The Six 'Constitutional' Commandments

Amendment No. 200, sponsored by Representative Robert B. Aderholt (R-AL), declares that "the power to display the Ten Commandments on property owned or administered by the States is among the powers reserved to the States" by the Constitution.

The First Amendment contains two clauses referring to religion:

1. The Establishment Clause -- Bans Congress from passing any law dealing with the establishment of religion.

2. The Free Exercise Clause -- Bans Congress from passing any law that would prohibit the free exercise of religion.

A law allowing the Ten Commandments to be posted in public schools would clearly not prohibit the free exercise of religion.

Prayer in Public School

The history of prayer in public school is a story of legal interpretation. The relationship between religion and government in the United States is governed by the First Amendment to the Constitution, which both prevents the government from establishing religion and protects privately initiated religious expression and activities from government interference and discrimination. The First Amendment thus establishes certain limits on the conduct of public school officials as it relates to religious activity, including prayer. As the Court has explained in several cases, "there is a crucial difference between government speech endorsing religion, which the Establishment Clause forbids, and private speech endorsing religion, which the Free Speech and Free Exercise Clauses protect." Santa Fe Indep.

The Supreme Court's decisions over the past forty years set forth principles that distinguish impermissible governmental religious speech from the constitutionally protected private religious speech of students. For example, teachers and other public school officials may not lead their classes in prayer, devotional readings from the Bible, or other religious activities.

Although the Constitution forbids public school officials from directing prayer, students do not "shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech at the schoolhouse gate." Moreover, not all religious speech that takes place in the public schools or at school-sponsored events is governmental speech.

It wasn't until the early 1960's that prayer in public school was "outlawed" by a new interpretation of the U.S. Constitution.