In another special report, NBC News presents the Supreme Court prayer decision.

The High Court's rulings on the mandatory use of the Bible and the Lord's prayer in the public schools of Pennsylvania.

In 1962 and 63, the US Supreme Court handed down a pair of landmark rulings

that some Americans celebrated as a fulfillment of the founding father's original vision for this

country, erecting what Thomas Jefferson called a wall of separation between

church and state. Today the United States Supreme Court ruled that it violates the Constitution to require reading

the Bible or reciting prayers as a religious exercise in public schools.

In Baltimore, each school day had begun with the reading of

Bible verses and recitation of the Lord's prayer.

The Lord's prayer.

Go out in heaven. I will be in our name.

God kingdom comes. I will be done on their sets of in hand.

Others saw the rulings in a darker light.

They believed ending the century old tradition of public school prayer was an attack on America's Christian roots.

Today's decision, instead of serving to protect and to preserve religious freedom, has rendered

a decision which is offensive to everyone

who wishes to keep this a religious nation.

To some conservative Christians, this decision, not slavery, was America's original sin.

They believed the court's school prayer ban helped fuel what they viewed as America's moral decline in the years that followed.

A period that coincided with the legalization of abortion, racial integration, and the women's

empowerment movement. Out of these grievances, America's modern religious right was born.

Number one, we love Jesus and number two we love America.

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