School Prayer . . . Againby Edd Doerr
As a result of the November 8 elections, we can look forward to a stormy two years of conflict in Congress and many state legislatures over such church-state issues as group prayer in public schools, tax support for sectarian private schools through tuition vouchers or tax credits, abortion rights, and the world population/ecology problem. House Speaker-to-be Newt Gingrich has made it clear that providing for group prayer in public schools, will be high on the new Congress' agenda when he declared: "I do have a vision of an America in which a belief in the Creator is once again at the center of defining being an American, and this is a radically different vision of America than the secular anti-religious view of the left." Gingrich will push for an amendment to the Constitution, so as to "reestablish the Creator at the center of American polity." Clearly the Georgia congressman wants to lead the country in the direction of theocracy, a religion-dominated state hostile to American pluralism, religious liberty, and the constitutional principle of separation of church and state. This should alarm not only humanists and freethinkers but also the majority of American Protestants, Catholics, and Jews who, when push comes to shove, value church-state separation and the freedom that idea means for all of us. All Americans opposed to a narrow conformist fundamentalist theocracy should join in reminding their representatives of the following facts: We do not need a constitutional amendment to protect the right of children to pray in school. They never lost that right. All the Supreme Court did in its 1962-63 rulings was declare that sponsoring or prescribing or regulating prayer is not a legitimate function of any level of government, right down to the school district and classroom teacher. Advocates of school-sponsored group prayer seem to think that American churches are so weak that government has to prop them up. Gingrich and his friends seem not to agree with Benjamin Franklin's wise dictum that there is something seriously wrong with any religion that must call on government for help. It is curious that many of the same politicians who want to trim government back want at the same time to expand government into the domain of religion and into the private business of the family. In our diverse and increasingly pluralistic society it is simply not possible to devise a prayer that will satisfy everyone. If Newt Gingrich has his way, every community in America will be torn by disputes over whose prayer will be said in the classroom. In Flint, Michigan, it could be a Muslim prayer; in parts of New York, a Jewish prayer; in other parts of New York, a Catholic prayer in Spanish; in Alabama, a Baptist prayer; in Honolulu, a Buddhist prayer. In every community greater or smaller percentages of kids will be pressured to conform or to suffer in silence. Newt Gingrich's dream for America will be a nightmare for millions of Americans. As James Madison warned in 1785, the abandonment of church-state separation, as proposed by Gingrich, would produce ignorance, servility, superstition, bigotry and persecution. Common sense and respect for the lessons of American history should lead Americans to urge their elected representatives to reject Newt Gingrich's "forward to the Middle Ages" crusade. Edd Doerr is executive director of Americans for Religious Liberty and editor of their newsletter Voice of Reason.
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