, and immediately there came a wind from the east and rippled the surface, and filled the whole air with misty rain, and I was impressed as if it were the prayer of the loon answered, and his god was angry with me; and so I left him disappearing far away on the tumultuous surface.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)