Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, December 11, 1994 TAG: 9412130026
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CODY LOWE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
-Niccolo Machiavelli, ``The Prince''
Almost 500 years ago, Machiavelli was teaching rulers to be pragmatic - and cynical - in a way that politicians like Newt Gingrich are still polishing today.
Listening to Gingrich's proposal to float a school-prayer amendment to the U.S. Constitution, one cannot help but think of Machiavelli's advice to the princes of his day.
Though "The Prince" is not the evil-political bible its popular reputation would make people believe, it does include what can only be considered amoral advice for maintaining power.
In a supreme irony, Gingrich's attempt to legislate the moral/prayer lives of public-school students has all the hallmarks of the most amoral of Machiavelli's advice, which might be summed up as: "Say anything, without regard for truth or benefit, to retain the people's favor."
Gingrich is no fool, so we must conclude that he recognizes the inherent and apparently insurmountable difficulties of attempting to delineate through a constitutional amendment a public-school student's right to pray.
We must further conclude that Gingrich is willing to misuse the issue purely for political gain and without consideration of the inevitable damage it would inflict on religious institutions and individuals.
As I have written before, the U.S. Supreme Court has never, ever ruled that a public-school student cannot pray in school. The trite truism is that the court can never stop prayers in schools as long as there are math tests. Neither did it intend to.
What the court did rule, absolutely correctly, was that teachers or principals or other officially sanctioned adults could not impose their prayers or other religious views on students, who are compelled by law to sit in class and listen to them.
For a teacher to foist his or her religious convictions on students who are forced to sit and listen even if those convictions conflict with their own is morally reprehensible, as well as illegal.
A true example was related to me recently.
Before a class of teen-agers, a high-school substitute teacher offered at length her opinions about homosexuality - how "God doesn't make mistakes" and how "unnatural" homosexual behavior is.
This wasn't a class discussion on the subject, mind you, in which peers discussed their religious views of a sociological phenomenon. It amounted to a religious sermon on homosexuality by someone representing the authority of the state.
At least one student was in tears at what she perceived as a hurtful lecture on a subject about which she has her own well-developed and thought-out religious convictions. Because the student had previously respected and liked the teacher, she was unwilling to force a public confrontation on the subject.
It was wrong - no matter how well-intentioned - for a teacher to abuse the power of her office by pitching her personal religious opinions at students who were not free to duck out of their way.
That teacher's behavior - assuming the description of events is accurate - was as illegal as if she had led a prayer on the subject.
It is precisely the type of offensive moralizing that Gingrich would vote not only to allow, but to promote.
All parents who pay attention to their children's education have enough trouble trying to determine teachers' competence in English and math and history without having to check on their religious orthodoxy.
And I certainly don't want some congressional committee in Washington trying to write a prayer for my children's classrooms in Southwest Virginia.
My children's religious education is my responsibility, and I don't need the help of the federal government or the local school board to fulfill it.
The courts are struggling now to set boundaries for legitimate student-initiated prayer and other religious expression in public-school classrooms. It is a time-consuming, painstaking and continually frustrating experience.
The deal is that our Constitution has a perfectly good First Amendment that guarantees the free exercise of religion while prohibiting the establishment of religion by the state. It also guarantees the free speech of all citizens, public-school students included.
Balancing the potentially conflicting freedoms and restrictions of the First Amendment is a process, not a final creative act to be set in stone or ink. That's the beauty of it. That's why it has worked so well so long.
We can only hope that the well-nigh universal condemnation by religious and civil liberties groups of the idea of a constitutional amendment on school prayer will keep it from getting serious consideration in Congress.
by CNB