Diversity, tolerance, and prayer

The editorial "Prayer in School - a Special Case," June 26, says: "The Supreme Court ... banned non-sectarian religious invocations for public-school graduation ceremonies" because, in the case before it, the reference to God in an invocation "breached the constitutional wall between church and state."

America was settled largely by people fleeing strictures which forbade them to worship as they saw fit. Individual freedom used to be the life-blood of America. Is that spirit now dead and being buried among legalities? Are our children to be brought up in a mood of agnostic or atheistic fundamentalism? How are they to be encouraged in their reverence and love for life, nature, and humanity? Is there no divinity in any of these?

Until we can respect the marvelous wealth of our differences, when will we find unity within the diversity of races, nations, and creeds? Christy Barnes, Hillsdale, N.Y.

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