THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, November 27, 1994 TAG: 9411240609
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J01 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KATHLEEN PARKER, ORLANDO SENTINEL
LENGTH: Medium: 70 lines
Doubtless, in the next few weeks we'll hear the usual church-state polemic as Congress considers Rep. Newt Gingrich's proposed constitutional amendment to allow voluntary school prayer.
Doubtless, the essence of what really matters will be diluted by the verbal histrionics that pass for reasoned debate.
Amidst all this confusion, we might entertain this simple rhetorical imperative: Why Not?!
Why not give it a shot, just for the heck of it? In the face of rising statistics regarding teen pregnancy, adolescent murder, child-perpetrated armed robbery or rape, what have we got to lose? Our separation of church and state?
Says who?
The alleged mingling of church and state as a consequence of allowing school children to have a quiet moment of meditation is an idiotic distortion of the intent of the American Constitution, by the Supreme Court.
Who were those robed men, anyway? The court's 1962 ruling that school prayer violates separation of church and state may have been well-intentioned, even academically defensible.
If a country ever needed school prayer, it's the U.S.A. If children ever needed a moral tone to their day, they are ours.
Our mistake has been to confuse church and state with religion and society. I'm not suggesting the state dictate religion or that public schools indoctrinate sectarian beliefs.
But we are fundamentally a religion-based society founded on Judeo-Christian moral principles. Our misunderstood founding fathers knew this even if we don't. George Washington, in his farewell address, said:
``Observe good faith and justice toward all nations; Cultivate peace and harmony with all; Religion and morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be that good policy does not equally enjoin it?''
Religion and morality enjoin this conduct, indeed. But today religion and morality have been relegated to fringe status while social chaos and decay have become popular culture. Good faith and justice, peace and harmony, meanwhile, are hackneyed cliches associated with a quaint, if contemptible, past.
Obviously, school prayer isn't going to turn our society around. But it's a start. It's a better beginning for our children than a frustrated teacher hoping she can compel unruly kids to sit down without getting shot.
Besides, on a strictly practical level, our children need it. We adults can be cynical about religion on our front porches or in our drawing rooms, as the case may be.
We can embrace atheism or nihilism or existentialism or whatever-ism as the mood hits us. But our children need a thread of hope to cling to. They need a world in which there are well-defined boundaries of right and wrong, where the tone of life is set with hope and charity, not fear and uncertainty.
I am painfully aware of these needs as I watch my 10-year-old fidget with the night, trying to shed the demons that keep children awake. MEMO: Related stories on pages A1 and A2.
WHAT DO YOU THINK? Would voluntary prayer in the schools help create
a moral climate that would lead to a reduction in teen violence, teen
pregnancy and other social problems? Or would it wrongly involve the
religion in an area where it would not be? Write: Commentary Editor, The
Virginian-Pilot/The Ledger-Star, 150 W. Brambleton Ave., Norfolk, VA.,
23510.
KEYWORDS: SCHOOL PRAYER RELIGION by CNB