Word: prayers
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Among the most fervent of Ronald Reagan's campaign supporters were far-right special-interest groups, particularly antiabortion activists. Yet the Reagan Administration has worked only halfheartedly in Congress for laws that would permit organized school prayer, stop busing and ban abortion, and none of that social agenda has been passed. Still, the President periodically pays lip service to the right wing's priority issues...
...Administration will evidently offer little more than verbal encouragement for reform. Even while praising the commission's work, President Reagan reiterated his belief that "parents, not the Government, have the primary responsibility for the education of their children." (He then went on to tout tuition tax credits, school prayer and the abolition of the Department of Education, subjects unrelated to and conceivably at odds with the findings of the report.) Local and state agencies, however, may be willing to spend more on education. Says Columbia University Education Historian Diane Ravitch: "Polls show that people are willing to support...
MAKE NO MISTAKE--Falwell is a charlatan, and a dangerous one. His illiberal views on gay rights, school prayer, and national defense would, if enacted into law, imperil civil rights and world peace. But the preacher's enormous popularity is no mere media trick. He speaks to deep-seated feelings of confusion and discontent among the American people. Like 1930s rightist radio clergyman Father Charles Coughlin, Falwell provides Americans beset by hard times an answer to their problems: Return to tradition and authority. And he does so in terms that resonate deep within our collective imagination--God and Country...
...objective is not to kill ourselves, but to call attention to the issue." Abner Mason '85, one of the new fasters, said. "We are convinced that by fasting and prayer we can capture the hearts of Derek Bok and the Corporation...
...president probably believes what he said to the convention. But he has also shown that he realize how difficult it would be to pass measures dealing with abortion and school prayer and therefore has decided not to expend much political capital on those issues. Sending a school prayer Constitutional amendment to Congress with words of support is one thing: intensive lobbying such as the President did for the tax cut and the AWACS sale is quite another, and Reagan has shown little public enthusiasm for the latter where abortion and school prayer are concerned...