ABSTRACT
There are two ways of looking at the call for a school-prayer amendment to the constitution. The radical religious right, angry at the modern world and contemptuous of the constitution, is trying to subvert church-state separation and take over the public schools. It is a predictable, explosive reaction to the vast hostility toward religion that has steadily permeated the schools since the Supreme Court struck down school prayer in 1962. The almost obsessive attempt to stamp out any religious utterance in or around public schools is now routine. A suit against a St. Louis public school alleged that a fourth-grader was ridiculed and placed in three-day detention for bowing his head and whispering a private prayer before lunch in the school cafeteria. The establishment clause does not require government, or public schools, to become adversaries of religion. But the need to avoid any endorsement of religion has mutated into an unmistakable antagonism.
