PLATFORM : Prayer Can Offend

It is the height of hypocrisy to say that the culmination of a student’s years in public school should be accompanied by the very kinds of prayers that are prohibited during the regular academic year.

We have created a public-schools system that has flourished, in part, because it has distanced itself from the divisive influences that prayer can create.

Invocations and benedictions are ceremonial to those who don’t hear anything discordant in them. However, for those who are are not religious and for those who hold beliefs that are different from those delivering the invocation or the benediction, prayers are not ceremonial. For these people, prayers can be jarring and cause the listener to wonder if the ceremony is being held only for others.

That kind of division is something that really should not be permitted on a day that is supposed to be a pure and simple celebration for individuals who have made it through to graduation.