Required silence is political theater

The Illinois Senate and House should be ashamed of themselves for act of pure political theater. This was clearly a stunt to assure the support of the religious right come election time.

This law is a waste educators' time and is written so vaguely (how long is a moment?) that it is not enforceable, and yet it will end up in the courts and likely be struck down eventually when some conservative tries to make it into morning prayer.

Let's be honest: A morning prayer clearly was the intention of the bill's sponsor, who was quoted as saying "we have to start each session with a prayer, and I do have any choice about so why should they?"

This is clearly discrimination against non-theists and violation of the establishment clause of the Constitution. If our elected officials spent as much time on the budget as they did on this issue, the budget certainly would have been on time and balanced.

Brian J. Reilly

Lake Villa