The United States Supreme Court is planning to set a date late next month or early in April to hear arguments on the constitutionality of daily prayer recitations in public schools, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency learned here today.
In the meantime Congressman Paul B. Dague, Pennsylvania Republican, today denounced what he called “a militant minority” for seeking “to deny the majority the educational, non-sectarian advantages of a daily reading of the greatest book.” He asserted that this “minority” wants to keep “all reference to the deity from our public schools.”
The Pennsylvania lawmaker said that though he was a firm believer in the doctrine “that our public schools must remain free from all forms of religious indoctrination, to deny all reference to a supreme being, as many would have it, is to deprive the students of a great truth that is apparent to anyone who paused but for a moment to examine God’s handiwork all about him.”
Bishop John Wesley Lord, of the Washington Methodist Church Diocese said in a statement today that while he opposed public school religious observances that might embarrass or isolate children of minority religions, complete exclusion of religion from the schools would be “false to the religious tradition of America.” The Methodist Churchman said that the Constitution bars religious indoctrination “but it does not require ignorance” of religion. Omission of religion, he said, conveys the negative suggestion that it is unimportant.
The Washington Jewish Community Council recently requested school boards in the Washington area to bar Bible reading and religious holiday observances of any kind.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
