Evanston Says No to Mandatory Moment of Silence

November 8, 2007 by 6 Comments

The Evanston-Skokie School District 65 board rightfully voted against enforcing the mandatory moment of silence law in Illinois.

“We have no intention of either prohibiting or forcing compliance,” said board member Katie Bailey.

…

“It sets up an unnecessary intrusion into the classroom,” said board member Mary Rita Luecke.

Luecke said she suspects some supporters of the new law really want a moment of prayer but are settling for a moment of silence.

“This is really being encouraged by people who are trying to bring prayer into school,” she said.

Since there’s no real penalty for not following the law, there’s not much the state can do.

Hopefully, this will set a precedent for other school districts to focus their energies on education instead of forced wastes of time.


[tags]atheist, atheism[/tags]

Filed Under: General 6 Comments
  • greg

    Hey, that’s my home district! Good for them!

  • Richard Wade

    I admire their courage to take a stand. I hope they’re ready to be accused of being anti-God and anti-prayer by the same people who have been denying that the “moment of silence” is a sneaky step toward mandatory school prayer.

  • Jason

    Good move. A moment of silence is obviously a cover for organized prayer in school, but I never understood the prayer in school thing. First, you would think that the religious would pray right when they wake, before eating breakfast, and especially before getting into the car or bus because of the dangers of automobiles, so why wait until school? Second, if god is omniscient, why the need to pray out loud, or to set aside a moment of silence for it? It seems to me that the only reason for prayer in school is for people to say “Hey, look at me! I pray! I’m a good Christian!”

  • Mriana

    This is good. If they had not voted it down, I’d be concerned.

  • Jen

    Awesome! I wonder if the high Jewish population in Skokie had something to do with it, since this so seems to be born out of a Christian desire to have prayer in school… since we all know “Judeo-Christian” is such a fake concept (has anyone ever heard a Jewish person use it?)