Sentence examples for graduation prayers from inspiring English sources

The decision today did not explicitly address graduation ceremonies, but the majority's analysis cast serious doubt on the increasingly popular practice of student-led graduation prayers.

Julie Underwood, general counsel of the National School Boards Association, praised the decision and said she would advise school districts that they should now regard student-led graduation prayers as unconstitutional as well.

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, probing for a difference between football prayer and graduation prayer, observed that "nobody has to go to a football game".

Only Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justice Antonin Scalia seemed to be probing for a way to distinguish school prayer from graduation prayer.

The district next argues that its football policy is distinguishable from the graduation prayer in Lee because it does not coerce students to participate in religious observances.

The Bush administration aligned itself with the religious supremacists in 1991 when it urged the Supreme Court to uphold a "nonsectarian" graduation prayer offered by a minister or a rabbi at the invitation of school officials.

The Federal Appeals Court in Texas also made matters worse by requiring the school officials to review a proposed graduation prayer in advance to make sure that it was "nonproselytizing and nonsectarian," which means that it contains no reference to Jesus Christ.

He argued this position in opposing atheists' efforts to remove the word "God" from currency, a ban on prayers at graduation ceremonies and many other secular initiatives.

In a recent poll, 82% of Texans supported his stand.The court did not mention a separate issue within the Santa Fe case: whether or not student-led prayers at graduation ceremonies are constitutional.

To have a chance of prevailing today, Mr. Sekulow, chief counsel of the American Center for Law & Justice, founded by the evangelist Pat Robertson, needed to persuade Justice Kennedy that student-led prayer at football games was constitutionally distinct from clergy-led prayer at graduation.

In 2007, parents and students who objected to prayer at graduation sued over the Round Rock district's policy requiring student elections to determine whether to include prayer as a part of the ceremonies.