http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/28/us/28delaware.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=school%20prayer&st=cse&oref=slogin
I stumbled upon an article in The New York Times about a lawsuit that was settled in February of this year. The lawsuit was issued by two Orthodox Jewish families in Georgetown, Delaware who objected to Christian prayers being recited in the local public school and at school-related events such as sporting events, graduation and school assemblies/meetings. The two families, one of which talks to The New York Times, are two of the only Jewish members of the community and experienced a heavy backlash from the Christian community. Eventually the two families won the case and were rewarded an unspecified financial settlement.
This case is clearly a violation of the first amendment, specifically the establishment clause, and therefore the case was rightly decided. Complaints from the community included claims from many local Christians that saw the lawsuit as an effort to limit the free exercise of religion. Indeed, the decision by the court is restricting exercise of religion…in public schools.
The reason this particular article struck me was not because of the decision of the court, as it was the right decision. What startles me is the apparent basic lack of understanding on the part of Americans, regarding the First Amendment. Americans, on the whole, seem to appreciate and emphatically support the free-exercise clause, but do not understand the constraints of that clause, imposed by the legal force of the establishment clause. If American society gave equal weight to the two clauses then we would never see (save for a few anomalies) any sort of prayer or traditional religious activities (for religious purpose) in public schools. In this case, and after the settlement, the school districts attorney “…did not concede that it had violated the First Amendment through its practices.” How can this possibly be?
As mentioned earlier, the two families who brought this case to the court have faced serious anger from the local Christian community. Hate mail, protests (which have included signs like “Praise Jesus”) and other forms of retaliation even forced one of the families to leave Georgetown, Delaware. In the process of moving, the family faced financial ruin and even had to pull their eldest daughter out of Columbia University because they could no longer afford it. Because members of a community complained about a violation of the First Amendment they were forced out of their home. Those who retaliated against these families’ complaint, in “defense” of their “right to exercise,” are actually themselves defending the violation of the Constitution.
Why is it that our country does not seem to understand that the First Amendment protects both the free exercise of religion and the de-establishment of religion. There must be a separation of Church and State and Americans must come to understand the importance of this vision, as outlined by James Madison. Just as with Creationism-in-public-schools debate, because a group of people (or even 100% of the local community) very strongly believe in a certain faith, it does not mean that it should have a place in the public sphere (and by this refer to federally funded or operated places). At the end of the article, one of the families discuss their attempt to move their son back into the community to attend school. They realized that this would not be possible after their son was playing in the yard and a few passing children yelled, “There’s that boy who’s suing Jesus.” No, his family wasn’t “suing Jesus,” his family was suing the district to keep Jesus out of public schools.
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5 comments:
It's interesting how the First Amendment is often used as an argument for the opposite of its intention. People who want to impose their ideas and beliefs upon others sometimes seem to think that not being allowed to do so is a violation of their rights. Some of the members of the community in the article would be a good example. Another good example would be the ministers who claim "freedom of speech" to support a particular candidate at their churches. The "equal time" argument for creationism also seems loosely related to this idea of government "denying" religious rights.
I think that this post hints at an interesting observation. It seems like Americans are eager to turn to the Constitution when it comes to exercising their right to practice religion openly. But, when it comes to protecting other Americans’ right to not have other religions imposed on them, they seem more reluctant to acknowledge the Constitution. I attended both a private high school and a public elementary school. In my opinion, just because the school cannot prioritize on religion over another and encourage students to practice a given religion’s traditions, such as praying in school to start the day, does not mean that an student cannot practice their religion individually and privately, or even within a student group. But, what seems more dangerous is that if the school mandates that everyone must pray to the same God, then their will inevitably be students who are ostracized and made to feel that their religion is less valid.
This is such a sad story, and I appreciate Maggie's observation about how people enjoy the freedoms of the constitution but are reluctant to acknowledge the bounds of those freedoms.
What it comes down to is that the free exercise of the (majority) Christians was not at all violated here. No body said they couldn't pray to Jesus, it was just that state funds in a public school couldn't push this prayer on the children.
What's ironic is that the Jewish people did a very patriotic thing - they stood up for their rights and the 'freedom from establishment' that America was built on. In return, the rest of the community preached a message of intolerance.
The irony that people use the First Amendment to try to get (their specific) religion back into public schools is certainly worth noting. The behavior of this community is shocking; even when the overwhelming religious majority supports something, it still does not mean that it has a place in a taxpayer funded public school. Students are all allowed to pray in school on their own time, in an unorganized fashion - the school does not need to (and should not) endorse such an activity.
I think I've become desensitized to the amount of ignorant views held by the American public. Just as citizens in this Delaware town demonstrated a "basic lack of understanding" of the first Amendment, it was revealed in a poll today that 23% of Texans believe that Obamam is Muslim (http://www.utexas.edu/news/2008/10/30/politics_poll/) Beyond the fundamental question of "so what if Obama were Muslim," it's startling to note how fundamentally ignorant the common man and woman are on basic facts. In late 2006, for example, 70% percent of those surveyed in a USA today poll believed Iraq to be behind the attacks of September 11th. (http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2003-09-06-poll-iraq_x.htm) One cannot help but raise the issue of if this misunderstanding aided in the re-election of President George W Bush to a second term. I know this comment may be a bit cynical, but I find it discouraging to live in a democracy where such (mis)beliefs are propagated. To end on a (semi)good note, at least the United States is not as bad as Israel, where 28% of Israeli Arabs deny that the holocaust ever occurred. (http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1173879113692)
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