John Danforth: “Why not leave it to the school districts to make the decision without us making the decision? On something that is this…”

“Why not leave it to the school districts to make the decision without us making the decision? On something that is this latent with community values, on something that is this volatile, on something that is this community-sensitive, why should either the U.S. Senate or, let us say, the Federal district court be the deciding factor? Why are not school districts in the business of trying to effectuate community values? We are not in this amendment dealing with the Constitution. If the Constitution prohibits the prayers, this amendment is not going to help it. What this does is to say that within the present constitutional boundaries, whatever they are, within those present constitutional boundaries, the school board is no longer going to be the decisionmaking body for determining how we are going to operate the school.”