The Uninspired Manifesto

From The Dallas Morning News.

Fight against moment of silence goes to court today

Among many parents at Rosemeade Elementary, he is viewed as a nuisance.

But David Wallace Croft says he is fighting against the influence of "Judeo-Christian monotheism."

He defines himself as an atheist, an "optihumanist" and a Libertarian. Over the past several years, he has fought any signs of religion at the Carrollton school his three children attend.

His largest fight to date is set to play out in federal district court in Dallas today. He and his wife, Shannon, are suing Gov. Rick Perry and the Carrollton-Farmers Branch school district, arguing that the state's minute of silence, in effect since 2003, is unconstitutional and amounts to state-sanctioned school prayer.

The lawsuit says a Rosemeade teacher told Mr. Croft's son that the minute of silence held each morning was specifically for prayer. She then bowed her head, clasped her hands and began to pray.

"Moment of silence bills have been popping up in additional states," Mr. Croft wrote on his blog. "To have millions of public school children waste a minute of education each day for a practice that has no secular purpose seems to me like a great sin."

I'm glad to see someone is at least drawing attention to this, but it's definately a fight he won't win. Moments of silence are specifically designed to get around 'church-state seperation' laws. (If they even exist anymore...) Personally, my high school also had the 'moment of silence' thing every morning, but I just used it to get a few minutes of rest before I got bitched at by my Calculus teacher for not doing some assignment. I was never told that I had to pray, but it WAS encouraged.

If you read further into the article, it doesn't paint a very good picture of Mr Croft. Still, he's done a lot of good fighting for secularism in our schools, even if its just on a local level.