Students Will Keep Saying Lord’s Prayer at Alberta School Despite Mother’s Plea to Stop the Practice

In Alberta, Canada, where public schools are legally allowed to recite Christian prayers during the school day, one mother is trying to push back against the practice.

When Jennye Blain‘s non-religious daughter began attending Busby Elementary School this fall, she asked the school to change its outdated ways. Officials discussed the situation, before voting in favor of keeping the prayer in place. Because if God isn’t publicly praised by students who are pressured into it, it’ll hurt His ego.

Blain doesn’t get why they can’t make this simple accommodation:

“It also makes us all bow to the Christians. It says that we all have to take time out of our day to acknowledge how important they are. There’s nothing in their religion that says they have to pray at school.”

Clearly she doesn’t understand that prayers only count if everyone sees you doing it. Sure, Christians are welcome to pray silently anytime they want, anywhere they want, but they are fragile people whose faith gets stronger only when people who don’t want to pray have to watch them or be ostracized.

Luke Fevin, a father who fought a similar battle years ago, points out why school officials are just wrong on this issue:

“The school board is not legally compelled to do this. If they do not [support public school prayer], not a single right will be infringed upon. But if they do it, they’ll knowingly deny the charter rights of a bunch of kids in their care,” Fevin said.

This is how Christian privilege works. They get to push their faith on everyone else, supported by the idea that traditions should continue even when they’re ridiculous and the fact that opponents are too scared to push back. And when anyone floats the idea of Christians being treated the same way as people of other faiths, they’ll whine about how they’re being persecuted.

There may be no legal recourse for Blain, but that doesn’t mean she’s wrong on this one. The law just needs to change. Unfortunately there are too many cowards blinded by Jesus to even consider anyone else’s feelings on this matter.

(Image via Shutterstock. Thanks to Lorne for the link)