No Pray, No Play?
Dateline: September 07, 2000
This past June, the United States Supreme Court handed down a ruling in a school prayer case which has started some interesting controversy this school year. In that case, the Court ruled in favor of two families - one Mormon and one Roman Catholic - and against the school district which had instituted a policy whereby students would elect whether or not to have prayers before a football game; then, after voting yes, school sound systems would be used to deliver that prayer.
Although this was a good decision upholding the separation between church and state, the reaction has been predictably negative - especially from religious conservatives. Some groups, however, have mounted an interesting attempt to get around the ruling.
Basically, their goal is to have "spontaneous" recitals of the Lord's Prayer before high school football games. Religious groups praise this effort while civil liberty groups are wary - so it's worth taking a closer look to see just what is going on.
The first question to ask is: is this legal? Or is it instead just another violation of the separation of church and state? Probably, if the administration is not involved (really not involved) and state equipment (PA system) is not used, then free speech rights would seem to take precedence.
On the other hand, if officials stop things for the prayer, are they supporting it? Would they stop for anything else? Why not just carry on and ignore them? This would seem to be the primary legal objection, although I don't claim that it's very strong.
It is worth noting that groups which have been vocally supportive of these prayer efforts - for example, the American Family Association - are not exactly big supporters of free speech. If people were to "spontaneously" start chanting something offensive to Christians, would any of these groups rush to the defense of free speech? Perhaps, but somehow I doubt it.
The next question to ask is: is this honest? The general claim is that these prayers are supposed to be "spontaneous." Unfortunately, there is no real evidence of any spontaneity anywhere. There are national organizations promoting the effort. There are even organizations which have been formed just for this purpose alone - one of the most prominent of which has been "No Pray, No Play."
This group has even talked about local businesses donating speakers and public address systems to aid the prayer! There can be no doubt that these efforts are organized (even on a national basis), thought out in advance, and planned. That isn't spontaneous. One has to wonder why there is such a deliberate attempt to mislead people.
Another very important question is: what is their motive, really? Traditionally, the purpose of prayer has often been to praise and/or communicate with God. But is this what is going on? I sincerely doubt that. In the recent Supreme Court decision, Justice Stephens wrote:
School sponsorship of a religious message is impermissible because it sends the ancillary message to members of the audience who are nonadherents that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community, and an accompanying message to adherents that they are insiders, favored members of the political community.
Now, that is obviously wrong for government agencies to do - and even more wrong when it is done based on religion. However, private citizens are free to send such messages - and in my opinion, that seems to be the sort of message in this case. This is our town. This is our school. You are not one of us, and that is Bad.
And although people are free to send exactly that sort of message to others, I must observe: is that really what they think prayer is for?
If I were a Christian, I would be outraged that people would use prayer in that manner. Prayer is supposed to be for communion with one's deity(ies), not for divisive political statements. I'm not a Christian, obviously, and I don't really care what people use their prayers for, but it still seems outrageous. I think that even I have more respect for prayer than that. Or maybe I just expect them to have more respect for prayer than that - I'm not sure.
One final question to ask: is that a very 'Christian' message to be sending, no matter what the method (prayer or otherwise)? Maybe, maybe not - but it is, at the very least, a very political message to be sending.
Because of this, the true colors of these people is revealed: their agenda is fundamentally political in nature, not religious. They may spend a lot of time complaining about the lack of religion in people's lives and how much kids today need God, but the fact of the matter is, they are using religion as a political and social tool in a struggle for power.
Whenever a religious symbol - either a physical symbol like a cross on public land or a more diffuse symbol like prayer - is the principle point of governmental action, one cultural (religious) group is immediately transformed into the winner and everyone else becomes losers. In this case, a religious symbol becomes a principle point of social action by people at a community event, and one group is transformed into 'insiders' while the rest become ëoutsiders.í
The goal of the action is to force the symbols and meanings of the winning cultural group to become the those of the culture at large. This is openly admitted by Evangelicals who proclaim that this is was founded as a "Christian Nation" and has to be returned to its religious roots.
This is even admitted at times by those involved. According to one person at one of this past weekend's games, "It's a defense of Christianity, basically." Another told reporters "It's not about praying anymore. It's about our rights and freedoms being taken away." Of course, no Christian's rights are taken away when they aren't allowed to use the government to promote their religion in the community.
Although this conflict is clearly more political than religious, it is a shame the Christianity has been so easily co-opted into this. It's also a shame that Christian leaders are allowing it to happen.
It is interesting, however, just how little support the efforts have received. In the Santa Fe district, where the original controversy and legal case began, prayer organizers evidently predicted around 10,000 "intercessors" and "prayer warriors" would be there. So strong was the belief that this would happen, ambulances, fire trucks and even extra security were brought in to take care of trouble.
In the end, thought, Associated Press reports that maybe 4,500 showed up for the gridiron match - less than was expected for a normal season opening match. Out of those, only around 200 openly reciting the prayer. According to the New York Times, most of those appeared to be out-of-towners - once again refuting the idea that all of this is spontaneous and even "grass roots."
There may not be much in the way of solid legal objections to this "unorganized" prayer, but there do seem to be a number of social (it's rude), moral (Christians shouldn't be sending such divisive messages of political and social exclusion) and religious (misuse of prayer) objections.
Christians such as these never seem to care very much about legal objections to their attempts to appropriate state organs for their religious goals. The question is, do they also not care about these social, moral and religious objections? If not - and I honestly suspect that many don't - then their true colors are even more clearly revealed.
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