Page 31 - Heavenly Signs III by Mel Gable

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U. S. Supreme Court – Bible Reading

Abington School District v. Schempp: U. S. Supreme Court, 374 U.S. 203 (1963) 374 U.S. 203

The Abington case concerns Bible reading in Pennsylvania public schools. At the beginning of the school day,
students who attended public schools in the state of Pennsylvania were required to read at least ten verses from
the Bible. After completing these readings, school authorities required all Abington Township students to recite
the Lord's Prayer. Students could be excluded from these exercises by a written note from their parents to the
school. During the first trial in federal district court, Edward Schempp and his children testified as to specific
religious doctrines by a literal reading of the Bible “which were contrary to the religious beliefs which they held and to their
familial teaching.” The Court found such a violation of rights. The required activities encroached on both the Free
Exercise Clause and the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment since the readings and recitations were
essentially religious ceremonies and were “intended by the State to be so.” Furthermore, argued Justice Clark, the
ability of a parent to excuse a child from these ceremonies by a written note was irrelevant, since it did not
prevent the school's actions from violating the Establishment Clause. The Court ruled that the sanctioning of a
prayer by the school amounted to a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United
States Constitution, which states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” The Abington
court held that in organizing a reading of the Bible, the school was conducting “a religious exercise” and “that cannot
be done without violating the neutrality required of the State by the balance of power between individual, church and state that has
been struck by the First Amendment.” Over the previous two decades, the Supreme Court, by incorporating specific
rights into the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, had steadily increased the extent to which
rights contained in United States Bill of Rights were applied against the States. The Supreme Court upheld the
District Court's decision and found the Pennsylvania prayer statute unconstitutional by virtue of the facts in the
case, as well as the clear line of precedent established by the Supreme Court. In writing the opinion of the Court,
Justice Thomas Clark stated, “This Court has decisively settled that the First Amendment's mandate in the Establishment
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Clause has been made wholly applicable to the States by the Fourteenth Amendment.”
Justice Potter Stewart filed the only dissenting vote in the case. In it, he was critical of both the lower court
opinions and the decision the Supreme Court had reached regarding them. Stewart made the statement that given
the long history of government religious practice in the United States, including the fact that the Supreme Court
opens its own sessions with the declaration, “God Save this Honorable Court” and that “Congress opens its sessions with
prayers, among many other examples.” Stewart believed that such practice fit with the nation's long history of
permitting free exercise of religious practices, even in the public sphere. Other critics of the Court's findings in
Abington v. Schempp often quote the following excerpt from Justice Stewart's opinion. 33

“If religious exercises are held to be an impermissible activity in schools, religion is placed in an artificial and state-created
disadvantage.... And a refusal to permit religious exercises thus is seen, not as the realization of state neutrality, but rather as the
establishment of a religion of secularism, or at least, as governmental support of the beliefs of those who think that religious exercises
should be conducted only in private.”

Dr. Billy Graham said, “…in my opinion ... the Supreme Court ... is wrong. ... Eighty percent of the American people want
Bible reading and prayer in the schools. Why should a majority be so severely penalized”?
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It was decided on June 17, 1963 in favor of atheism. Bible reading was prohibited in the schools. This is the
Word of God, the Creator of this world and all of mankind. It was the foundation of this nation. The United
States Congress reacted to the decision by drafting over 150 resolutions to overturn it by amending the
Constitution, which is documented in “Freedom Under Siege” written in 1974 by Murray O’Hair.

We will next look at the heavens to see if there is a sign from God about the Supreme Court’s decision. It turns
out there is the serpent sign, the ultimate deceiver of mankind during a partial eclipse, which is a bad omen.

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Boston, Robert (1993). Why the religious right is wrong: About separation of church and state (1st ed.), Prometheus Books.
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Billy Graham voices shock over decision. (June 18, 1963). New York Times. p. 17.