ABSTRACT
One might assume that the Supreme Court ban on Bible reading and school prayer was viewed by the majority as an assault on Christianity, just as non-Christians and nonbelievers saw the ban as a defense of their civil liberties. Single-issue groups were prominent following the Engel and Schempp cases, and these groups persisted into the 1970s. School prayer is a political issue that for many citizens goes to the heart of the nature of their community and to the kind of human beings and citizens they should be. The Democratic party nominated Lyndon B. Johnson by acclamation and adopted a platform that made no mention of school prayer. The issue of school prayer has not received much attention from the federal bureaucracy because the battle over school prayer has been fought primarily in the courts, in Congress, and in the states. State governments are key actors in the ongoing drama concerning school prayer.
