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Imagine practicing a way of life for many years and one day someone decides they don’t like it. A short time later you are no longer permitted to do what you have always known. Back in 1963 is a perfect example of disturbing ones way of life. This was when five families put prayer on trial. Who would have known such a simple task done daily would bother someone so badly? For years students across the nation have started each day by saying a prayer. School prayer was a cultural process just like saying the pledge of Allegiance. The banning of prayer started in New Hyde Park, New York, in the late 1950’s. Each morning when the opening bell rang students scrambled to their seats to then be greeted by an announcement over the public address system asking you to rise, bow your head, and recite the twenty-two Regent’s prayer. “Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers, and our country.” (Haas 7) To most students the prayer was just another part of opening exercises that followed the Pledge of Allegiance. To the members of the Board of Regents who created the prayer, those twenty-two words that took eight seconds to recite were simple and harmless, just a small part of a program introduced into public schools to encourage stronger moral values in the classroom. No student was “required” to recite the prayer; students could stand in silence if they so chose. Local school boards had the option of adopting the prayer or not using it at all. To the members of the board, the prayer did not favor any one religion group and could not possibly offend anyone (Haas 8). The Board of Regents could not have been more wrong. Five parents with a total of ten children in the New Hyde Park School District, near the New York City boundary, found the prayer so offensive that they filed a lawsuit against the local school board.
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