Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 13, 1993 TAG: 9306110013
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CODY LOWE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
"More mush from the wimp."
It may have been inappropriate for that editorial, but it seems about right for the way the U.S. Supreme Court decides cases related to prayers in public schools.
Last year about this time, a one-justice majority ruled that rabbi-led prayer at a public middle-school graduation in Rhode Island was unconstitutional.
Just last week, the high court refused to hear an appeal of a lower court that it was OK for a student volunteer -- with the consent of a majority of his or her peers -- to say a non-sectarian prayer at a public high-school graduation.
In the 12 months between decisions, school boards around the country -- many apparently aided by lawyers with little or no experience, interest or competence in such matters -- tried to figure out what to do.
In the last couple of months, school boards have been assaulted by groups with competing interests. The written diatribes haven't helped boards make good decisions any more than their own lawyers have.
It shouldn't be this complicated. In fact, it isn't -- or doesn't have to be. The founding fathers covered it in one amendment -- the first -- to the U.S. Constitution.
Unfortunately, the clarification of legal principles through the courts tends to be piecemeal. The court rules on the specifics in one case, then everyone is left to figure out whether that decision applies to the next, slightly different, case.
Nonetheless, the principles related to school prayer have been -- somewhat, generally, overall, primarily, fairly -- consistent for the last 30 years.
It can be summed up in a couple of negative propositions.
First, government -- incarnated as the public schools, in this case -- may not "establish" a state religion. The courts have said that means school officials may not write, say, promote or endorse prayers before students.
Secondly, government may not "abridge" an individual's freedom of speech. A student in a public school -- whether in an English essay, a science project or a graduation address -- has an individual right to speak or write a prayer. If the student is allowed a public forum, such as an otherwise uncensored valedictory address, the student must be allowed to pray if he or she wants to.
The whole issue has been blown out of proportion from the day the court issued its widely vilified 1963 decision banning teacher-led prayer in the public school classroom.
It was a good decision. The court was right.
Yet, that was roundly believed at the time -- and in the years since -- to amount to a ban on prayer in public schools. It was NEVER any such thing. It did prohibit TEACHERS -- or other school officials -- from presenting daily devotional readings or from leading a recitation of the Lord's Prayer.
Neither that decision nor any Supreme Court decision since has ever prohibited a STUDENT from praying in a public school. Students might have been prohibited from disrupting classes by saying prayers aloud, but they could not LEGALLY be prohibited from reading the Bible in their free time, from talking about God or their religious faith with their classmates, from saying grace before a meal or including a prayer in a speech to other students.
Many school divisions, anxious to avoid lawsuits, followed unsound legal advice and tried to extend prohibitions that applied only to their employees to individual students as well.
What's really amazing about all this is that every organization that acts as a watchdog on religious liberties -- from the American Civil Liberties Union to the American Center for Law and Justice -- understands this.
If students, on their own initiative, want to say a prayer at a graduation ceremony, fine.
Just don't allow public officials into the business of writing or prescribing prayers. It is offensive to religious and non-religious people for them to do so.
So why is there such a cloud of confusion over this issue?
Because it is in the interests of the civil-liberties organizations to keep it cloudy -- to promote a singular point of view. They get most of their contributions from people with similar limited perspectives.
When the American Center for Law and Justice sends a letter defending the rights of students to pray, it doesn't go out of its way to say, "By the way, the Supreme Court was absolutely right to have ruled that teachers shouldn't be leading prayers in our public schools." Its legal leadership may believe that, and acknowledge it in an interview, but won't volunteer it.
What it will say to its contributors is that, yes, the country's gone to hell in a handbasket since the court banned school prayers and you should send us some money to try to get that changed.
When the ACLU threatens to sue school divisions that allow prayers at graduations, it doesn't point out that, "By the way, students have every right to pray during their addresses so long as school officials don't attempt to tell them what they can say in their prayers." Yet, officials of the ACLU will say that if they are asked about it.
What they will tell their contributors is that, yes, the country's gone to hell in a handbasket since those other groups started trying to force their brand of fundamentalist Christianity on everybody else, and you should send us some money to try to stop them.
There is danger, of course, in asking the U.S. Supreme Court to write a sweeping, general opinion on the issue of prayers in public schools. Anyone can understand that. It is sometimes hard to apply generalizations to specific cases.
The justices ought to get the message by now, though. It is time to clarify the principles involved in a single decision and stop having to consider new cases every year.
It is time for reason to prevail.
Cody Lowe reports on issues of religion and ethics for this newspaper.
by CNB