Texas school district removes prayer campaign after criticism
- Burnet ISD faces backlash after posting back-to-school pray initiative
- Critics argue that the initiative violates the First Amendment
- Advocate: School wasn’t promoting religion, promoting a prayer marathon
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DALLAS (NewsNation) — A Texas public school district has ceased posting a prayer initiative campaign on its Facebook page following requests from critics.
The Burnet Consolidated Independent School District shared a Facebook countdown post, inviting the community to join them in “Pray to the First Day.”
Following this, a complaint was lodged, according to a legal representative from the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF), a Wisconsin-based nonprofit advocating for the separation of church and state as defined in the Constitution.
The organization then sent a letter to the school district requesting the removal of the post.
“Even though it wasn’t specific about the kind of religion, that’s still the government encouraging people to pray,” said Sammi Lawrence of FFRF. “Which is a religious activity, and that signals out religion over non-religion or favoritism or promotion by the government.”
Some disagree and argue that the initiative violates the First Amendment.
“Over the years we’ve taken the separation of church and state to mean church can never be involved in public life,” said Suffolk Community College professor Nicholas Giordano. “The school wasn’t promoting religion it was promoting a prayer marathon, they weren’t making it mandatory.”
In a statement to NewsNation, the Burnet Consolidated ISD said: “To clarify, there was no planned event. There was a Facebook post encouraging the community to pray to the first day of school with a daily focus on a different campus, staff, students, and parents. The Facebook post went up on July 25 and was taken down on July 27 in response to the request by FFRF made that same day.”
This marks the latest phase of a nationwide dialogue concerning religion and public education.
Legal challenges have arisen against plans to establish the nation’s first religious charter school in Oklahoma.
Meanwhile, a new Louisiana law mandates the display of “In God We Trust” signs in every classroom.
In Texas, although a bill aiming to mandate the Ten Commandments in classrooms didn’t succeed, a new law now permits public school districts to consider hiring a chaplain.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation notes an annual intake of around 1,000 complaints, although not everyone complies with their requests, or has to, and the case may ultimately be decided by a judge in court.
