THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, December 10, 1994 TAG: 9412090006
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A15 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: Anthony Lewis
DATELINE: BOSTON LENGTH: Medium: 84 lines
When Newt Gingrich said after the election that one of his first priorities was to put prayer back in public schools, he enlisted Thomas Jefferson as a supporter. In the Declaration of Independence, he noted, Jefferson wrote that men's rights had come from ``their creator.''
Gingrich used to be a college history teacher. But there could hardly be a more grotesque misreading of history than the notion that Thomas Jefferson would favor government action to arrange religious observance of any kind.
At his orders, Jefferson's tombstone at Monticello describes him not as a former president but as the father of the University of Virginia and the author of the Declaration and of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. He took special pride in the last, a law that he and James Madison struggled for nine years to get through.
The Virginia Statute not only rejected official support for a single, established church. It forbade neutral support for all denominations, which is what some Americans want government to do today. The statute's principles formed the religion clause of the First Amendment, which was drafted by Madison.
Anyone unfamiliar with Jefferson's views - and their extraordinary strength - should read Prof. Merrill D. Peterson's essay on the subject in the current issue of The Atlantic Monthly. It has powerful application to the renewed debate about school prayer.
Supporters of prayer legislation argue that the country needs an affirmation of religious beliefs to give it a common sense of moral values that it now lacks. But Peterson writes that ``the whole thrust of Jefferson's philosophy was to reject . . . any idea that a shared community of religious beliefs or of moral values, other than the value of freedom itself, was necessary to society.''
In his campaign for president in 1800, Jefferson was attacked as an atheist. In fact he believed in God despite his dislike of priesthoods and his rejection of biblical revelation. According to Peterson, ``he said he was a sect of one.''
Jefferson believed that diversity of creeds and separation of church from state would actually strengthen religion in America. The prediction has proved true. Religion has thrived in the absence of state involvement. The United States is by far the most religious of Western countries.
The strength of religious feeling is reflected in the campaign, continuing over three decades now, for prayer in schools. It was in 1962 that the Supreme Court found unconstitutional a New York state rule requiring prayer in classrooms.
But even for those offended by the 1962 decision, there is a great difficulty in the way of overturning it by constitutional amendment. How can that be done without hurting the very two elements that have nourished religion here, separation and diversity?
Americans are more diverse in their beliefs now than ever. How can any prayer be read in a classroom without offending some of the children or their families? Allowing dissenting students to leave the room is not an answer, as the Supreme Court said, because the pressure to conform will make the prayer not truly ``voluntary.''
Gary Bauer, a leading voice of the right on social issues, said recently that it was ``extremely unhealthy for as much as 70 percent of the country to want something like this and continually be thwarted by the courts or lack of action by politicians.''
To the contrary, it would be unhealthy - and against the whole meaning of American constitutionalism - for a majority to force its views on minorities on such a question.
The answer may lie in a federal law calling for a period of silence in schools, which the First Amendment would almost certainly allow.
On the Jefferson Memorial in Washington is carved his statement: ``I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.'' He wrote that about activities of the clergy.
Jefferson and John Adams, political opponents and longtime friends, both died on July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Adams's last words were, ``Jefferson still lives.'' We shall see whether he does. MEMO: Mr. Lewis is a columnist for The New York Times, 122 E. 42nd St., New
York, N.Y. 10168.
KEYWORDS: SCHOOL PRAYER
by CNB