The House Judiciary Committee ended today six week of public hearings on proposals to void the Supreme Court ban on prayer and Bible-read’s in public schools and prepared to meet in closed session for some kind of action.
The hearings, which began last April 22, dealt mainly with some 150 proposals to amend the federal constitution to permit such practices in public schools. Rep. Emanue Geller, the New York Democrat who is chairman of the judiciary unit, declined to say the closed hearings would begin.
(In Los Angeles, James Francis Cardinal McIntyre, Archbishop of Los Angeles, asserted yesterday that the Supreme Court had misinterpreted the meaning of the church state separation principle in its ban on prayers. He told a St. Mary’s College audience Los Angeles, that the court had “found refuge in atheistic concepts” in its school prayer decisions.)
Whatever decision is made by the judiciary committee, the controversy between friend and foes on the proposed amendments is sure to continue, it was indicated here today in various comments.
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