THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, October 1, 1994 TAG: 9410010316
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ESTHER DISKIN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 84 lines
The heads of American coins are stamped with the phrase ``In God We Trust.'' Flip the coins over and find the motto ``E Pluribus Unum'' - Out of Many, One.
From those words on every coin arise the battle lines of a debate about American culture. In a nation created by people of many faiths, does public reference to God pull citizens toward unity or drive them apart?
On Friday, liberals and conservatives grappled over the role of God in the place where most Americans get a big dose of history and culture - the public school.
The debate at Regent University heated up with a loaded question from the moderator, television commentator Morton Kondracke: ``The liberals in this country have been quite successful in persuading the U.S. Supreme Court to ban religion from public places and certainly from the school, and to erect a wall of separation of church and state. The question is: Can you honestly say society is better off as a consequence?''
Conservatives charged that banishing religion from public schools is at the heart of the nation's moral crisis. ``We're not getting the job done with a bunch of secularists in charge of our educational system who refuse to address moral values,'' said radio talk-show host Alan Keyes.
Liberals fired back. Values like honesty and integrity can be taught to schoolchildren without any reference to religion. Prayers, they said, belong in the private world.
``Whatever happened to the idea of saying those prayers over the breakfast table?'' said Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. ``. . . Why do people insist on having this government agency take on the religious education of their children?''
But liberals were playing to a hostile crowd. The audience - students, alumni and donors to the Christian evangelical university - burst into applause after conservatives' oratory. They moaned in derision when Lynn told them that the the nation wasn't in a moral crisis.
Christian evangelist Pat Robertson, the university's founder, introduced the debate with the promise of ``a good fight.''
It got off to a bland start. The eight panelists opened with five-minute statements, stressing their agreement about ideas like ``tolerance'' and ``mutual respect.'' Columnist Clarence Page even jested about a ``politeness conspiracy'' among the assembled group.
But niceties turned to insults in the heat of debate. Columnist Mona Charen derided the ``multiculturalists'' and ``liberal elite.'' Lynn said that if Robertson became president, ``non-Christians would become second-class citizens.''
``Tolerance is overrated,'' said conservative columnist Don Feder.
The debate veered, often out of Kondracke's control, from homosexuality to abortion, but it grew most lively over the question of religion in public schools.
There was some common ground. Most agreed that a class valedictorian, speaking at graduation, should be permitted to say a prayer. They also agreed that a Mississippi school's practice of broadcasting a daily prayer on the intercom is unconstitutional.
But they vehemently disagreed over whether schools should sanction prayer, or even set aside time for students to pray. Conservatives argued that it could be done and that certain classes, like sex education, could not be properly taught without a moral, religious context.
But Elliott Mincberg, legal director of People for the American Way, said that the most religious expression that should be allowed in public school is a nonsectarian prayer. Even that, he said, poses a dilemma, because some school official must decide whether the prayer is truly nondenominational. ILLUSTRATION: THE PANELISTS
MONA CHAREN - columnist and political speechwriter
DON FEDER - columnist
ALAN KEYES - radio talk-show host and former Senate candidate
BARRY LYNN - executive director, Americans United for Separation
of Church and State
ELLIOT MINCBERG - legal director, People For the American Way
CLARENCE PAGE - columnist
ROBERT PECK - legislative counsel, American Civil Liberties
Union
JAY SEKULOW - chief counsel, American Center for Law and Justice
KEYWORDS: PUBLIC SCHOOL PRAYER RELIGION
by CNB