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:
“...I believed passionately that Communists were a race of horned men who divided their time equally between the burning of Nancy Drew books and the devising of a plan of nuclear attack that would land the largest and most lethal bomb squarely upon the third-grade class of Thomas Jefferson School in Morristown, New Jersey.”
—Fran Lebowitz (b. 1950)
“The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.”
—Bible: Hebrew Psalms, 90:10.
The Book of Common Prayer (1662)