THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, August 18, 1995 TAG: 9508170014
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A18 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: By GRANT OWENS NEELY
LENGTH: Medium: 91 lines
At first glance, the Supreme Court's decision that the University of Virginia may not deny student activities funds to an avowedly Christian magazine appears to be an impressive victory for religious freedom and equality on college campuses. The court said that religious groups must be treated in the same manner as secular groups. Fair enough.
But there may be more to it than that. As with many complex issues in public life, what is clear in theory is cloudy in practice. The problem appears when we try to treat religious publications equally. Suppose that next year, U.Va. has a dozen religious groups seeking funding. How will the student government treat all of them equally? Should the publication with the largest circulation receive the largest amount of money? That approach favors the dominant group over emerging religious publishers.
Should a Roman Catholic magazine get more money because that church has the largest number of adherents nationally? That hardly seems fair to numerically smaller groups, like the Buddhists. Should all groups receive the same amount of money? That would give an undue preference to minuscule groups like the Branch Davidians over the Southern Baptist multitudes.
How do we resolve this? In this specified case, we could say that it is a private matter which applies only to the students and administrators at the university.
But that would be the wrong approach. All Americans, whether religious people or not, should be concerned about the policy implications of this case. This was one of the most closely watched cases this term - and not because there's a wide interest in college magazines. ``The Court, for the first time, approve(d) direct funding of core religious activities by an arm of the State,'' Justice David Souter said.
Despite the majority's assertions that this case does not apply to government money generally (only to a specific university fund), we cannot ignore the conclusion to Souter's dissent: ``A certain momentum develops in constitutional theory, and it can be a `downhill thrust' easily set in motion but difficult to retard or stop.''
Wide Awake assembled an outstanding legal team headed by University of Chicago law professor Michael McConnell, who received support from Pat Robertson's legal outfit and from Attorney General Jim Gilmore. McConnell is one of the leaders (along with Ralph Reed and James Dobson) of a movement to change the Constitution by adding a ``religious-equality amendment.'' Its first line slices to the heart of the issue: ``Neither the United States nor any state shall deny benefits to . . . any persons on account of their religious expressions, belief, or identity.''
``It is the most important part of the amendment,'' McConnell recently told the Christian Science Monitor (July 12). Reacting to the Wide Awake decision, Jay Sekulow, the lead attorney for the legal wing of the Robertson religio-commercial empire, said that it ``will propel and energize other religious-liberty issues including the government subsidizing tuition vouchers for religious schools.''
So we're talking about money here. What does that mean in terms of practical politics? Consider just one example: Suppose that Norfolk or Virginia Beach establishes an economic-development fund to attract businesses. If religious groups must be treated equally, then a church could apply for funds to construct a new worship center. What shrewd religious group would refuse to apply for such a subsidy?
The government will receive no tax benefits directly from the church (although if it is truly to be ``treated equally,'' it will have to cough up some property taxes), but in the era of mega-churches, where weekend attendance of 20,000 is common, the government can rest assured that the construction of restaurants, stores and motels is sure to crop up around any place where thousands of people gather. Again, this sounds fine, but we still have to face the question of how to ensure that all religious groups get treated fairly.
The coming months will reveal how those concerned with church-state issues will proceed in light of this ruling. The court has said that its decision applies only to a narrow class of cases, but several powerful religious groups have made it clear that they intend to seek money from the government to support their religious endeavors. If they succeed, as a nation we will have radically altered some of our fundamental beliefs about the relation of religion and politics in our secular republic. As a deeply religious person, I'm worried about the potential results of such a decision.
The court has handed down a decision that is great in theory but could be dreadful in practice. How do we as citizens resolve the conflicts inherent in the decision? A complex problem will have a complex solution, but the only way to possibly achieve an equitable resolution begins with remembering that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. That means keeping wide awake. MEMO: Mr. Neely, a graduate of the College of William and Mary, is pursuing a
master's degree in American religious history at Miami University of
Ohio.
by CNB