Word: prayers
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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North Carolina's Republican Senator Jesse Helms, a gadfly of the right, thought he had finally won a congressional victory last week. Thwarted in every attempt on the Hill to advance his "social issues" agenda-banning abortion, reinstating prayer in public schools, ending the busing of students to desegregate schools-into real legislation, he has appointed himself as a special Senate watchdog on presidential nominations, one who is ever on the alert for signs of ideological deviation. Early in the Reagan Administration, Helms was able to delay confirmation of a few State Department officials whom he considered squishy-soft...
This same force is now propelling the proponents of prayer in the schools. If every schoolchild in America attended church, it would be illogical to put prayer in an institution of secular education. The problem, if course, is that the religious are trying to use the government's system of public schools to imbue some Americans with a message they will not come to church to hear...
...debate over Christmas displays on public property has occupied civil libertarians for years and is often overshadowed by constitutional struggles waged on the national level, such as that over prayer in schools. But a Rhode Island Circuit Court of Appeals judge last month pushed the creche issue back into the spotlight by upholding a 1981 ruling forbidding the city of Pawtucket from mounting a manger scene. That city responded intelligently, selling its display to a private group which put it up on private property...
...secondary matters the President will sometimes accept the consensus even if it goes against his grain. A prime example is the agenda of social issues?particularly banning abortion and compulsory busing and reinstituting prayer in public schools?that are all-important to his New Right followers. Reagan believes in that agenda too, and stressed it as a candidate. But he accepted the judgment of his legislative staff that pushing hard for such measures would complicate the passage of his economic program, which to Reagan has a higher priority. The most the President would do was to give North Carolina Senator...
Social Issues. As a candidate, Reagan heartily endorsed the New Right's agenda of banning abortion and compulsory busing and reinstituting prayer in public schools. As President he has given that agenda no more than lip service, and so the ultraconservatives have been unable to enact a single measure...