ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, May 19, 1996 TAG: 9605180002
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: The Back Pew
SOURCE: COFY LOWE
I hesitate to bring it up for fear of instigating some controversy, but this seems to be shaping up as one of the quietest seasons in years in terms of prayer and public-school graduations.
Maybe it's just too early for the combatants to have left their corners, but those of us with grads in the family know that the big ceremony is almost here.
Usually by this time of year, there has been a national flood of letters to school boards and principals - and the press - from civil-liberties legal organizations. Depending on who is doing the writing, school officials are advised that they either "must always" or "must never" allow students to pray at a graduation ceremony.
Let me stress that this is a tentative conclusion that could be shattered with the next mail delivery, but it appears that efforts by the state and federal governments to explain students' rights and teachers' responsibilities have paid off.
It isn't often that reasonable approaches to such volatile problems actually work. But this time - note that my fingers are crossed at this moment - they just may have.
A little over a year ago, the Commonwealth of Virginia's Board of Education issued a set of "guidelines on constitutional rights and restrictions relating to prayer and other religious expression in the public schools."
In understandable language, it set out a common-sense approach to the pitfalls associated with the First Amendment's religion and speech clauses - including the recognition that some issues have not been clearly resolved by the courts or legislatures.
A bit later in the year, the federal Department of Education issued a somewhat less comprehensive but nonetheless helpful set of guidelines on the same subject.
Granted, that effort was primarily a political result of President Clinton's efforts to defuse momentum on a school-prayer amendment to the Constitution, but whatever the motive, the result was welcomed.
Both reports covered numerous aspects of the religion-in-the-schools debate, so the graduation section constituted only a part of their recommendations. But that has been one of the most difficult to deal with.
On that point, the upshot of both reports - most clearly delineated in the Virginia analysis - was that while school teachers and administrators may neither sponsor nor encourage prayer, student speakers participating in graduation ceremonies may include religious references or prayer if they choose to do so on their own initiative.
The courts have split on whether student-led, majority-initiated prayers are acceptable at graduations. A federal court did rule against such prayer in the only Virginia case of that kind, however.
Those guidelines are eminently fair. The state - represented by teachers and school administrators - shouldn't be in the business of dictating prayers. Students who are selected - either by vote of their peers or by virtue of their grades - to be the speakers at their graduation ceremonies should be able to exercise their right to free speech, including prayers and religious references.
Many students might be motivated out of their religious faith to thank God or Jesus Christ or Allah - along with their parents and teachers - for their success in school and life. They certainly ought to be able to do that, and no reasonable person in the audience should be offended by such a declaration.
On the other hand, most of us would add that it would be prudent not to turn a graduation valedictory into an evangelistic crusade.
Student speakers would do well to consider how they would feel if someone else, with what they considered to be a conflicting set of religious beliefs, was making an address that might be interpreted as an attempt to convert them.
It's selfish, I guess, but I'm hopeful that we'll get through this graduation season without any controversy about prayers or religion.
Those who are willing to be thoughtful and courteous of each other - good religious values - should be able to participate in what is one of the most meaningful experiences of most of our lives with joy and without offense.
LENGTH: Medium: 77 linesby CNB