Correction to the following post: Even though AP reported before Friday that administrators would NOT allow student-led prayer during Friday's Lincoln County commencement ( http://bit.ly/15a1EUV ), I'm glad to make a correction. Student prayer was allowed and stated after all. My apologies for not catching the story over the weekend from Lincoln County's nearest newspaper, the Advocate-Messenger. The updated details are here: http://bit.ly/Za3Sz5
Instead of what I assumed had happened when I wrote the post below, the administration did not "capitulate" to secular pressure after all. However, this quote from a leading atheist involved with complaints supports my main point in my blog: "Every student should feel safe at their graduation and should not have to worry about religious bullying."
Consider whether public prayer really comes close to bullying while reading my original article below:
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I once laughed when I heard a Christian comedian shout through the mic, "If it offends you when I publicly state my Christian beliefs, where a helmet!" The audience then erupted in laughs and cheers.
I know what it's like to be a minority among, not just a crowd, but a whole national culture, when it comes to publicly expressed religious belief and worship. Yes, I admit without hesitation that the call to prayer, broadcast at various times throughout every day over loud speakers during my visit in predominately Muslim Malaysia, sounded eerie and unsettling. That and much more that saturates Malay culture constantly aroused strange feelings of loneliness throughout my stay. But it never crossed my mind that someone should stop the call.
Even if, hypothetically, I were to stay in that or a similar country long term or, again, hypothetically, to change my citizenship with such a people, I would never conceive of asking the imams even to turn down the volume on their speakers. I can't conceive of confusing my discomfort as a minority with some contrived "right" not to be made uncomfortable by the surrounding majority, regardless of the majority's intentions.
Do the young and the old in America--now, surprisingly, in Kentucky, more specifically--no longer have the inner stamina to survive and thrive through feelings of cultural and civic discomfort? Does some weakly conceived idea of a thorough "separation" of church and state give some of us the only pitiful strength we can muster to push away what hurts our feelings? This is what civic integrity has come to, even in the small community of Lincoln County, Kentucky, where school administrators capitulated to a very small minority of self-proclaimed atheists. They complained that they would be overwrought if student-led prayer were forced upon them during last Friday's commencement.
It's being reported that most Lincoln Countians have had to work hard to understand and accommodate the decision.
Perhaps it would have been much easier on all those citizens if the shaken atheist minority had just aroused a morsel of intellectual strength to defend their worldview through the lost art of public discourse. They also should have done what any frightened soul should do when ravaged by the onslaught of terrifying public prayers that slap "human rights" in the head. Wear a helmet.
7 comments:
Wow! I never thought of it like that. I have wondered what they are afraid of. Why it would cause them to be overwrought, if there is no acknowledgement of the power therein. Interesting...
Why you would direct your ire at someone who seeks to uphold the Constitution, rather than those who would flout it is not apparent. It is important to distinguish between "individual" and "government" speech about religion. The First Amendment's "free exercise" clause assures that each individual is free to exercise and express his or her religious views--publicly as well as privately. The Amendment constrains only the government not to promote or otherwise take steps toward establishment of religion. As government can only act through the individuals comprising its ranks, when those individuals are performing their official duties (e.g., public school teachers instructing students in class and principals hanging banners in schools), they effectively are the government and thus should conduct themselves in accordance with the First Amendment's constraints on government. When acting in their individual capacities, they are free to exercise their religions as they please. If their right to free exercise of religion extended even to their discharge of their official responsibilities, however, the First Amendment constraints on government establishment of religion would be eviscerated. While figuring out whether someone is speaking for the government in any particular circumstance may sometimes be difficult, making the distinction is critical.
A word should be added about the common canard that this is all about people easily offended. We’re not talking about the freedom of individuals to say or do something others find offensive; each of us has that freedom. We’re talking about the government weighing in to promote religion. Under our Constitution, our government has no business doing that--REGARDLESS of whether anyone is offended. While this is primarily a constitutional point, it is one that conservatives--small government conservatives--should appreciate from a political standpoint as well. While the First Amendment thus constrains government from promoting (or opposing) religion without regard to whether anyone is offended, a court may address the issue only in a suit by someone with "standing" (sufficient personal stake in a matter) to bring suit; in order to show such standing, a litigant may allege he is offended or otherwise harmed by the government's failure to follow the law; the question whether someone has standing to sue is entirely separate from the question whether the government has violated the Constitution.
Doug,
I see you're apt at lawyering. Legal scribes often nipped at the heels of Jesus. We who say we follow him should expect no less than what happened to the Master--perhaps even more.
You swallow a camel by believing that a public prayer has much to do with legal establishment. You strain at a gnat in "figuring out whether someone is speaking for the government" by such a prayer, while all along, a swig of common sense would make it go down a lot easier.
Little Valerie the Valedictorian--I assure you--would not be speaking for the government. She would be speaking for a community with a lot more sense than the government.
As I know nothing about the particulars of the school ceremony you mention, I have no reason or basis for disagreeing with your assessment that she spoke on behalf of herself and not on behalf of the public school--in which case, she was well within her rights, and the school did nothing prohibited by the Constitution. We may agree on that much, it seems.
My aim was merely to affirm the constitutional separation of church and state and point out two aspects pertinent to your post: (1) the critical distinction between individual and government speech and (2) the distinction between whether the government has violated the Constitution and whether someone has standing to bring a suit claiming so.
Doug,
Your contribution to the discussion is appreciated.
To clarify, "Valerie the Valedictorian" was hypothetical. There actually was no prayer allowed by anyone. As I correctly mentioned in my post, it was to be STUDENT-led, but administration ruled against it. This AP story briefly explains: http://bit.ly/15a1EUV
Constitutional separation of church and state exists only in the imagination of judicial activism and misguided case law; not in the document itself.
The issue of STUDENT-led prayer aside, a local public school principal can not conceivably do anything that would establish a state religion. Even his or her own public prayer utterance would fall far short of that. Not to mention, going around establishing state religions is far above a principal's pay grade.
As for whether someone has standing to file a complaint because of a constitutional violation against him or her, you say, "a litigant may allege he is offended or otherwise harmed by the government's failure to follow the law." That's really the main point addressed by my posting: Some people really do CLAIM they are or would be offended by such public utterances. Atheists claiming such standing in regards to their exposure to public prayer, whether government-sanctioned or not, demonstrates a propensity to be too easily offended. This growing propensity in our society is unreasonable, weak in character, and lacking in any integral strength to advance a minority position through the tried and tested means of articulate public discourse.
But, then again, it's cooler to just lawyer up.
"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties."
-Thomas Jefferson.
Although his signature doesn't appear on the Constitution, Thomas Jefferson's epistle above would seem to indicate the intent of his peers. "Founders' intent" has always been one of my my favorite methods for interpreting the Constitution, and Jefferson certainly qualifies as a "Founder."
I'm not a Christian. What I am is irrelevant. I'm not offended when a Christian prays in my presence. I'm not offended when a room full of Christians prays in my presence. I do, however, feel excluded and discriminated against when an institution funded, in part, by my taxes disregards my belief system while endorsing that of "the majority" or even "the plurality." Are they saying that your (and, apparently, their) belief system is "more right" because more people subscribe to it? It's not the place of a government institution or of a government representative to make such pronouncements -- and that's not just my opinion (see epistle above for at least one Founder's opinion). What am I expected to do while the majority or the plurality engages in their officially sanctioned religious observance? Should I play along so as to not be picked out as a non-believer? Should I walk out? Should I stick my fingers in my ears and sing loudly to drown out what's going on around me until they're finished? What's wrong with including me?
With respect, I disagree that we should take too many examples on how to incorporate religion into public life from Muslim monarchies with official state religions. It's my opinion that we've got a better system, even if it's still being tweaked a couple hundred years into this experiment.
Separation of church and state is a bedrock principle of our Constitution much like the principles of separation of powers and checks and balances. In the Constitution, the founders did not simply say in so many words that there should be separation of powers and checks and balances; rather, they actually separated the powers of government among three branches and established checks and balances. Similarly, they did not merely say there should be separation of church and state; rather, they actually separated them by (1) establishing a secular government on the power of "We the people" (not a deity), (2) saying nothing to connect that government to god(s) or religion, (3) saying nothing to give that government power over matters of god(s) or religion, and (4), indeed, saying nothing substantive about god(s) or religion at all except in a provision precluding any religious test for public office. Given the norms of the day, the founders' avoidance of any expression in the Constitution suggesting that the government is somehow based on any religious belief was quite a remarkable and plainly intentional choice. They later buttressed this separation of government and religion with the First Amendment, which constrains the government from undertaking to establish religion or prohibit individuals from freely exercising their religions.
That the phrase "separation of church and state" does not appear in the text of the Constitution assumes much importance, it seems, to some who mistakenly supposed it was there and, upon learning of their error, reckon they’ve solved a Constitutional mystery. To those familiar with the Constitution, the absence of the metaphor commonly used to name one of its principles is no more consequential than the absence of other phrases (e.g., Bill of Rights, separation of powers, checks and balances, fair trial, religious liberty) used to describe other undoubted Constitutional principles.
To the extent that some nonetheless would like confirmation--in those very words--of the founders' intent to separate government and religion, Madison and Jefferson supplied it. Madison, who had a central role in drafting the Constitution and the First Amendment, confirmed that he understood them to “[s]trongly guard[] . . . the separation between Religion and Government.” Madison, Detached Memoranda (~1820). He made plain, too, that they guarded against more than just laws creating state sponsored churches or imposing a state religion. Mindful that even as new principles are proclaimed, old habits die hard and citizens and politicians could tend to entangle government and religion (e.g., “the appointment of chaplains to the two houses of Congress” and “for the army and navy” and “[r]eligious proclamations by the Executive recommending thanksgivings and fasts”), he considered the question whether these actions were “consistent with the Constitution, and with the pure principle of religious freedom” and responded: “In strictness the answer on both points must be in the negative. The Constitution of the United States forbids everything like an establishment of a national religion.”
As for those who claim to be offended by unconstitutional government actions, your advice that they man-up misses the point that they don't seek to "advance a minority position through the tried and tested means of articulate public discourse." This has nothing to do with pressing minority or majority positions; rather, it is about constraining the government to act in accordance with the Constitution. Accordingly, they seek to challenge the government's actions in court to accomplish just that. The court will not hear such a challenge by just anyone though; only those with a sufficient personal stake, e.g., those somehow injured (e.g., offended) by the government action, will be heard. Wearing a helmet may be cool, and it may demonstrate integral strength and all, but it won't get you into court.
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