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It’s About Power, Not Piety |
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Efforts to post the Ten Commandments in public schools are about symbolically expressing power, not piety. |
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Religious fundamentalism is about power, not piety |
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December 27, 2001 |
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Note: This opinion column appeared in the Lexington Herald-Leader newspaper in December 2001. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” The latest controversy surrounding this portion of the Constitution is the attempts by seven Kentucky counties to post the Ten Commandments in public buildings. Such action is a violation of the First Amendment, made applicable to state and local laws through the 14th Amendment. The Supreme Court’s decision in Lemon v. Kurtzman declared that a violation of the Establishment Clause has occurred if the government’s action has a religious purpose or if its primary effect is to advance or endorse religion. Posting the Commandments violates both these criteria. In challenging the first criterion, some claim that posting the Commandments as part of a historical display advances a secular purpose. This is, however, merely subterfuge for sneaking the Decalogue into public buildings after failed attempts to post them alone. Some say, “The Constitution says freedom of religion, not freedom from it.” Wrong. The First Amendment grants one the freedom from living in a country with a governmentally established religion. Others claim that the will of the majority is ignored when judges overturn laws respecting religion. Our Constitution was written, however, so that certain fundamental, inviolable rights, such as those in the First Amendment, could never be taken away by a majority. Some purport that Christians are being denied free exercise of religion. False. No one is saying that students cannot pray at school. Students can pray, in groups or individually, before school, between classes, during lunch and after school. What is prohibited is prayer that holds the audience captive, such as student- or teacher-led prayer during class. Some state, “How can anyone be against murder, adultery, lying and stealing?” No one disputes that these are bad. The first four Commandments, however, deal directly with religion. The first Commandment is, “You shall have no other gods before me.” Governmental promotion of this Commandment is incompatible with freedom of religion. Furthermore, has anyone considered how children of non-Judeo-Christian faiths are supposed to react to this? Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black, a constitutional and Christian fundamentalist, stated in the landmark school prayer case of Engel v. Vitale said that one of the purposes of the Establishment Clause “rested upon an awareness of the historical fact that governmentally established religions and religious persecutions go hand in hand.” This animosity was perceptible in the way that Rep. Kathy Stein, the only Jewish member of the Kentucky General Assembly, was treated during the 2000 legislative session. During floor debate, one representative pointedly asked her, “Do you believe in Jesus Christ as the Lord and Savior?” Such public questioning turns the General Assembly into a hostile religious tribunal. We are a secular nation. There is no historical merit to the claim that the United States was intended to be a Christian nation. If it had been so important it would have been mentioned in the Constitution. Many of the original settlers of this land were escaping religious persecution in Europe. Many of our Founding Fathers were Deists who rejected mainstream religion. When Benjamin Franklin proposed prayer during the Constitutional Convention, he was argued down. James Madison, the author of the First Amendment, wrote, “It is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties….Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christianity…?” Many are concerned about moral decline and feel that religion in schools is the answer. Posting the Decalogue and reciting watered-down non-denominational prayers is not the panacea to complex social problems stemming from poverty, inequality and lack of opportunity. Addressing social problems involves truly living what you preach and engaging in individualized outreach to those that need help. It involves reforming the political, economic and educational institutions that propagate the poverty, inequality and lack of opportunity endemic to much of Kentucky. Understandably, fundamentalists feel a loss of control in an increasingly globalized and diversified world, and want to “take back their country.” They wish to hold students as captive audiences to the pronouncement of their religious beliefs. Ultimately, this is about a symbolic display of power, not piety. |