Charles Evers Quotes

I'll tell you right now. I'm for prayer in school.

With that in mind and in celebration of National Prayer Day, today I have proposed in the House of Representatives a Constitutional Amendment that would restore voluntary prayer in our Nation's schools.

The right to engage in voluntary prayer or religious discussion free from discrimination does not include the right to have a captive audience listen or to compel other students to participate.

In 1962, the Supreme Court banned organized prayer from public schools. Since then, federal, state, and local courts and officials, including public school administrators, have joined in a nationwide search and destroy mission for student religious practices.

The public schools belong to all Americans. As guardians of our constitutional principles, teachers and administrators have a special obligation and responsibility to protect the religious liberty rights of students of all faiths and none, and to ensure that religion and religious conviction are treated with fairness and respect…

I do not believe that any type of religion should ever be introduced into the public schools of the United States.

A school prayer amendment would confer upon public school boards a power the 1st Amendment now denies to Congress and the states, that is, the power to establish religion.

If prayer is to leave the public schools, let the ridicule of prayer leave also.

The Supreme Court has insulted you over and over again, Lord. They've taken your Bible away from the schools. They've forbidden little children to pray. They've taken the knowledge of God as best they can, and organizations have come into court to take the knowledge of God out of the public square of America.

We should not permit prayer to be taken out of the schools; that's the only way most of us got through.

If a minister can lead the Senate in prayer every day... what is so wrong with beginning every day of school with an ecumenical prayer?

It is no part of the of the business of government to compose official prayers.

Keeping education in the United States free of sectarian influence has long been one of the primary struggles of believers in freedom of religion.

The Supreme Court has continually been zealous in protecting the right of school children to be free from sectarian influence by school authorities. Thus, practices which may be acceptable for an adult audience or a public forum may be unacceptable for public schools where attendance is mandatory and the desire to conform is typical among youth of such age.

Zealous groups threaten to infringe civil liberties when they seek government support to impose their own religious views on non-adherents. This has taken many forms, including attempts to introduce organized prayer in public schools, to outlaw birth control and abortion, and to use public tax revenues to finance religious schools.

Instead of school busing and prayer in schools, which are both controversial, why not a joint solution? Prayer in buses. Just drive these kids around all day and let them pray their fuckn' empty little heads off.

Wouldn't it be a pity if someone said that is a prayer and that would be eliminated from schools, too?

We seek a constitutional amendment to permit voluntary school prayer. God should never have been expelled from America's classrooms in the first place.

People for the American Way says it has yet to find anyone who has made a stronger case against the proposed school prayer Constitutional amendment... What kind of prayer would we use?

God...should never have been expelled from America's schools. As we struggle to teach our children...we dare not forget that our civilization was built by men and women who placed their faith in a loving God. If Congress can begin each day with a moment of prayer...so then can our sons and daughters.

The point is that knowledge of God is not prohibited under the First Amendment.

We have taken God out of our education system. We have taken Him out of government. You have lawyers that sue you every time you mention the name of Jesus Christ in any public forum.

Let them be reassured, it has never been one of our intentions to ban religion in society, but solely to protect the national education system from any conspicuous display of religious affiliation.

The forefathers, including James Madison, felt very strongly that the duties that we owe to God were outside of government's prerogative, that government had no business interfering with the way we worship God.

I agree with the idea that there is a separation of church and state. That teachers should not be leading prayer - a particular kind of prayer in classrooms.