PERSPECTIVE ON SCHOOLS : When Religion Is Used to Exclude : For one child, the harm was not in the prayer itself but in the hostile environment that it created.

While Republicans debate whether school prayer was just a swell sound bite or a solemn campaign pledge, the public needs to consider more than abstract constitutional arguments. We need to ask: How does state-enforced prayer affect children whose national or religious backgrounds mark them as stigmatized minorities?

I grew up in a small rural village largely dominated by Lutherans. A big yellow school bus delivered me to a school that had students from kindergarten through 12th grade. Every morning we said the Lord’s Prayer, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance. At all school events, we again bowed our heads and repeated the Lord’s Prayer.

It was the early 1950s. There was nothing unusual about this ritual, except that I happened to be one of two Jewish children in the school.

I’ve tried to recapture how this so-called voluntary prayer affected me. When I was very young, I didn’t know the difference. At home we said one prayer; at school, we said another.

I first understood that I belonged to a minority group at about the age of 7. But school prayer wasn’t how I learned about my “difference.” Many children went to religious instruction after school. I was stunned when some classmates suddenly accused me of killing Jesus Christ. At Brownie scout meetings, I found myself friendless. Embarrassed and confused, a few girls confided that they weren’t allowed to play with Jewish children. After school, kids sometimes pelted me with snowballs and ethnic slurs I didn’t understand.

In retrospect, it was this social awakening, not the school prayer, that hurt so much. How could I know that prejudice caused such stigma? I didn’t, and for a long time I wondered what terrible and unacceptable personal trait had caused such social rejection.

By then, the Lord’s Prayer had taken on new meaning. This was the prayer of people who hated me. I refused to say it any longer. While others bowed their heads, I held mine high and stood in silence. Naturally, everyone noticed and my “difference” was only further reinforced. I became increasingly estranged and alienated from my schoolmates.

Most Jews of the post-World War II generation grew up in more urban, tolerant and less anti-Semitic communities; my experience was unusual. School prayer in itself did not harm me. The real injury came from the hostile environment in which I had to say it.

Perhaps my daily ritual of dissent even strengthened my character. From years of daily civil disobedience, I learned the hard lesson of nonconformity.

But I don’t wish this experience on millions of other children. Regrettably, a hostile environment still exists, especially for the children of recent immigrants. I worry about the Islamic, Buddhist or Hindi children who already face hostility from their schoolmates. Enforced school prayer would only deepen their sense of isolation.

Consider some of the experiences my students have had in the United States. One young woman is from Iran. In 1980, during the hostage crisis, classmates attacked her. “They threw stones at me and called me an Islamic terrorist.” A Pakistani student, who is Muslim, was assailed by her junior high classmates for belonging to a family of “terrorists.” Then there is a young Mexican American who grew up in a largely white Protestant community and was the victim of relentless xenophobic attacks.

If schools wish to introduce a quiet moment for reflection and meditation, I can’t argue against the idea. Most Americans begin their days in a frenzy of activity. A moment for quiet reflection would allow each of us to calm down and reflect on our sense of purpose.

But that is not what the Republicans have in mind. They want local communities to have the right to impose particular prayers in the schools.

Aside from our constitutional guarantee of separation of church and state, this is a terribly divisive proposal. In a nation that grows more multicultural every year, no one prayer is appropriate for children who represent all the world’s major religions.

Nor will school prayer enhance our nation’s spiritual life. That will occur when we resist rampant consumerism, learn to respect each other’s humanity and regard poverty in the midst of plenty as a violation of our collective responsibility.

Regrettably, that day is still far off.