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It's a place many parents send their children to learn – but should public school classrooms also be a place for faith? What if just Christian faith is promoted? Northern Indiana Senator Dennis Kruse, a Republican, is sponsoring a bill that would allow public school districts to require the "Lord’s Prayer" in classrooms.
The bill includes several exemptions – including the choice for students to opt out if they or their parents choose to do so.
Some parents WSBT talked to approve of the bill.
“I do appreciate some separation [of church and state], but I do feel like there are definitely some positive aspects to keeping the religious feel in the public schools,” said parent Melissa Rizzo.
People of other faiths disagree with the proposal to introduce a strictly Christian ritual.
“There is nothing wrong in beginning the day of children with prayer, but I would feel that being a multi-faith society we should not try to impose one faith,” said Islamic Society of Michiana Imam Mohammad Sirajuddin.
Muslims believe Jesus was one of the greatest prophets who lived, but they do not recite the Lord's Prayer or believe in its message.
Sirajuddin said he’s all for prayer in schools – as long as it is interfaith and does not center around a specific religion.
“It’s not only for the Muslims but for Jewish and people of other faiths,” he explained. “So that might put them in an awkward position.”
Kruse filed the bill that will be introduced to a Senate committee in the legislative session that begins Monday. Kruse sponsored a bill last year seeking to allow schools to teach creationism, the religious belief that life and the universe were created by a deity. He's altered his approach this year to allow teachers to question scientific principles like evolution.
Many critics of Kruse's bill anticipate an easy path for the measure and other socially conservative issues. But Governor-elect Mike Pence and House Speaker Brian Bosma – both Republicans – have said their focus is on taxes, education and jobs.
“The fact that the bill was assigned to the Rules Committee, which rarely advances bills, is another signal that the bill, while allowing socially conservative legislators to express their beliefs, and the beliefs of many of their constituents, about the importance of school prayer, is unlikely to change the educational policies of the state,” said IU South Bend political science professor Elizabeth Bennion.
Many legal experts say Kruse's bill doesn't have much of a chance because it violates the United States Constitution's Separation of Church and State. One example – a 1962 U.S. Supreme Court decision blocking non-denominational prayer in public schools.
“New York was placing its power behind the recitation of a prayer in the public classroom which, according to the court, had a coercive effect on the minds of those students who objected. So that was a landmark case in the history of the Supreme Court,” said Notre Dame Constitutional Law Professor Donald Kommers.
The bill's supporters may say the measure is about promoting religious freedom and rebuffing an attack on their beliefs, but it's actually part of a larger movement to impose their beliefs on children, said Andrew Seidel, staff attorney for the Freedom From Religion Foundation.
"The idea that religious liberty is under attack is just a complete fabrication," Seidel said.
He points out that it has long been settled in U.S. courts that students can pray on their own, however they like, but that forcing one religion's prayer on every student is a clear violation of the First Amendment. If the measure ever passed, it would waste tax money on expensive and futile legal battles, he said.
"I think it's incredibly irresponsible of the senator who is pushing this," Seidel said.