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God and Government
Twenty-Five Years of Fighting For Equality, Secularism, and Freedom of Conscience
By Barry W. Lynn Prometheus Books
Copyright © 2015 Reverend Barry W. Lynn
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-63388-025-2
CHAPTER 1
SCHOOLS ARE STILL A BATTLEFIELD, BUT WE ARE WINNING
NEVER USE THIS LINE WHEN DISCUSSING CHURCH AND STATE ISSUES: "AS LONG AS THERE ARE MATH TESTS, THERE WILL BE PRAYER IN SCHOOLS"
In 1962 and 1963, the United States Supreme Court invalidated, first, the daily recitation in New York public schools of a prayer written by the New York State Board of Regents, and then the recitation of the Lord's Prayer (at least a better crafted theological work, by my standards) in Pennsylvania and Maryland schools. President John F. Kennedy urged respect for the rule of law, even though there was an enormous outcry by many religious groups about the Court having "kicked God out of public school," a fairly dramatic conclusion for those believers in an otherwise omnipotent deity.
The anti-Supreme Court sentiment, though, boiled over into consistent efforts from 1963 until 1999 to have Congress pass a proposed constitutional amendment allowing public school prayer out to states for ratification. This process would require a two-thirds vote of both the House and Senate and then the approval of three-quarters of the states' legislatures.
During the 1980s, when I worked for the American Civil Liberties Union, there was a tremendous push to pass such a measure in the Senate. Indeed, during my first day of employment there, I was sent out for an interview with CNN, in the middle of a massive rainstorm. I'm sure the image projected to the network's more conservative viewers was clearly: "Look at that idiot from the ACLU — he doesn't even know enough to come in out of the rain!"
That proposal was ultimately defeated — liberal Republicans and a plurality of Democrats voted no. Even Mr. Conservative, Arizona senator Barry Goldwater, was opposed, arguing that it would be impossible to come up with appropriate language in a state that had Christians and numerous Native American communities side by side.
What follows are my first two columns for Church and State magazine after my selection as Executive Director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, both about the central constitutional fear in 1992 — that new momentum in Congress and a waffling newly elected President Bill Clinton — would propel a prayer measure to the even more conservative quilt of state legislatures.
Religious Freedom and Church-State Separation: Keeping Our Balance
Once, when my daughter was seven years old, she happened to begin a sentence at the family dinner with the phrase: "When I prayed at lunch today ..."
Nearly dropping my forkful of spaghetti, I thought: "This is a school day and she is in a public school." Visions of protest, and perhaps litigation, danced in my head. I was so surprised, I didn't allow her to finish the sentence before my interrogation began.
"Did the teacher tell you what to say?"
"No," she replied.
Undaunted, I continued. "Well, did somebody in the lunch room tell you this was the time to pray?"
Again, the answer was no.
"Well," I queried, "why did you pray?"
She gave me one of those looks that I see more regularly now that she is a teenager and announced: "You know — to thank God for the food."
Pretty good answer.
Somehow, my daughter hadn't gotten the misinformation promoted by the Religious Right that "God had been expelled from public schools" because she expected God to hear her just fine. On the other hand, her religious education at home and church was apparently sufficient that she didn't need a government to tell her how or when to practice her faith.
Welcome to Washington, President Clinton
The Washington newspapers are filled these day with tales of the coming of Bill Clinton. There is speculation about everything from his cabinet appointments to how the "open house" at the White House can avoid becoming a duplicate of Andrew Jackson's inaugural open house, where rowdy crowds forced him to escape through a window.
Church-state separationists look to President-elect Clinton as a compatriot on some issues and a mystery on others. Like many other issues, church-state separation was a largely invisible topic during the presidential campaign, but some important facts did emerge.
On the matter of government-sponsored religious observances in public schools, the incoming president enters without a complete understanding of what is at stake. While he supports the Supreme Court ban on religious devotions in the classroom, he told Reader's Digest he questions the Lee v. Weisman decision, which rejected the constitutionality of school-sponsored graduation prayers. "The issue of prayer at public events is whether it is in any way coercive or oppressive to non-believers," he said. "In an open public event like a commencement, I don't really think that it is — at least nine times out of ten."
Since Americans United was founded, we have seen nine presidents come and go. (President-elect Clinton will be the tenth.) Some have been favorable to First Amendment values; some have misunderstood the concept. In each case, our organization has done its best to make the case for church-state separation. Our commitment remains firm.
President Clinton eventually made it clear that he wouldn't support such an amendment (which he would not have had to sign for it to be sent to the states for possible ratification) and the movement again lost its momentum. Clinton did a brilliant Saturday morning Oval Office address on this topic. I attended, discussed country music with him briefly, and met his dog, Buddy, on the way out.
Republicans who captured the House in 1994, led by the ever-insufferable Newt Gingrich, backed a quixotic campaign beginning in 1995 for the "real deal" — an allegedly noncoercive Constitutional amendment. The weight of this exercise fell to Oklahoma Congressman and former television commentator Ernest "Jim" Istook.
Praying for Common Sense in Congress
To the surprise of many political pundits, Election Day 1994 brought the Republican Party into power in both house of Congress.
I am more than a little disturbed over the comments being made by soon-to-be Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich about prayer in public schools. The Georgia Republican's remarks indicate that he is not the type of conservative who understands that one important component of "conserving" American principles means not aiding religion or subsidizing its mission.
Indeed, Gingrich has already called for action by July 4, 1995, on an amendment to the Constitution to permit governmental-sponsored prayer in public schools. Sure, Gingrich and his backers call it "voluntary prayer" and say it won't be written by the state and that no one will be forced to pray. But that's all smoke. What they really want is majority rule in religious matters in the public schools. In other words, the majority decides what prayer goes into the school, and everyone else is out of luck.
Gingrich admitted this last October during a speech at the Heritage Foundation when he acknowledged that under his scheme "you might well have a prayer that was offered by a person who was not necessarily praying in exactly the way that you would personally pray."
Yes, you might well. To me that quite obviously flies in the face of religious freedom and usurps parental rights; Gingrich seems untroubled by it.
This amendment has one purpose: to allow schools to set aside a time for group, vocal prayer each and every school day. Perhaps the school will be nice enough to let your child get up and walk out to the hall every morning if he or she would find the activity inconsistent with your family's tradition. Maybe the school won't even force your child to have his or her head bowed on the way out, but that's exactly what will happen — not out of reverence but out of discomfort from the ostracism that child will feel every day.
The amendment will probably say that no government body will write the prayer. It won't say that the school board, a committee of administrators, or a group of parents can't select it, though. Perhaps there will be contests to write the best prayer, with the winner chosen by a school official. Perhaps communities will vote on whether the Protestant Lord's Prayer will be used over its Roman Catholic counterpart, the Our Father.
These are not far-fetched examples. One allegedly conservative talk radio show host told me recently that the problem of which prayer to use could be solved by having students utter a prayer to a different deity every day. (Yes, he was serious.) Does he actually believe that prayers to the Christian God on Monday, Allah on Tuesday, and to Odin of Norse mythology on Wednesday is sound theology? What parent who is a person of faith tells his or her children to pray to random deities?
As many of you know, I cohost the Pat Buchanan and Company radio show most afternoons. On a recent show, a woman called in to say she supports a school prayer amendment. I asked her how she would feel if the prayer chosen to be recited read, "Dear Lord, we thank you for the diversity you have created, making us male and female, black, white, gay, and straight. Amen." She was outraged and declared the prayer unacceptable. But I've actually heard such prayers used by people of various religious backgrounds over the years. Although I find no fault with such a theological stance, others obviously do. Who is going to judge the quality or acceptability of the prayer being said?
The amendment was introduced, as promised. Americans United flew into action. Our government relations staff lobbied Capitol Hill for months. Our communications department blitzed the media with information about why this was a bad idea. Our field department engaged and energized our grassroots supporters. And every week, staffers were traveling to (or returning from) meetings where they spoke against the measure.
In addition to the unconstitutionality of the amendment, we were also motivated by stories like the ones below, which popped up every time I spoke about the issue.
First there was "Sam," whom I encountered at a convention in Texas. He grew up in Chicago in the late '20s/early '30s. As the only Jewish kid in his class, his teacher, Mrs. Smith, would excuse him from the morning prayers that she conducted in her homeroom, but she desperately wanted "her only Jewish student to come to know Jesus." One day, after school, a dozen of Sams classmates broke his nose because they were tired of "praying for the different kid."
Then there was Jo Ann Bell, the Oklahoma mother who was assaulted in a parking lot and whose house was burned down after she spoke out against school-sponsored religious activity at her child's public school. Ms. Bell had a lot in common with the Wybles, who were driven from their home in North Carolina because they protested sectarian Bible classes at their son's public elementary school. And there were many others.
So when the day for a vote on the amendment eventually came in early June of 1998, I could not have been happier with the result.
One of the congressional leaders of the anti-amendment forces had told me a few hours earlier that a last-minute half-million-dollar ad campaign by the Christian Coalition was "costing us votes." With this in mind, I had in my head a list of members whose votes would be pivotal. These folks had indicated they would oppose the Istook Amendment, but were feeling the heat. If enough of them changed their votes from no to yes, it could spell disaster for our side.
I watched in amazement as these swing members cast their votes and the lights blinked on the big board. They were all red (no), as were a surprising number of the votes of those who called themselves hopelessly undecided until the day of the vote. When the opposition vote total went over 190 — eventually reaching 203 — it was clear that Istook and his Religious Right allies had suffered a humiliating defeat. Not only had they fallen short by 61 votes of the two-thirds majority needed to pass the measure, but our side got 33 votes more than in 1971, the last time a prayer amendment hit the House floor.
The last prevote debate I had with Istook (and I had so many I sometimes felt he was a member of my family) illustrated, in about six minutes, why the amendment campaign failed. As Istook complained that children can't pray in school, the Fox News Channel was running footage of a large group of Minnesota high schools students at their regular voluntary Bible study club, praying away. The image put the lie to the comments of the congressman. I really didn't need to say a thing. Clearly, Istook's unnuanced assessment, though, was incorrect — and the message was clear. The need for this amendment was built on an insupportable house of cards.
Now, before too much excitement sets in, we must all remember that a simple majority of the House did vote to amend the Bill of Rights. Even though some will privately concede that Religious Right pressure, not the merits, compelled their yes votes, such profiles in cowardice don't square with the vow taken by members to uphold the Constitution and to make independent judgments about the constitutionality of any action.
Congressman Istook attempted to revive this himself a year later, but in spite of the support of such moral giants as Tom DeLay and Dick Armey, the whole effort petered out. Although the Constitutional amendment route was not revisited, prayer issues still emerge in public school districts across the country.
The courts have had to address the issue of prayer at school board meetings, clergy-led school-sponsored prayer at graduation ceremonies, and student-led speech over school public address systems, each time finding it unconstitutional if the speech is religious and it carries any hint of school sponsorship or support. One might think, after reading this, that prayer has been completely eradicated from the public schoolhouse. That would be an incorrect assumption. Provided that faculty and outsiders don't participate, there are a number of ways that like-minded students can organize together for prayer or spiritual fellowship. Students can organize anywhere on the school grounds, including the flagpole or the cafeteria, and pray together. Students can also pray before games, competitions, or other school events, provided that faculty do not participate.
At the time of this writing, there are two issues that have not been clearly resolved. The first is to whether schools must provide temporary accommodations to those whose religion requires them to pray during the school day. The courts' decisions seem to imply that this will be permitted if the space provided is not set aside exclusively for prayer.
The second unresolved situation is whether student speakers at graduations or events can open with a prayer, make religious comments during their speech, or deliver sermons to the attendees. The Ninth Circuit court found this to be unconstitutional. The Eleventh Circuit Court did not. Some case will need to come forward, and probably make it all the way up to the Supreme Court, before we will get a definitive ruling.
STEALTH EVANGELISM-TROUBLING ENCOUNTERS WITH "UNEQUAL ACCESS"
When it became apparent that Constitutional amendments would not fly, the Religious Right started pushing for something called the "Equal Access Act." I was not happy that so many moderate and liberal groups supported it, because initially it only allowed for "religious" clubs in public schools. At the ACLU, I pushed to make it a "free speech" bill, including the phrase "religious, political, philosophical, or other content." On balance, it hasn't worked out as badly as some of us feared. The statute was upheld 8 — 1 in Westside School District v. Mergens in 1990.
Memo to Government: If You Don't Want "Weeds," Don't Plant a Garden
Everybody loves the "marketplace of ideas." Everyone believes that "a thousand flowers should bloom." Free speech is great, isn't it? The problem is that it's often more appealing in theory than in practice. At least, that's the lesson in Salt Lake City, Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, and Titusville, Florida, these days.
In 1984, Congress passed the Equal Access Act, which guarantees that public secondary schools cannot discriminate against student clubs on the basis of "religious, political, philosophical, or other content of speech." Consistent with this open-door policy, Salt Lake City high schools have welcomed debate clubs, chess clubs, a Bible club, and even a steak-eating club.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from God and Government by Barry W. Lynn. Copyright © 2015 Reverend Barry W. Lynn. Excerpted by permission of Prometheus Books.
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