Noah Webster said, "The principles of all genuine liberty, and of wise laws and administrations, are to be drawn from the Bible, and sustained by its authority. The man, therefore, who weakens or destroys the divine authority of that book, may be accessory to all the public disorders which society is doomed to suffer." Is our country suffering? (CE).
II. Since the banning of organized prayer in public schools, the nation has been in steady moral decline. Divorce rates, teen pregnancy, violent crime, and suicide rates have all increased. (CE) According to Former Secretary of Education William Bennett.
A. Stability in the family has been affected since the 1962 decision. Divorce, single parent families, couples living together but not married, and adultery are areas of family breakdown which have experienced radical growth in recent years. Divorce alone saw an 200% increase.(CE) Before 1962, the status was basically stable.
B. In the years previous to the removal of prayer the rates of un-wed teenage pregnancy remained stable and for the most part unchanged. In the post- prayer years the numbers immediately began to rise. Unwed women 15-19 years of age showed a phenomenal increase of 200% in the rate of pregnancies after the School Prayer decision. (CE) The United States now has the highest incidence of teen-age motherhood in any Western country. (CE) Abortion has also risen by 1000%.
C. Crime had been on a fairly stable level before the 1962 decision, but that is no longer the case. It is obvious that such a quantity of students praying for their nation had a very positive effect on the course that this nation had taken. The rate of violent crime has risen over 500%. (CE).
D. For the 15-19 and 20-24 age group, the rates of youth suicide remained relatively unchanged until the School Prayer decision in 1962. But in the years since, suicides among the same group have increased 253%, or an average of 10.