Football Prayers
Dateline: June 21, 2000
Religious Reactions
On June 19, 2000, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled with a 6-3 majority that officially sanctioned, student-led prayers before football games at public schools violate the constitutionally mandated separation of church and state. Is this case of Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe a victory for religious liberty in America, or just another sign that the legal system is hostile to public religiosity? It depends upon who you are.
If you are a member of a majority religious group - namely, Protestant Christianity - then the Supreme Court ruling will probably be viewed as hostile towards religion in general and Christianity in particular. Indeed, it is just another example of how far away America as traveled from Christian values, made evident in school shootings, teen pregnancies, and abortion.
Predictably, organizations and members of the religious right have issued vitriolic and uninformed reactions to the decision. Gary Bauer, for example, issued a statement which declared:
The Supreme Court's anti-prayer decision today amounts to an aggressive attack on personal religious liberty. In fact, this decision should be interpreted as a hostile attempt by the Court's majority to silence students who choose to pray at public school sporting events. This decision drips with hostility to public religious expression. In my mind, it proves that a majority of the Court is at war with the religious tradition of America.
Tom DeLay, someone we can always count to confuse the promotion of one religion with the promotion of religious liberty declared that:
The Supreme Court has moved today to limit the religious freedom of Texans and all Americans. I strongly disagree with the Court's ruling against allowing voluntary, student-led prayer at football games in my home state of Texas. This decision effectively discriminates against speech solely because that speech has religious content. I believe such hostility to religious expression both represents a profound misinterpretation of the Constitution and contradicts the founding principles of our nation.
What we can see in both of these reactions is the common theme that traditional Christianity equivalent with traditional America - and not only that, but moving beyond traditional Christianity is something to be rejected and not something which the Courts should allow.
However, if you are a member of a religious minority, then your reaction is likely to be very different. Jewish groups in particular have come out in support of the ruling. The American Jewish Congress, for example, has stated that the decision:
...is an important victory because it firmly dispels any notion that schools can evade the constitutional mandate of religious neutrality in the schools. There has been massive resistance, particularly in the South, to the notion that officially sponsored prayers cannot be part of public school programs, where a captive audience of students must listen, whether they care to or not. To overcome the Supreme Court's rulings, school districts have resorted to subterfuges, such as Santa Fe, Texas having an elected student chaplain recite prayers before football games.
The Reform Jewish Movement was of a similar mind when it stated:
Today's U.S. Supreme Court decision in Santa Fe Independent School District v. Doe upholds the common-sense notion that public school athletic events are school-sponsored activities... We welcome the Court's holding that school-sponsored worship, even in the guise of a student-initiated event, is an infringement upon the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment, and a threat to true religious freedom.
But even more interesting was the additional comments from the Reform Jewish Movement about how important religious liberty is to them:
As a religious community, we know prayer to have deep value and power. As members of a religious minority, however, we also know too well the dangers of state-sponsored prayer and religion. We know that not long ago in this country, Jewish students were made to feel like outcasts in their own schools, given the unfair choice between participating with their fellow students in morning Christian-prayer and Bible reading or leaving the classroom to stand alone in the hall.
The fact that they, unlike Protestants in this country, have actually and even today suffer from religious discrimination (often at the hands of Protestants) should give Christians a reason to stop and think a bit about how the wisdom of their reactions to the decision. It should, in fact, cause them to stop and consider how their actions immediately impact people of different faiths - or no faith at all.
That is often the problem with these conflicts over the separation of church and state: conservative Christians assume that anything supporting or validating their religion should be OK, regardless of how it appears to minority faiths. It is fortunate for Christianity that many aren't like that - indeed, the leadership of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State is not only Christian, but clergy.
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Why on earth were government officials trying to learn the identities of the plaintiffs? There is no good reason - but people who stand up in opposition to local attempts to promote religion often encounter severe discrimination and harassment. Even people who are suspected of such challenges to the public support of religion experience harassment or lose their businesses due to boycotts. A local school board member -- speaking from the pulpit during the worship service of a Santa Fe church -- described parents who opposed the school's prayer policy as "dim-witted" and "bored" housewives with a "void" in their lives."
Court documents describe many incidents where students from minority faith groups were treated harshly by the district. One teacher is even told a Mormon student his religion was a "cult." Children are called "devil worshippers" for refusing copies of the Bible being passed out in school. Even worse, in that very school district last May, a 13-year-old Jewish student was threatened with hanging by three other students. All of this is why the district had to be threatened with such strong language. The "good Christians" could not be trusted with the information, otherwise the identities would not have to have been hidden.
Unfortunately, many will probably not stop to consider such things. Indeed, some don't even consider it relevant. Unfortunately, one such person sits on the Supreme Court. In Employment Division, Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. Smith, decided in 1990, Justice Scalia wrote that traditional concerns for religious freedom are now a "luxury" which "we cannot afford" any more. Although this might place extra burdens on minority religious groups which could not easily influence state legislatures, Scalia regarded this as simply an "unavoidable consequence of democratic government." It is thus not at all unsurprising that Scalia was part of the three member minority who dissented from the Court decision being discussed here.
Since the Christians who are most opposed to this decision are those who are more likely to read the Bible literally and argue that it is the best guide we humans have in our lives, perhaps they should pay a bit more attention to it and what Jesus is reported to have said on this very issue:
And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. (Matthew 6:5-6)
Next Page > Political Fallout > Page 1 , 2 , 3
More on this case: Background & Summary
More on: Separation of Church & State
Polls: Separation of Church & School
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