Boy, when you see those four words strung together in the title, you know exactly what you expect to see: sophisticated theology. They certainly do parse the temporal options finely to conceal the fact that they are proposing to to use the public school system to promote sectarian religious practice.
When do you think prayer is appropriate in high school football?
Over the public address system 33.77%
In the locker room 20.65%
At midfield after the game 19.44%
Before or after practice 17.44%
Not at all 8.7%
They left out “Whenever the opposing team scores a goal” and “When the cheerleaders do those high kicks” and “Someone ought to be constantly praying to make sure the earth doesn’t open up beneath us and tumble us down into Hell.”
4 unconstitutional choices and 1 right choice. And you can select multiple choices. Can you say ‘rigged poll’?
With pro-religious “options” splitting the “vote” four ways, this would be an easy one to skew, with a concerted effort.
No splitting there, though–multiple choices are allowed.
‘not at all’ is now in second place.
Nice. So this poll will reduced to two options and reported as, “Majority wants prayer at public school football.”
Given that it’s multiple choice, it should be spun the other way:
There is no context in which the majority of people responding think school-endorsed prayer should be conducted, even in Alabama. Almost two-thirds said prayers should not be read over the PA system, and the prayer-free numbers are even higher for other potential prayer venues.
‘not at all’ is now in first place.
I don’t see the right choice anywhere on the list. I was going to go with, “Privately, off the field.”
It’s so annoying that they can’t (or won’t) understand that not allowing praying is only about school sponsored or the appearance of school sponsored prayer. It does not mean that you can’t pray to yourself. There were too many comments in the article about that, and I only made it to the first 10 comments! Many people commented that “you can’t stop the football players from praying that they make it on fourth down!”
I believe that each individual person should be able to pray their asses off, before during or after the game, on or off the field (during a moment of silence perhaps) as long as they aren’t audible or disruptive to anyone else. It’s when they feel they have a right to dictate to all attending which god/gods/pasta get prayed to that the problems start.
But that wasn’t one of the choices.
Just me = $ 0.02
Does “before or after practice” mean in private?
Usually no.
A goal? Oh boy. Stick to the biology, Prof. Zebrafish.
Rey Fox
Relax. You know he meant a hole-in-one.
Wait, it’s not called a goal?
Then it’s score-touch… something like that.
So much for calling handegg “football”!
Football
Ha!
They could have called it elbowumbrella and it would make just as much sense.
They left out saying your prayers while the other team is praying so Jesus can’t hear their prayers. Pay louder, pray harder for a football victory. GO TEAM JESUS!!!
David Marjanović @ 11:
No.
When I was involved in football and baseball when I was young, group prayer, led by the coach or manager, with all athletes participating, was normal. Failure to participate in the prayer led to failure to participate in the game. It was a mandatory prayer led by the authorities.
Private prayer, to me, means each person praying, or not praying, on their own.
Oh, as a non-American I think praying at an American Football game very appropriate at any given moment. Watching people praying is less boring than American Handegg.
Moreover via Mano Singham I have learned that American Handegg causes head injuries, so atheist athletes should be disencouraged to play it by all means. Let the theists become more stupid instead.
[/cynism]
Hah! I’ve never heard of the term Alienstani Handegg for gridiron, but do rather like it…
Nice. There’s no “individual prayer” option, so the poll is worded in such a way that if you don’t pick one of the official school prayer options, it looks like don’t support the student’s right to pray at all.
It wouldn’t even need to be a separate option. Just changing the last one to “Privately, or not at all” would be sufficient.
When do you think prayer is appropriate in public high school football?
Not at all 51.21% (2,136 votes)
Over the public address system 17.84% (744 votes)
In the locker room 11.05% (461 votes)
At midfield after the game 10.45% (436 votes)
Before or after practice 9.45% (394 votes)
Total Votes: 4,171