Friday, August 5, 2011

A Small Victory

The high school I went to, as I've mentioned before, shrugged off Church/State violations like they weren't a problem. Every veteran's day assembly had prayer involved, and I had to attend graduation for 6 years to play pomp & circumstance with the band; every year this started with a prayer. No one cared enough to report it and I kept quiet. During the earlier years, because I was totally apathetic to religion, and a little later, because I didn't think I had the resources to fight it, especially when it seemed 99% of the school wanted the prayer, and the other 1% seemed apathetic.

But, during senior year, sick of hearing a prayer at every assembly our school had, at national honor society inductions, I had halley record the prayer on her phone. You could barely make it out, but it gave me the momentum I needed to contact the Freedom From Religion Foundation They were incredibly helpful. I filled in their church/state violation form, and was contacted the next day. I gave them a little more information; nothing I didn't know. They wanted to know if a student gave the prayer and if I could give them stronger evidence it was pre-planned. This evidence wasn't necessary, but they said it could help. I let them know it was rehearsed the previous day in front of the principal and sent them a copy of the pamphlet that listed "opening prayer", along with the recording. They didn't actually wind up using the recording  (or needing it) because it was so fuzzy.

Within two weeks, they sent me back a copy of the email that they'd sent to my superintendent and principal, and in less than another week, they sent me my school's reply. Thankfully, they were cooperative. They agreed not to plan a graduation NHS prayer again. And, on my high school graduation day, a student gave a prayer, in private, in his capacity as a student, without the condonemnent of my high school, or the captive audience of everyone attending the graduation. And halley and I walked away from it. I was thrilled, because my school didn't sponsor prayer.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation does some amazing things, so, everyone who can should support them in general.

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