Another School bans a play because three people didnt like it
 

linky


I think we need to race money to send copies of the Crucible to every
student at this highschool, who is with me!

Most interesting is the comment from the student who said "We can't do
anything about it. We just have to obey." Its almost as if its Nazi
Germany...or Now, with you know...that fuck racist bush running the
country.

What I find interesting is that 1) there was no public debate regarding this, and 2) the superintendent was spineless enough to listen to ONLY three people, including AT LEAST one who hadn't seen the show.

This superintendent's an idiot.

I don't find this very disturbing at all. It is a school, and they decided to ban a play to avoid controversy. How negatively will this effect anyone's lives? Probably not very, unless they blow it out of proportion, which it appears is already the case. We all know how easy it is for schools to get in to trouble nowadays for the smallest little thing.

If the government banned the play from being performed ever again in the theater, that would be one thing - but a school making it's own decision? That's another thing entirely. The fact that this is big news is what I find somewhat disturbing.

And, um, I fail to find the relevance of, "that fuck Bush" running the country. What in God's name are you talking about? And Nazi Germany? Are we on the same planet?

Personally, I think that story here is that the school is caving in to pressure from a small, vocal minority. Any interesting play is going to have something slightly controversial. That's what makes it interesting.

True. Those kids can always go rent Grease, or see a non school production of it.

Or, if they're only interested in the minor drinking/smoking/kissing parts, they can get something much more interesting from their local video store.

My high school put on grease... i think my junior year - oh man - did we ever get in trouble -- the kid who played the part of "rump" actually did moon during the curtain calls... Cuz we sorta dared him to... I think everyone associated with the show (I was the costume and makeup mistress) got an in school suspension because of it...

The only thing that I remember we HAD to change in the entire play (and this was a very uptight, very preppy community in Connecticut) was a few words in the song Greased Lightening... :D

silly silly people...

Another outstanding sucess for the idiot brigade.

Other than the message that it is OK for many to bow to three people to avoid a controversy?

What I want to know is where were the parents and the teachers who used to fight to avoid things being banned at their schools.

When I was a kid I remember parents wanting to ban things at our school, like Jr. High dances, the Jukebox an 8th grade fudraiser paid for at the Jr. Hi, a few books and so on. And every time someone tried to ban ANYTHING resistance was met by the teachers, a nice cross section of parents and students.

It got to the point people gave up trying to ban things because the BOE meetings would always pack with people ready to fight for freedom.

Where is that now? Well, both parents have to work because the economy is booming, teachers are scared for their jobs, school boards are scared they may not get that next lkevy through and the Religious Neo Con Right have people scared to speak out.

For the love of God our greatest strength is our freedoms and we are fucking giving them away and have people who believe it's ok, because they are so blind to the Right and their irrational hatred of the Dems.

What's sad, there are a lot of people, who speak out against gun registration or even so much as a waiting period probably support the bannings of IDEAS and SPEECH. Since when is one right more valuable and worth defending more than any other?

How pathetically sad, this nation is fastly becoming a neo-facist, dictatorship.

docbungle - students are being thought that they ought to submit to authority, to not question the motives of the leaders.

By refusing to engage in a dialog, one is submitting to a totalitarian system. This situation is teaching kids that they ought to bow to the pressure of a few, whom calm to speak for the whole. Grease was advertised as not being for children, would guess the same would be true for The Crucible. Its about teaching people about the past

its a curious world where avoiding complainers is the goal. And where
do people who have only heard about something get to have their opinions
registered as legitimate? I suppose that in these sorts of communities
the narrowest-minded get to set the agenda, so everything has to be
pitched down to their comfort level.

And what are the lessons that the kids are learning? Are they actually
better off if the community pretends that there is no smoking, drinking,
kissing, discontent, and the like?

The problem with this is that in small religious communities, censorship of this sort is a growing occurance. While it may not sound that bad when we're talking about one play, the things that the play was banned for are rediculous, and they also mentioned the burning/banning of hundreds of books here.
All this does is puts shades on the eyes of children who are growing up in a world that is very different than what they are seeing. If they go off to college or decide to move in the future for some sort of job opportunity, many of them are going to go into a culture shock and get burned pretty badly. These are the types of teenagers that end up meeting with strangers from the internet and getting raped/killed. These are the types of teenagers that get into the most trouble in the stupidest ways.

While it may not be the government that is banning these things, these people, raised in a completely skewed and ignorant view of what the real world is like, are the people voting to choose our government officials. I don't know about anyone else, but I don't really want people who aren't even ALLOWED by the community to read about different viewpoints or different lifestyles to be choosing my leaders.

Um...that said, don't these people have TVs? How can people sit there, straight-faced, banning shows like Grease at school, when The O.C. is one of the most watched television shows right now? A show where 15 year old girls are drinking, smoking pot, manipulating people, and urging older boys to have sex with her despite their doubts about the age difference.

I agree with you that the original poster was completely off the mark in saying things like "that fuck Bush" and "Nazi Germany".
Hello people, Nazi Germany was not the only place in history with extreme censorship. Why does everyone refer back to that? Why not, "Communist Russia" or "China right now" or even just saying "It's almost as if these communities are under totalitarian rule"?
And remarks like that about "that fuck Bush" really have no place in this post. That statement weakens the point of your post incredibely. Whatever your opinions may be about Bush, he has nothing to do with this group of people. If anything, just criticize religious people, because that's what makes most of them do these things you don't like. Bush is religious. These people are religious. Other than that, there is no connection.

Having participated in theater when I was in high school, I can tell you this will affect a lot of people negatively. Firstly, the students who were in the play and put in long hours and much effort into preparing for it. Secondly, the teacher that directed it and already adjusted the script to the satisfaction of the parents who had children in the play...I mean really, are the kids supposed to duck out for a contraband bag of potato chips? And thirdly, the students who worked on the sets, costumes, and lighting...all their work for nothing. And as has already been stated...showing these kids that all their work means nothing because three people..one of whom didn't even SEE the play, object to it. I remember putting on shows with such racy subject matter as teen drinking, child abuse, adultery, and some mild swearing, and as far as I know, no one objected. Thank god this didn't happen to me, I'd have been supremely pissed off.

Maybe my church is different, but a few years it ago it put on Grease as its dinner theater show. Plus it was in north Alabama in a town that has a street with atleast 8 BIG churches (atleast 3 or 4 buildings) on a 10 mile long road, and even more smaller churches, it averages more than 1 church per mile. So if my town can get away with a church doing the play, Im not sure why anywhere else couldn't.

quote
"How am I supposed to know what's appropriate when I don't have any
written guidelines, and it seems that what was appropriate yesterday
isn't appropriate today?" Ms. DeVore asked. The teacher said she had
been warned that because of the controversy, the school board might
not renew her contract for next year.
unquote

This part is equally upsetting.

There will always be something about a play/musical that someone won't agree with or will take offense to. Controversial issues in shows definitely make them more interesting but sadly, some people are too closed-minded to let other people enjoy them.

My senior year of high school, I was in a one-act play that was entirely a dream sequence. I played a mother who was attempting to seduce her son.

How sickening. It's a god damned(can I say that, or will they ban it off the internet because kids have access to it?) high school! Everyone knows about sex. Probably close to half of the kids have tried weed...
the only reason the kids aren't allright is because you might not educate them well..worry about what's taught in class, maybe. But art? don't make no sense to me.

Well, it's high school. That sounds about right to me.

I assume you meant "claim" to speak for the whole? Regardless, I think you're selling the students short to assume they are "learning" how to behave based on the politics behind what happened to their high school play. We were not all so simple when we were kids, and I would assume the same for these youngsters. And high school does seem a little totalitarian, but then it always has: it's high school.

Sounds like every day politics.

If the biggest lesson they get from school is from a play (or lack thereof) then there is indeed a problem.

I've come to the conclusion that it isn't about moral objections to the content, but about excercising power.

If you object to the content of a play don't go. If you don't want your children exposed to that content, don't let them participate. Protecting yourself from such problems isn't in the least bit difficult.

No it's about excercising your self-appointed moral authority over others, about forcing your moral worldview on others who may not share it.

And, ah, irony, don't you just love it. They cancel The Crucible and then cite "historical context" as a reason for not doing the same with Romeo and Juliet.

Gilda

Strangely, the above statement actually supports both sides of this argument.

Nope. Allowing the play to be performed doesn't force anything on anyone. Nobody is forced to watch the play or perform in it if they find it objectionable. Banning the play prevents everyone who would have wanted to see from seeing it.

Only in the second scenario is anyone forced to abide by another's moral code.

Gilda

HOLY SHIT! Teenagers ACTING OUT smoking?!?! KISSING?!?!

It's fucking sodom and gomorrah on that stage!!!!

What a load of bullshit.

What's ironic is it is usually the religious right that wants things banned, say this play, Howard Stern, etc. and yet, the GOP and the right are supposedly the big supporters for free enterprise and allowing the marketplace to dictate what should be available.

Yet, it always boils down to they want to allow to be available, to Hell with free market or giving the choice to the people, it is dictated to them.

What's sad is noone publicly, whether it is schools or businesses can afford financially to stand up to the few who want to dictate.

Bingo. The essence of the matter captured in a couple of sentences.

Apparently, the minority should only be listened to if they are supporting a liberal-approved cause.

This is 100% identical to the school prayer issue. However, because that's about dreaded CHRISTIANITY, it's totally ok for one wackjob to control what people do.

The hypocrisy on topics like this is really personally sickening to me.

And also, I didn't see where in the story "that fuck racist bush" was mentioned anywhere. Apparently the OP has some inside information about the president spending time shutting down highschool plays.

I have no problem with school prayer, in fact kids should be spiritual/religious, it truly helps.

I do however have an issue with what God the school tells kids to pray to and that unfortunately is what happens when you allow school prayer. As is apparent by your own post.

Thanks, I needed a chuckle this morning :)

A suggestion, dump the hyperbole and give us an honest opinion of this topic.

I'll agree that Bush has nothing to do with this. These kinds of people have been around forever. Ever since books came around, somebody has been burning them.

I went to a rural southern public high school that still has bible classes to this day, and we performed all manner of sinful plays, Plaza Suite, Aresenic and Old Lace...

I think this is a very bad trend. It's much more than just a school deciding to ban a couple plays, in the case of the Crucible, it's denying students an education in a chapter of our nation's in history - in which religious zealots ran wild and murdered on the testimony of bratty girls. Banning plays tells them that the expressions and speech within the plays are evil.

Here's the lesson they received, in their own words:

"But in interviews here, students, who had already begun practicing for auditions of "The Crucible," expressed frustration and resignation, along with an overriding sense that there was no use fighting City Hall.

"It's over," said Emily Swenson, 15, after auditioning for "A Midsummer Night's Dream." "We can't do anything about it. We just have to obey."

Both the students and Ms. DeVore seemed unsure of why "The Crucible," which students study in 11th grade, was unacceptable."


If just three people from one organization can effectively remove provocative and widely acclaimed literature like The Crucible from a public high school WITH NO PUBLIC DEBATE OR VOTE, then artistic and thoughtful young adults are denied the very best of materials that stimulate them and encourage their learning. The works were censored in this town without soliciting input from the people who were obviously committed to bringing these performing arts to the stage -- Why? What was the public good? Why is ducking controversy via censorship a good thing? It's cowardly, personally and intellectually and politically. This isn't about conservatism or Christianity either -- it's about officials using authority inappropriately to dictate social standards. If the standard in this town is putting on a play that no more than two people will find inappropriate, there clearly won't be any more plays in Fulton.

The superintendent himself said he was being compared to Joe McCarthy, the very model of small-minded reactionary political bullies. That comparison isn't fair to McCarthy, who was at least more straightforward and public about what he was doing. Public school superintendents are government officials, BTW, and in this case the superintendent made a sweeping decision to kill two productions without seeing more than a dress rehearsal of one of them. In that case, the script was modified to accomodate the objections that were brought to the production crew of the play -- a very fair concession to public concern in the community. He said he asked ten people he knew about The Crucible, but that selective group of opinions is no substitute for an open forum.

Does anyone else see the irony of preventing The Crucible from getting to the stage? From the article -- "The play ... focuses on how hysteria and fear devoured Salem, despite the lack of evidence."

Don't like The Crucible, or Arthur Miller, or anything else provocative in public? Say so, in a public forum -- listen and respect what your neighbors have to say -- vote, if possible -- and then, let your neighbors choose for themselves what to read or see on a stage.

Go go gadget, accrued sensibilities.

It's not that this specific instance is terribly short changing the students, cause it isn't. It's indicative of a general trend regarding preferance being placed on appeasement in lieu of retainment of integrity, simply becuase it's easier. The problem lay in this being detrimental to the system. That which is detrimental to the system is slowly becoming it's norm.

This pretty much sizes it up for me. It's all about perspective. In such a tiny town, three letters might mean quite a bit. Who knows?

After graduating from high-school, all these people that are so saddened by this will realize than out here in the real world, things don't work quite like they do in high-school. You can participate in just about anything you want.

I don't think it's quite fair to equate the religious right with the entire GOP and their supporters. A lot of people, myself included, find it extremely unfortunate that voting for an economic system we agree with means voting with a religious right. But when there are only two extremist parties that really have a chance at winning, it's kind of hard to get what you want.
Just wanted to point out that all republicans aren't evil hypocrits. :)

It might "mean quite a bit", but 3 out of 10,000 surely does not consitute a majority by any means. Public schools are a segment of government, and are required to abide by the same regualtions that other public institutions are. People vote for millage (sp?) and vote for officials, but those officials also have regulations, generally, to abide by. While it would appear that this small town may just need to vote in better representatives, it still stands to reason that this is a bad trend.

A suggestion-dump the hypocrisy and maybe think with logic instead of party affiliation.

You think this is a bad trend. Many people think that students not being allowed to organize prayer before football games is a bad thing. Two sides of the same coin-tyranny of the minority. It just happens that these people have views that you disagree with. So they are wrong in your eyes.

But there are many instances where students wanted to organize their own prayer, but one wackjob complains and the students aren't allowed. I could just as easily say that I have no issue with students performing immoral plays, but I have an issue with students living immorally which is what happens when you allow immoral plays.

Again, instead of just admitting the hypocrisy, you would prefer to try to draw a false conclusion. More power to you.

Can you cite cases of students not being allowed to pray before a football game? Note that not being allowed to read a prayer over the public address system isn't the same thing as not being allowed to pray or even being allowed to pray together. It's forcing the participation in the prayer by others by reading it over the PA system that was ruled unconstitutional.

Preventing school-sponsored prayer and censorship of school sponsored plays is a consistent position. They're both a defense of freedom from the imposition of other's moral and religious beliefs. Whether than imposition is by the minority or majority is irrelevant.

Gilda

How is anyone being forced? If they don't like it, they can ignore it or plug their ears.

Wrong. Both are the imposition of one group's moral code on others that may or may not agree with it. Just because you decide to label your position a "defense of freedom" instead of the moralizing it is doesn't make it any more valid. Repetition does not make truth.

Except for there only being three bitchers here, I don't see a problem with it. If a larger majority of the community were in arms about it, I'd see less of a problem, but I guess this was not the case.

Morality will always exist, and disagreement about it will always come with it. I think that the problem we're having with it today is that we're having trouble identifying the majority, or that the majority is apathetic.

In other words, no, you can't find an example of of kids preventing from praying before a game.

Censoring a play is imposing one's moral code on others because it's forcing others, everyone who would like to participate in or view the play, to abide by your code. Reading a prayer over the PA system is imposing one's moral code on others by requiring their participation in a religious ceremony, which, when state-sponsored, is unconstitutional. Preventing this while still allowing students to pray on their own is a defense of first amendment rights on both ends. It allows freedom of religion while not allowing the imposition of one's religious beliefs on others.

Nope. Truth makes truth. My position is consistent for the reasons given.

Gilda

I know that's very true, the sad thing is the politicians don't stand up to them.

It's the same with Dems, not all Dems are anti-gun, pro-choice, environmentalists. But enough are so that the rest are stereotyped and thrown into that grouping.

Point out where I said anything like this.

I was on the football team in high school. We prayed before every game.

You are taking arguments and re-wording them into entirely different scenarios which have nothing to do with this one. And you do it because you assume certain posters march lock step in an ideology. That is small and petty thinking.

How the fuck is saying this "I have no issue with prayer, PROVIDED you do not tell me what God to pray to." hypocritical to anything?

If the team wants to organize prayer, let them just don't tell my kid which God he has to pray to or that he has to pray at all.

I am however stating that when you include school prayer, in most cases students are led in a Judeo-Christian prayer. THAT is dictating which God. That's why the Religious Right has such issues with "moment of silence or meditation", they believe that everyone must pray to the same God and out loud and that is wrong. Now, you show me a school that on Monday the school prayer is led by Hindus, Tues. led by Christians, Wed. led by Jews, Thurs. led by Muslims, and Friday led by Buddhists and the whole cycle of ALL religions is recognized, then I won't have a problem. But, no it's always the same religion, therefore showing support to it, while disregarding others, and that is against my rights.

I get the feeling you are arguing just to argue. But if you want to explain your argument please do.

The Terrorists have already won

I live about 30 miles from Fulton- albiet in a university town with come claim to sense and culture- this shit annoys the hell out of me, and once again makes me ashamed to live in such a closed minded, bible thumping area- my only defense of this place is that it was not anywhere near this bad a few years ago............

It's interesting how this morphed to school prayer!

As far as the quote above, I think religion has NO place in school from the top down. Kids and teachers can pray themselves on their own initiative, but any congregation of religious expression at school functions isn't appropriate for government-sponsored (public) school. Religious practice is most appropriately sponsored by a family and a community of faith, not by the administration of a public school. Prayer over the PA at a school sporting event is a deliberate administrative inclusion of every spectator who can hear it, a designated time and place for religious expression. I say it's not the time or the place.

I added what is in the parentheses in the above quote, which is the reference directly copied from the post it came from.

I don't equate constitutional protections with moral codes. "Legal" does not equate or even imply "moral", and that is a good and essential thing in a democracy. We've talked about PA prayer at football games and the cancellation of two plays by a superintendent. One was decided by appellate and Supreme Courts, and the other was decided unilaterally by a single government worker who admits people compare him to Joe McCarthy.

No, in other words I don't have time to do a thesis paper to debate some random person online.

Stopping prayer is imposing one's moral code on otherb because it's forcing others, everyone who would like to participate in or listen to the prayer, to abide by your code.

There's nothing stopping from them putting on those plays privately. Your views aren't consistant, but you would never admit that. A liberal wrong? No, never!

I think that drama is appropriately sponsored by a family and a community of artists, not by the administration of a public school. People should be happy that any plays are allowed to be done on school grounds. It isn't some right to be able to perform whatever you feel on schol grounds.



Oh, I guess I forgot that the Supreme Court is infalliable. They never make mistakes, right?

What I am talking about is the hypocrisy of supporting banning one form of personal expression, but getting angered over another. It seems the people who really make the biggest deal about religion are liberals. Religion is just another form of thought and expression, no different from others.

i have neither the time nor the interest to engage with sophistries concerning prayer in public--that is secular--schools.

on the matter of smalltown censorship of this play, two quick points:

1. grease is an awful awful play.
2. it seems to me that the censoring of a production of this innocuous, badly written piece of crap play derives mostly from fear--which seems to me to rest on problematic assumptions:

the children who are brought up in little towns did not choose to be there. they did not choose the benighted frame of reference, the small mindedness, the isolation--the advantages, the trees, the closeness.
their parents chose it.
but this basic fact seems all too often to go out the window--it is almost like folk who choose to live in these places only understand their choices as being legitimate if they see them repeated by their kids--as if they are afraid to confront the reality of their own choices, and would instread prefer to erase them as choices--they would prefer to control information about the world, eliminate what they do not like, in order to impose continuously the limtations entailed by their chocie to live in a small town as if these limitations were natural...

i grew up in a little town in new hampshire, btw--there were scandals involving both my high school class plays in that ridiculous little place--but no attempt to censor the plays--and so the whole thing--play and controversy, vanished quite fast into oblivion--they hover about in 2006 only as memories and faint ones at that.

my brother often talks about wanting to "protect" his kids by controlling information sources, monitoring what they see, etc. i think that what he wants to "protect" his kids from is the possibility that they will become other people, who want things he does not recognize necessarily, who live in places he does not like--he wants his kids to be like him--even though he arrived at his own sense of himself by going outside our parents' efforts to do the same thing to us. the net result of that is not that he sees the folly of the whole project, but rather that my brother imagines that he is more efficient at censoring his kids' sense of the world because he moved outside of my parents' model. all i think that he is accomplishing is a delaying of the revolt. you cant stop your kids from becoming their own people. if you try, all you manage to do, really, is set things up so that the rejection of that way of life, if it comes, when it comes, is total. that would would try to shape your kids' sense of the world in order to produce a repetition of your choices in relation to it seems nothing more than vanity. a vanity motivated by fear. it seems wholly self-defeating to me.

the irony-like factor in all this is that he, too, lives in a small town--and like many it is no longer self-sustaining economically. so his kids will more likely than not have to leave, will have to go somewhere else, become something Other. if that turns out to be the case, all he will have managed to do is unecessarily limit his kids sense of their own options. i assume---pollyanna boy that i am-that they'll work things out for themselves--but it will take longer than it might otherwise have, will cause them more pain than it otherwise might have.

this is more or less how see this idiotic attempt to censor the innocuous in the name of "community standards"---it is about fear, about the sense of a loss of control that plays out across really stupid matters like "grease" that only function as flashpoints because--unlike economic transformations in a context where captialism functions ideologically as an unqualified good--they are tangible.

This is rama lama riduculous.
You know what? Christ never said there was anything wrong with kissing. In fact, Jesus Christ encourages His followers to drink wine once a week. In fact, I'd bet these very people who condemed this play are guilty of kissing and drinking.

Bottom line: high schools are now under the control of the idiot minority. Grease, the least offensive thing John Travolta ever did, is extremly conservative compared to 99% of musicals out there. I have to wonder if these people are also writing "The O.C." or "24" about crap like this.

I'm currently laughing my ass off at that! If there ever was a reason to cancel a play - that's it!

The sad part is that the superintendent approved the play the first time (although he admits to not reading the script) and then backtracked. That's just stupid, and if anyone deserves to be punished for this, it's him. Instead he's taking the coward's way out and throwing the teacher under the bus. That's part of Leadership 101 IMHO.

The fact that he's cancelled The Crucible is the real travesty here. He's the McCarthy in this scenario.

I think that the point about this yutz making the decision versus the Supreme Court et al is valid. He's already backtracked once on this issue, and given his performance here, I don't think that he's particularly qualified to make these kinds of decisions any more. If I lived in that district, I'd be calling for his head. Jurists don't have any other qualification to make these decisions than, well, that being what they're paid to do. State and Federal judges are supposed to be the ultimate arbiters between the state and individual, so who is better qualified?

By the way, here's a real reason to cancel a play:

Actually, conforming to the courts' interpretation of the constitution of the united states is conforming to legal code. Morality has something to do with it only inasmuch as the fact that the constitution can be thought of as a codified set of morals.

I imagine that performing the play privately would cost a lot more money than performing it as part of the school. The school presumably already has all the props and personnel needed. This is different from prayer, because prayer is free.

Parents get an input in any school, thats the way it is. I'm so sorry the poor teacher couldn't put on the play she wanted to, but shit happens.

This would be news if it were a drama club this happened too, but a school is a different matter. When I was in school my CATHOLIC school produced a very raunchy short play (I was the lead heh). In retrospect, it should not have been done.

You made the claim that: "But there are many instances where students wanted to organize their own prayer, but one wackjob complains and the students aren't allowed."

I didn't ask for a thesis, I asked for a cite. Show me where this has happened, where students were prevented from praying or organizing a prayer. Note that in the cases that went to court, the issue wasn't praying, and it wasn't organizing, it was reading the prayer over the PA system at a football game. Requiring participation in a religious ceremony, in this case a prayer, as a prerequisite for viewing or playing in a game is imposing your religious views on others.

Preventing them from reading the prayer over the PA system doesn't, however, prevent them from praying.

There you are again, claiming that they're stopping prayer, while not citing any instances of this happening. Where and when did this happen?

And here's the thing: I agree with you. If school officials are preventing students from praying, that's wrong, and it shouldn't be allowed, and I'd join you in protesting that.

My views are entirely consistent, in that I oppose the imposition of one groups moral/religious views on another group, even if, being a Christian myself, I agree with that religious view. My interpretation of how that applies to these particular situations may be different from yours, but that does not make it inconsistent.

On another board a few months back, there was a discussion of the relationship between a person's view on capital punishment and on abortion rights, with accusations of hypocrisy flying back and forth. The thing is, depending upon the rationale used, any combination of positions on those two issues can be consistent. Pro-pro, anti-anti, anti-pro, and pro-anti can all be consistently rational positions. I agree with only one of those, but a person can have any combination of views there and still be entirely consistent.

Also, keep in mind that at a school play, the play itself is the reason people are in attendance. If they don't want to see the play, they don't have to go. No imposition on those who might object.

However, at a football game, or a graduation, or when read over the intercom during announcements, a prayer is an imposition. It imposes a religious ceremony on people who are in attendance for a separate purpose. People aren't there for the prayer, they're there for the event, and an extra requirement that is irrelevant to the main event is being imposed on them. Many, perhaps most, might agree with the sentiments expressed in the prayer. Being a Christian myself, I probably would. But by adding a religious element to an event which is non-religious in nature, it's imposing one groups religious beliefs on everyone in attendance.

Let them pray, and let them organize a prayer, sure, I have no problem with that. But don't require me to participate as a condition of attending a football game or my own graduation.

Gilda