[DOWNLOAD] "When Right is Wrong" by Richard P. Manatt ~ eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: When Right is Wrong
- Author : Richard P. Manatt
- Release Date : January 28, 1994
- Genre: Religion & Spirituality,Books,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 8429 KB
Description
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.1
THE battle between the Religious Right and the public schools did not begin with Madalyn Murray O’Hair single-handedly removing God, the Bible, and prayer from public schools in 1962 (Americans United, 1993)! The arguments over how to maintain Jefferson’s wall of separation between church and state actually predate the Constitution. The framers wrote the Constitution as a secular document not because they were hostile to Christianity, but because they did not want to imply that the new federal government had any authority to meddle in religion.
The two “religious activities” school cases of the 1960s did provide a watershed point for many Fundamentalists’ concern for the public schools and should be revisited briefly to provide a background for the ensuing chapters of this book.
Outspoken atheist leader Madalyn Murray O‘Hair played no role in the Supreme Court’s school prayer decision in 1962. In this case, Engel v. Vitals, the United States Supreme Court ruled 8-1 against New York’s Regents’ prayer, a “nondenominational” prayer that state education officials had comprised for public school students to recite. The state-sponsored devotion was challenged in court by a group of parents from New Hyde Park. Some parents were atheists; some were believers. Ms. O’Hair was never involved in this case.
In 1963, Ed Schempp, a Philadelphia area resident, brought a case to the Supreme Court, challenging mandatory Bible reading in Pennsylvania’s schools. At about the same time, O‘Hair was challenging Bible reading, as well as the recitation of the Lord’s Prayer, in Maryland public schools. The Supreme Court consolidated the cases (and used only Schempp’s name, much to O’Hair’s dismay). The Court ruled 8-1 that devotional Bible reading or other government-sponsored religious activities in public schools are unconstitutional.