Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site ulysses.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!harpo!floyd!whuxle!pyuxll!eisx!npoiv!npois!hogpc!drux3!ihnp4!ulysses!smb From: smb@ulysses.UUCP Newsgroups: net.religion Subject: Re: Apology Message-ID: <649@ulysses.UUCP> Date: Wed, 12-Oct-83 16:50:30 EDT Article-I.D.: ulysses.649 Posted: Wed Oct 12 16:50:30 1983 Date-Received: Thu, 13-Oct-83 23:12:20 EDT References: <252@bunkerb.UUCP> Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill Lines: 98 From: garys@bunkerb.UUCP Newsgroups: net.religion Message-ID: <252@bunkerb.UUCP> Date: Wed, 12-Oct-83 10:43:58 EDT As for prayer in public schools, has it occurred to anyone that I may have been lied to as well? I did not invent the notion that the Supreme Court ruling made all public school prayer illegal. In fact, I have heard already that it did not. Not being a lawyer, and not having the time or the resources to research the case myself, I have to rely on what others tell me. (So do most other people, I expect. Why does that make me a liar?) I have noted that certain people have called for a "Constitutional amendment to restore voluntary prayer" to the public schools, which implies to me that it is currently illegal. Why is it that those who say that are necessarily liars? It is fairly clear that some people, at some level, are engaged in a deliberate distortion of the truth. In this category I would include those proponents of the "voluntary prayer amendment" who are members of the U.S. Congress -- for example, Jesse Helms. He has certainly heard often enough what the Supreme Court ruling actually said and meant. There are enough lawyers on his staff who could have told him. He and others have never- theless *lied* by deliberately omitting the adjective "organized" from their pronouncements on school prayer. As has been pointed out by others, the Supreme Court has banned organized prayer of any form in the schools. They never said anything about private prayer, at any time or any place. What was their reasoning? First of all, at the time these cases originally arose, the prayers were not even voluntary. Bruce Smith has posted stories about what his experiences; I can tell similar stories about my elementary school days. (Mind you, I went to school in New York. In a school where 90% of the student body and 90% of the faculty were Jewish, wanna make any guesses about how much sensitivity there was to this?) Quite simply, pre-1963 school prayers were Christian, and in particular were Protestant. There was no regard for the religious sensibilities of Catholics, Jews, Moslems, believers in other religions, non-believers, etc. (This statement may not be quite accurate about predominantly Mormon areas; can anyone confirm or deny this? It certainly was true of the schools I attended in New York City.) I trust that no one on the net will claim that such mandatory prayers should be reinstated. We now come to a more controversial part of the Court's rulings. They have held that the school setting is *inherently* coercive. That is, if a teacher were to say, "OK, let's pray; anyone who doesn't want to can leave for a few minutes," that would not be acceptable -- because too many students would feel compelled to participate, simply because the teacher asked them to pray, and was watching. Peer pressure is a factor as well; children hate to be different. (Some rulings do take ago into account; see below.) The Court was also concerned about abuses of voluntary prayer. The ACLU has documented (see "Civil Liberties Review", the ACLU newsletter) teachers *telling* students to pray, or saying things like "OK, class, let's pray -- and Sam, you shouldn't join in, because Jews don't pray anyway." (No, I'm not making that story up; it really happened.) Most advocates of the school prayer amendment disagree with this entire line of reasoning; they feel that as long as the amendment states that no one can be compelled to participate, individual rights are sufficiently protected. The third, and most controversial, part of the story concerns student religious groups. Briefly, the question is whether a Bible study club, for example, could be formed under school auspices, much like a debating club or a computer club. Official recognition of such clubs typically includes privileges such as use of classrooms after school, official announcements of meetings, etc. Here, the Court has ruled that for high school students and younger, given the prevailing religious attitudes such clubs still represented an improper entanglement of state and church. The possibility of abuse, or of undue pressure, seemed to them to be too great. They were also concerned with the use of public property for religious purposes. But here the Court was less rigid. They have also ruled that the same rules do not apply to publicly-funded colleges and universities. First, they have held that by college age, students are (or should be) sufficiently mature that the coercive atmosphere is not an issue. A college student is presumably able to make up his or her own mind about the desirability of prayer. Second (and here I'm not nearly as sure of my facts), I think that they recognized the traditional nature of a university as an "open shop" for students. That is, student groups of all sorts, conventional and unconventional, have traditionally been given pretty wide lattitude about use of campus facilities. (Ask yourself this: do you think most high schools would permit a student homosexual club to meet in the school building? I doubt it. But most colleges would and do. Whether you agree or not, that was the Court's reasoning.) I've tried to make the above presentation as factual as I can, though I realize that my opinion on the subject showed through. (I would welcome any corrections, incidentally.) But let me address one comment to Gary. You say that you believed others on this issue when they said that voluntary school prayer was illegal. As you claim, virtually everyone will accept statements by others on occasion. But don't you feel that it is your responsibility to listen to both sides' arguments on a controversial issue? By that I don't mean one side's description of what the other side claims; misstating or selectively stating your opponent's arguments is a standard debating tactic. The school prayer debate has been going on for 20 years; newspaper accounts of the Senate deliberations paint a pretty good picture of the opposing claims. --Steve Bellovin