Guess things realy do never change

[Marc]

Here is something to counter those 'prayer in school' arguments.

When going through the religious news today I saw a reference to something called the Bible Riots of Philadelphia in 1844. Decided to look up what that was.


It started out because of Catholics upset over the Protestant dominated schools having daily readings out of the KJV Bible and Protestant prayers. When Catholics tried to get that changed they were met with heavy resistance, and eventually a riot was the result. Then, just as today, the catholic's attempt for equallity was denounced as an attempt to get the bible (and therefor god) out of the schools.

According to one source

A grand jury,
composed of mostly Nativists, blamed the riots on “efforts of a portion of the community [Catholics] to
exclude the Bible from our public schools.” The friars from St. Augustine’s Catholic Church tried to sue
the city for not protecting the building. The city argued that the friars had no right to sue, because they
were a foreign group governed by the pope.

Bill of Rights Institute . org document (http://www.billofrightsinstitute.org/pdf/equality_bible_riots.pdf)


Another article (http://members.tripod.com/~candst/boston3.htm)

So much for the 'good old days' of prayer in school. :mad:

[UnrepentantSinner]

It would be refreshing if the (primarily) fundamentalist protestants who want a state sacntioned parochial environment in every public school classroom would just admit that it's all about advancing their agenda at state expense.

One factor that doesn't get much play amongst the ACLJ (Robertson's goons, not the good guys) is that the vast majority of school prayer cases are not brought about by atheists, but instead by people of non-Protestant religions, most often other Christian denominations and sects. I guess it fires up the faithful to open their pocketbooks when there's an evil atheist conspiracy afoot and you can demonize M. M. O'Hair and Michael Newdow, but it must not fill the coffers when you tell your contributors you're fighting Mormons and Catholics who don't want their children saying a Protestant prayer.

[Marc]

Originally posted by UnrepentantSinner
One factor that doesn't get much play amongst the ACLJ (Robertson's goons, not the good guys) is that the vast majority of school prayer cases are not brought about by atheists, but instead by people of non-Protestant religions, most often other Christian denominations and sects.

I commented on that too. In an article on Moore's rock written by Falwell he made reference to the American's United for Seperation of Church and State's director Barry Lynn. He rather left out it is Rev. Barry Lynn.

[Gregor]

Well, slow down there about prayer cases.

Lawyers filing those cases are smart enough to know that a protestant challenging an action will meet with less resistance than a 'religious' person. There's some strategizing done on things like that.