A federal appeals court decided Wednesday that Chino Valley school board meetings may not include prayers, proselytizing or the citing of Christian Scripture.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a 2016 injunction against the religious practices, which the court said dated back to at least 2010.
In its appeal, the Chino Valley Unified School District board argued that it was covered by an exception for traditional prayer at the start of state legislatures, Congress and town hall meetings.
The 9th Circuit disagreed, noting that the school board meetings include children and teenagers who are more vulnerable than adults to outside influence and who have been obligated to attend to give presentations, perform or receive awards.
“These prayers typically take place before groups of schoolchildren whose attendance is not truly voluntary and whose relationship to school district officials, including the board, is not one of full parity,” the court said in an unsigned decision.
Unlike sessions of Congress, state legislatures and town boards, the Chino Valley school board meetings “function as extensions of the educational experience of the district’s public schools,” the 9th Circuit said.
Two other federal appeals courts have previously ruled that prayer was off-limits for school board meetings. Another circuit allowed it, but in that case there was no student on the board. Chino Valley’s board had a student member.
Full story at The LA Times.
Hahaha, another goof-ball decision of the 9th Circuit, one day to be reversed (or modified). How phony is the logic that suggests: just add a student member and you can get rid of those awful “prayers.” Where is this, exactly, in the Constitution? Surely (don’t call me Shirley), it is everywhere evident that Zombie-Liberals hate prayer, at least in any kind of public sense, just as they see no problem with permitting the slaughter of pre-born life (under the grade school pretext of “its my body . . .”). Idiots, and we are paying for their time. Let’s impeach at least some of the 9th Circuit. Dopes.
Wow…what a poverty of intellectual rigor…No big surprise from the 9th Circuit, but pretty sure the same argument can be used for algebra class by some smart teenager…I wonder how many kids might have been brought, against their will, to sessions of state legislatures on field trips. Do they have to change their agendas based on who might be observing? Kids are too fragile to be exposed to a scripture passage, but are entirely in the possession of the durability and capability of consenting to an abortion. If the legal profession is not cringing over this, they don’t deserve their preferential status as generally very smart people.
I remember, years and years ago, when our Monsignor, railed from the pulpit about allowing prayer in public school. He was against it! He didn’t want Catholic kids learning the Protestant Lords Prayer or reading from the St. King James Bible. Today, it’s more complicated isn’t it? If you allowed prayer in the public meetings you would have to rotate between Catholics, other Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, et.al. The Constitution’s “freedom from religion” clause was put in the Bill of Rights to ensure that the Church of England would not be the official religion of the new United States. We will always have freedom of religion as long as we have freedom from religion.
“Bob One,” your words make sense only in your own world. Public pray is wonderful, and some Protestant ministers were wonderful, too (like Billy Graham). No, you do not need to make the Muslim or Buddhist faith the same as Christianity. You are correct that you can be a happy pagan in America if you want too. But that same pagan cannot stop most Americans from kneeling and thanking God for His gifts in forming the USA. “In God We Trust” is fine and constitutional. (That is, except for George Soros and all the Globalist worshipers out there.) This understanding is one big reason why President Trump was elected and Hilary was not.