Federal Judge Prohibits Prayer at Texas Graduation Ceremony

There is no dispute, the general government engaged in sophistry to usurp more power for itself than it was ever intended to wield. There is no dispute on that matter, it is established fact. The supporters of the Constitution went to great lengths to expose the lie that the new government would have an unlimited and absolute authority being bantered about by the anti-federalists. Part of the reason we have the Bill of Rights was that the supporters of the Constitution faced having their effort rejected unless the people were convinced that the role and purpose of the general government was very limited in scope and authority. The states wanted to keep their existing state sponsored religions and were afraid that the other states would impose a national religion to the exclusion of theirs - that is why there is an establishment clause and a protection to the free exercise of religion in the 1st Amendment. It wasn't that the people of the states didn't want a state religion, it was that they wanted to retain their existing right to determine for themselves what it would be rather than have the general government choose it for them.

Which also includes the right NOT to have a religion, if one chooses. And the Founding Fathers aren't here now... The Supreme Court is...

I personally do not think it should be forced on everyone at a graduation.

Not everyone wants to pray. And why would you force it? What is the purpose of prayer at a graduation?

And it, along with the executive and legislative branches, has been pursuing a consolidationist agenda for quite some time. I can interpret homicide and murder to have the same meaning, but that doesn't mean that they do. If I pursue my consolidation efforts long enough, I might even be able to convince a majority of people that the words are interchangeable when they are not. That doesn't mean the two words are interchangeable, it means that I've successfully swayed others to accept my interpretation.

Whatever....

Was someone forced to pray?

Would anyone have been forced not to, by not inserting it in to the program?

How can you even begin to pretend that the SCOTUS is free of agenda given the 8 justices that FDR sat on the court while he sat as monarch for life? Senator Hugo Black was not agenda driven? Please. He was one of the chief advocates of FDR's court packing plan so that the New Deal legislation would stop being overturned as violating the Constitution. Talk about your political pay back. William O Douglass? He didn't believe in stare decisis, valued judicial consistency not at all and thought that the court should be a political advocacy organization. These two sat on the court from the late 1930's into the 1970's. You think their agenda driven careers are not in large part responsible for allowing the sophistry of "general welfare" to address not the general, but the individual welfare?

PrintSmith wrote: There is a difference between having a religious leader lead everyone is reciting the Rosary and having them give an invocation asking that God watch over, protect and bless the assembled. One is organized religious activity, one is not.

In your opinion. I disagree and clearly realize that they are both religious activities.

Well, I admit that I am using reason and logic to come to my conclusion. You disagree but provide no counterargument that can be examined with reason and logic. Your sole support lies in this is what I think and therefore it is valid. My conclusion is reached by examining the purpose and not simply employing religious bigotry to sustain the argument.