Kansans favor public prayers

Fifty years after the U.S. Supreme Court nixed school-initiated prayers as a violation of the First Amendment, 74 percent of Kansans think that public schools should open their day with either a spoken prayer (36 percent) or a silent one (38 percent), according to a SurveyUSA poll conducted for KWCH, Channel 12. Similarly large majorities also favor some kind of prayer to open local and legislative meetings, with 71 percent saying it’s OK for such prayers to mention Jesus. Though 58 percent of those surveyed said they’d be willing to listen to a public prayer in a religion other than their own, 54 percent said it would be unacceptable for a prayer to mention Allah in a public meeting where the majority of citizens are Muslim.