By Tom LoBianco Associated Press
January 4, 2013, last update: 1/4 @ 9:58 am

Sen. Dennis Kruse of Auburn

INDIANAPOLIS — A Republican state senator is pushing for Indiana’s public school students to start the school day by reciting the “Lord’s Prayer.”

Sen. Dennis Kruse of Auburn has filed legislation that would allow school districts to require the prayer to be recited, but would also grant broad exemptions.

The measure could have trouble moving its way through the Legislature because it’s been bottled up in the Senate rules committee. But it’s part of a broader push by Kruse and other lawmakers to put religion in Indiana’s public schools.

Kruse sponsored a bill last year seeking to allow schools to teach creationism, the religious belief that life and the universe were created by a deity.

He’s altered his approach this year to allow teachers to question scientific principles like evolution.