Why do we sometimes stay quiet when someone needs to speak up?

My basic answer to this question is that we stay quiet for different reasons.  This most often happens when someone doesn't really want the attention or is afraid of the backlash of getting the attention or is just uncomfortable.  In the case of atheism, it's usually a mixture of all of the above.  We all remember back in school when the teacher would write a problem on the board and ask the class if anyone knew the answer.  Usually the response would be that of total silence until one to three brave souls would try to answer or an immature classmate would say something stupid.  Until no one raises their hand, it almost always stays quiet, doesn't it?  At this point the teacher gets frustrated, asks again, and then finally a couple of hands will go up.  I do reserve an exception for those who believe it not to be safe to come out to remain closeted freethinkers until the believe it is safe enough.

If you are a part of the freethought community, you've no doubt heard by now of freethinking students around our country protesting religious displays at their public school, prayers at public school graduations and so on.  These brave students (such as Damon Fowler and Jessica Ahlquist) are the couple of freethinking hands going up in a classroom that are standing up against a continuing problem in public schools today.

While attending my little brother's graduation in eastern Ky over the weekend, there was a Christian prayer opening.  The person giving the invocation, a faculty member, referenced Jesus twice so there can be no question that the prayer was definitely Christian.  Also, at the end of the ceremony (and another prayer to Jesus), the principal addressed the students to tell them that the last thing he wanted them to hear as students of the high school was that he wanted them to follow the bible as their only guide. Now, I know most Christians may think this was wonderful and were proud to have this blatant disregard for the US Constitution on display. Yet, most Christians aren't the parents of a Muslim, Hindu, or any other non-Christian religion (or of an atheist).  Think about it, if your son/daughter is/was any of these, would you want a Christian prayer recited to them at their graduation?  I hear some of you screaming "YES!" in your heads or out loud right now.  (I really can't hear you, you know.)  I honestly believe I was the only one in that entire gym saying to myself, "Does anyone else not know that this prayer and others like it at public school events are a violation of the Constitution? (Lee v. Weisman 1992 & Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe 2000)

Now let's flip the problem around.  What if the majority of US citizens happened to be Muslim and your Christian sons/daughters were subjected to a Muslim prayer at graduation?   I can most definitely predict that there would be a Christian uprising demanding that either the Muslim prayer be stopped or that a Christian prayer be included along with the Muslim prayer. That is the problem I am trying to highlight here.   In our country, non-Christians are the minority and a few of them around the country are demanding that their public schools stop with the school-sponsored prayers at graduations and also take down displays of the Ten Commandments and prayer displays in their school.  These students have took the lead in raising their hands and voices up for something that they they should have been taught (or was taught) in US history class: the Constitution and the Establishment Clause. 

In the case of Lee v. Weisman, Justice Stephens said it better than I can: "school sponsorship of a religious message is impermissible because it sends the ancillary message to members who are nonadherents that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community, and an accompanying message to adherents that they are insiders, favored members of the political community. 'School prayers,' whether recited, or silently but prominently displayed by the government on school property in school locations where students are required to be, violate this core First Amendment principle."

We have all felt like an outsider in school at one time or another.  So, why do most people in the US want to keep the outsiders on the outside?  This is a melting pot of many people of different religions and non-religious people alike.  When will the Christian majority learn that the Constitution stands up for both them, as in Lee v. Weisman, and the "outsiders" they want to leave in the dust?

(Note: This post was written in haste.  If I made any factual errors, please let me know.  Please do not include grammatical errors.  I'm sure I've made enough of them.)