Despite what you may have heard, there is prayer in public schools. It’s totally legal.

You don’t think so? The government forbids it?

Not true! Students and even teachers pray in school every day. They always have and they always will. Pray all you want.

A student can pray before a test or just because. Groups that meet for that purpose can pray—during a free period, for example. (There was a group in my high school that did this. I attended a few times but left when they started planning a book burning.) There’s absolutely nothing stopping you from praying like this.

The only thing that’s not permitted in schools is requiring anyone else to pray with you or telling them how they have to pray. A principal or teacher can’t start class with a prayer. You can’t insist that students pray over lunch. You can’t base grades on whether or not a student prays. If a student chooses to pray, you can’t tell them which prayer to use. All those things fly in the face of the Establishment Clause of Freedom of Religion in the First Amendment to the US Constitution.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” is what it actually says. That means that there can’t be a law that makes one religion the official religion of the US. And it means that, if you do have a preferred religion, the government can’t prevent you from practicing it. It’s left up to the individual what religion—if any—they practice.

The problem comes when we’re discussing public institutions, which include public schools. (Obviously, students in religious schools can pray whatever the school says to.) The first part of the clause says that the public institution can’t declare an official religion. That’s why there’s no compulsory prayer in schools. The second part, “prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” says that everyone is free to worship in their own way. That’s why students are able to pray in schools during their free time, by choice, without an official such as a teacher or the principal leading it. The government can’t forbid it.

If prayer were to be required in schools, there would be any number of cans of worms opened. Let’s take a basic Christian prayer—The Lord’s Prayer.

Which version of the prayer would everyone be required to say? There’s a difference between the Catholic version and the Protestant version. But the wording also differs among the Protestant denominations and individual congregations. Debts and debtors? Trespasses? Sins? Many churches specify in the church bulletin which wording to use so that they can pray in unison.

Another can of worms is that not all Americans are Christians. Increasingly, children from other faiths are entering the public schools. Why should they be required to pray a Christian prayer? But what’s the alternative? Couldn’t they just sit quietly while everyone else prays or pray their own prayer silently to themselves? No. That establishes the prayer of one religion as the official classroom prayer to the exclusion of the others. Anyone who doesn’t share that religion gets treated differently. Their prayer is not the one being said for everyone. That’s the establishment clause again.

Then, think about what it would be like if Christians weren’t in the majority in a school. (For the moment, let’s suppose that the majority rules, which is many people’s assumption.)

But Christians aren’t always in the majority in a public school. I always think of the example of the followers of the Bhagwan Rashneesh. A religious community in Oregon, they incorporated as a city, Rajneeshpuram, which had around 7,000 people. Nearby Antelope, Oregon, had a population of about 60.

The State School Superintendent visited the district’s high school and found that it was “permeated with religious symbolism” and “did not look, sound, or feel like a public school.” The religious symbolism was Rajneeshee, of course.

Now imagine those people from nearby Antelope. If their kids had to attend the Rajneeshpuram school, which was officially a public school, how would their parents have liked it if the students were required to say the Rajneeshee prayers? Not so fond of required prayer in public schools now? Ready to take the Rajneeshees to court to prevent their prayers as unconstitutional? That would be my guess.

In other words, be careful what you pray for.