The Massachusetts Council of Churches and the Massachusetts Teachers Association yesterday announced their support of a suit brought by the American Jewish Congress challenging the constitutionality of a state law that allows ritual prayer in the public schools. The suit, a major test case, is expected to go to the United States, Supreme Court.
The AJCongress, which has been joined by the Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, has also named State Education Commissioner Gregory Anrig as a new defendant in the suit. State Attorney General Francis Belloti is expected to intervene on behalf of the commissioner. The statute, which took effect Feb. 5, requires teachers throughout the state to invite student volunteers to lead their class in prayer. Children who do not wish to participate are entitled, under the measure to leave the room.
The suit contends that the low violates the First Amendment provision guaranteeing the free exercise of religion. It asks the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court for a preliminary injunction barring enforcement of the measure pending a declaratory judgement that the statute is constitutional.
‘A CRUEL DILEMMA’
According to the complaint, the implementation of the compulsory prayer period “will cause immediate and irreparable harm to the plaintiff school children and others who object to participation by subjecting them to the cruel dilemma of either participating in a prayer period in a coercive secular setting which is offensive to them or seeking excuses which sets them apart from their classmates and risks their becoming the objects of peer pressures, criticism, reproach, and insults on account of their religious beliefs.
“Such implementation,” the complaint adds, “will also interfere with the freedom of the plaintiff school children and of their parents to select their own religious observances free of coercion by their peers, their neighbors and their government.” The plaintiffs in the cases are known as Warren v. Evans and Kent v. Ormiston.
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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.
