PCUSA not likely to back school prayer proposal By John H. Adams The Layman Online Thursday, September 16,1999 WASHINGTON – Fifty-seven members of Congress introduced a constitutional amendment to allow prayer in public schools, a proposal unlikely to win the support of the Presbyterian Church (USA). The Washington Office of the PCUSA last addressed the issue in 1996 when its director, Rev. Elenora Giddings Ivory, testified in Congress against a bill titled "Legislation to Further Protect Religious Freedom." That legislation would have allowed prayer in public schools. The proposed constitutional amendment says, "The people's right to pray and to recognize their religious beliefs, heritage or traditions on public property, including schools, shall not be infringed.'' The same proposed prayer amendment gained a 224-203 vote in June in the House of Representatives but failed because constitutional amendments require a two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress and approval by three-fourths of the states. "The policies of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) have for over 40 years stated that mandated school prayer must not be initiated in our public school systems as a way of protecting the individual religious conscience of us all," Ivory said in her 1996 testimony. "Leave the prayer business to the churches and the education business to the school system."

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