North Dakota House OKs School Prayer Bill

by Glen on 2001-02-15 00:42:44

Dave Thompson of North Dakota Public Radio reports:

The House has passed a bill that would give local schools an option for
a moment of silence — or a spoken prayer.

Current state law allows moments of silence in classrooms. But this
measure would allow a local school board the option of opening class
with a prayer. Bismarck Representative Mark Dosch says this is
constitutional — because it is voluntary and because it does not
establish one religion. Dosch says there are some who say this will end
up in court, but they are promoting fear.

“Bit by bit they systematically remove the morals and values, and they
do that in the name of freedom. They do that in the name of not
infringing upon the rights of others. They use a very constitution to
destroy the society for which it was established to protect. They
eliminate morals and values and religion and sadly what we have left is
what we call our school system today.”

The House Education Committee recommended that the full House kill
the measure. Gilby Representative Tom Brusegaard is a member of
that committee…

“Your Committee on Education feels that the new language, in effect,
gives school boards authority that when used would result in lengthy
and expensive court action. We thought the responsible thing to do was
to vote no on this bill.”

Brusegaard says the current “moment of silence” law is working well.
But the full House approved the legislation on a 53 to 44 vote — and
sent it to the Senate.