My idea of how prayer in school should be

 OK, I'm not a great artist and I decided to use AI (craiyon) to create an idea I've have in my head.

The US is supposed to not favour one religion in the public sphere--so, this is my take on prayer in school.

Sorry if I left anyone out! It's not intentional. I want to be as inclusive as possible.

Especially since I imagine it to be pretty chaotic if you consider religious diversity. You really shouldn't be excluding ANY spiritual belief.

This seems particularly appropriate given that another airliner was diverted due to prayer recently.

Oh, and the prompts were:

A cartoon classroom full of children, five of them are in christian prayer, a couple are in Muslim prayer, a hasidic jewish boy is praying wearing tefillin, there is a boy who is an Appalachian snake handler, a hindu boy is meditating while levitating a foot off the floor, there are 3 dervish children dancing, native american and african children are dancing wildly.

A cartoon classroom full of children, five of them are in christian prayer, a couple of boys are in Muslim prayer, a hasidic jewish boy is praying wearing tefillin, there is a boy who is an Appalachian snake handler, a hindu boy is meditating while levitating a foot off the floor, there are 3 dervish children dancing, native american and african children are dancing wildly.

A cartoon classroom full of children, five of them are in christian prayer, a couple of boys are in Muslim prayer, a hasidic jewish boy is praying wearing tefillin, there is a boy who is an Appalachian snake handler, a hindu boy is meditating while levitating a foot off the floor, there are 3 dervish children dancing, a couple of rastafarians, native american and african children are dancing wildly.

 Prayer in school shouldn't be peaceful and serene: it needs to be inclusive.

Now, you do understand why the US needs to adopt laïcité?

It's unconstitutional if the rationale is based solely upon religious or ethical considerations

Big points to Judge Mitch Perry of the Jefferson County Circuit Court in Kentucky for doing what should be done in regard to this debate:

His July 22 ruling extended that order, saying there is “a substantial likelihood” that the new abortion ban violates “the rights to privacy and self-determination” protected by the state constitution, the Associated Press reported. 

But he also assumed that the laws are based on sectarian doctrine. 

“The General Assembly is not permitted to single out and endorse the doctrine of a favored faith for preferred treatment,” Perry wrote. “By taking this approach, the bans fail to account for the diverse religious views of many Kentuckians whose faith leads them to take very different views of when life begins.”

Perry said there is “nothing in our laws or history that allows for such theocratic based policymaking.”

 Exactly. The First Amendment, Freedom of Religion, and Separation of Church and State are based on the fact that a lot of early Americans came here for religious freedom. In other words, not to have the government, or anybody else, tell them how to practise their relgious beliefs.

This also gets down to what pro-choice means:

Don't have an abortion if you are against them, but don't tell someone else what to do with their body.

The founders were for a secular society because they didn't want a bunch of Catholics telling them What the Fuck to do in regard to religion. 

The Catholics on the Supreme Court should admit to that fact.

See also:

• Judge blocks abortion bans saying they are based on religious doctrine
  

Actions like Charlottesville should not be condoned.

Taken in Charlottesville, a block from Emancipation Park, by @HouseofRuin

The Neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville was not covered by the First or Second Amendments as the above picture demonstrates.

The US Supreme Court decision, Presser v Illinois, 116 U.S. 252, 6 S.Ct. 580, 29 L.Ed. 615 (1886), made this clear:

It cannot be successfully questioned that the State governments, unless restrained by their own Constitutions, have the power to regulate or prohibit associations and meetings of the people, except in the case of peaceable assemblies to perform the duties or exercise the privileges of citizens of the United States; and have also the power to control and regulate the organization, drilling, and parading of military bodies and associations, except when such bodies or associations are *268 authorized by the militia laws of the United States. The exercise of this power by the States is necessary to the public peace, safety and good order. To deny the power would be to deny the right of the State to disperse assemblages organized for sedition and treason, and the right to suppress armed mobs bent on riot and rapine.

Presser needs to be brought back into the "Second Amendment Jurisprudence", although it seems to boggle the mind that anyone could claim an armed assembly to somehow fit within the definition of "peaceably assemble".

We can go a bit further to the claim about one belonging to an "unorganised militia" leading to Second Amendment rights, but Presser made it clear that neither Presser nor the Lehr und Wehr Verein "had no license from the governor of Illinois to drill or parade as a part of the militia of the state, and was not a part of the regular organized militia of the state, nor a part of troops of the United States, and had no organization under the militia law of the United States."

Presser made it clear that:

The right voluntarily to associate together as a military company or organization, or to drill or parade with arms, without, and independent of, an act of congress or law of the state authorizing the same, is not an attribute of national citizenship. Military organization and military drill and parade under arms are subjects especially under the control of the government of every country. They cannot be claimed as a right independent of law. Under our political system they are subject to the regulation and control of the state and federal governments, acting in due regard to their respective prerogatives and powers. The constitution and laws of the United States will be searched in vain for any support to the view that these rights are privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States independent of some specific legislation on the subject.

We can also get into the historic events which led to the adoption of the Constitution, one of which was Shays' Rebellion, along with the text of the Constitution to see that somehow trying to turn the "well-regulated militia" into a mob, which the insurrection theory does, is an absurdity.

The right needs to abandon its absurd interpretation of the Second Amendment, in particular that it somehow gives licence to rebellion.

Even more importantly, it needs to see where this absurdity has taken us. Time for this shit to stop.

See also:
The Chilling Effects of Openly Displayed Firearms

Conservatives LOVE LOVE LOVE our Constitution, except when they don't - especially the 1 A

If you follow right wing propaganda sources, like the World Nut(Net) Daily or the right wing Townhall, or the speeches by many conservatives, especially those who seek to be conservative presidential candidates, or the right wing nut megachurch preachers, there is a war on Christianity in this country.

Perennial candidates for president on the right, like Santorum, and Huckabee, want to put their extreme and highly controversial version Christian religion into public schools, on the taxpayer dime.

That is not true. The true threat to Liberty and religious freedom is not against Christianity, but from it,, against anyone and everyone who dares to refuse to conform to the religious right's bigotry and intolerance.

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

from Conrell University Law School's Legal Information Institute:
The First Amendment's Establishment Clause prohibits the government from making any law “respecting an establishment of religion.” This clause not only forbids the government from establishing an official religion, but also prohibits government actions that unduly favor one religion over another. It also prohibits the government from unduly preferring religion over non-religion, or non-religion over religion.

It is consistently conservatives, who give loud but meaningless and empty lip service to loving and supporting our Constitution (hypocrites that they are) who persist in attempting to foist Christianity on the nation, attempting to turn us into a theocracy.

So for example, not only do we have a push for theocracy, we have a push to dumb down education -- PUBLIC education -- by not only a push to repeal testing and standards, but by removing qualified teachers from classrooms and then replacing them with unqualified cheaper babysitters, who could be expected to push garbage, like creationism.

from PoiticusUSA:
Republican anti-education efforts don’t get much worse than the Tea Party’s own Michigan State Rep. Gary Glenn’s (R-Larkin Township) House Bill 4394.

As Michigan-based Electablog explains,

If Glenn’s bill – House Bill 4394 – becomes law, schools can hire anyone they want. The criteria currently used would be tossed out the window. The bill literally strikes out all of the criteria. In addition, it removes the words grades “9 through 12″ meaning that schools could hire anyone they wish, with or without a teaching certificate, for any grade level. No training as an educator required.

And continuing from the same piece in Politicus:

Here is the thing, students who get a quality education -- which should include civics classes, which should include the 1A establishment (of no public religion) DOES create BOTH good citizens AND EMPLOYABLE CITIZENS, who can then support themselves, support their families, pay taxes, and be qualified if we need them to do so to serve in our armed forces. Lack of adequate education is actually a problem for armed forces recruiting -- and serving in the military, which is very much NOT a corporation, is a real and legitimate job choice/ career choice.

Further the notion that one can only be a good citizen if one is indoctrinated in and a current believer in religion -- and let's be candid here, by religion these nutjobs ONLY mean Christianity, they make a fundamentl error. People recognize and understand moral and ethical behavior WITHOUT RELIGION. Further, there are plenty of people who are believers in religion who do bad things, both as private individuals, and in their roles as citizens in the public sphere. So having religion is no guarantee of being a good citizen and not having religious beliefs does not present a risk that someone will be a bad citizen.

That is a right wing fantasy, part of their 'Us vs Them' orientation where they are dishonest about the faults of the 'us' and dishonest and unfair, and just plain bigoted about the 'them' of that equation. So apparently Todd Courser, like his buddy in the MI legislature, Gary Glenn (what is with the redundant consonants?) BOTh fail to grasp the appropriate role of government (which includes providing functional, not religious public education), but which also utterly fails to understand and loyally support the Constitution, notably the 1st Amendment.

This is appallingly unique to conservatives, who present an actual danger by these beliefs to our representative form of secular democratic government and who threaten our very real liberties.

More than that we have the Arizona legislator who would like (but at least does not expect) to coerce everyone in the USA to go to church (again, CHRISTIAN church, none of the Jewish, Muslim, or pagan religions like Hinduism or Buddhism) and again the presumption is this is essential for the success of the nation, and for proper soul-saved citizens. Never mind what the practical results on institutions of religion would be if citizens were actually coerced by the law to attend against their will.

From KREM2:

Arizona senator wants to make church mandatory

Allen, as You know, is a Republican from Snowflake, a Tea Party favorite who wants to pretend Arizona is an independent country rather than a state, and who believes government should stay completely out of people lives -- unless she can use her position to help out a son-in-law who got into some hot water over behavior with some of the inmates he was guarding at a women's prison.
But that's another story.
Anyway, Big Guy, they were debating a gun bill at a legislative committee meeting at the State Capitol this week so, naturally, Allen brought up religion.
(In Arizona, complete lack of logic is natural. But, you know that, too)
This was one of those crazy bills in which lawmakers want people to be able to bring concealed weapons into public buildings. Allen got upset because a few people expressed common sense opposition to the idea. Lawmakers here cannot abide common sense.
Allen said, "Probably we should be debating a bill requiring every American to attend a church of their choice on Sunday to see if we can get back to having a moral rebirth," adding "that would never be allowed."

The problem is that even when these right wing FASCISTS know that what they want is not allowed, as we see in Michigan and other states, they try it anyway. Because they do NOT love the Constitution and they do NOT love religious freedom.  They love coercion, they love religious conformity, so long as it is strictly to whatever shots they see fit to call in their ignorance, bigotry, and intolerance.

Louisiana, Tennessee and Mississippi (again with the redundant consonants) want to make the Bible their state book.

Mississippi conservatives want to make Christianity their state religion.  So do conservatives in North Carolina.  Both states have had actual legislation to do so, other red states have had discussions about doing so, or at least desiring to do so.

A poll by the HuffPo and Yougov back in April 2013 found that 1 in 3 Americans want to make Christianity the official NATIONAL religion.  Let us be clear, overwhelmingly, regardless of declared party affiliation, this is hugely more a problem from conservatives, attacking actual religious freedom.

From the Huff Po:

Although a large percentage of Americans said they would favor establishing a state religion, only 11 percent said they thought the U.S. Constitution allowed states to do so. Fifty-eight percent said they didn't think it was constitutional, and 31 percent said they were not sure.
...Republicans were more likely than Democrats or independents to say that they would favor establishing Christianity as an official state religion, with 55 percent favoring it in their own state and 46 percent favoring a national constitutional amendment.

We are not a theocracy.  Theocracies created second class citizens, and it has wisely been observed that the pernicious state religious promotion is the new Jim Crow.

Disclaimer, I've written in the past for both IVN and PoliticusUSA.