Students Pray Around the Flagpole on Wednesday

Students Pray Around the Flagpole on Wednesday

from staff reports

See You at the Pole continues to spark challenges.

Echoing teens' addiction to cell phone text messaging, the theme for See You at the Pole 2005 is 'PRAY: call 2 me."

That's based on Jeremiah 33:3, “Call to Me, and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know.” Event organizers are encouraging students to use text messages to remind their friends to pray before, during and after September 21.

See You at the Pole is a student-initiated and led prayer event that began in 1990. Last year more than 2 million teenagers participated in all 50 states.

But just as surely as students will gather to pray, some administrators will do all they can to stop them. David Overstreet, coordinator for See You at the Pole, said he continually has to dispel myths about the event.

“Probably the number one is that it’s not legal at all.” he said.

Organizers stress that the right of students to gather and pray outside of instructional time — while at school — is a constitutionally protected form of free speech. That right was affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Westside Community Schools v. Mergens decision in 1990.

Still, groups anxious to remove God from the public square continue to argue that allowing students to pray on public school property violates the “separation of church and state.”

Jeremy Tedesco with the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) called that argument tiresome and wrong.

“It’s a yearly battle," he said. "We’ve had numerous calls already this year, especially regarding advertising for the event. Lots of administrators think if the word ‘pray’ appears on a poster it can’t go up at school.”

ADF has prepared a document listing students' legal rights to support those who find themselves in the crosshairs of school officials.

“The fundamental constitutional rule is neutrality and equal treatment," Tedesco said. "Religious students can’t be treated differently and as second-class citizens just because they are religious.”

FOR MORE INFORMATION: You can find the legal memo on student-led prayer on ADF's Web site.

Source: http://www.family.org/cforum/news/a0037979.cfm

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