Re: Teenagers &The Spirit of Liberty

[Ed Brayton]

Rick Duncan wrote: "This conflict isn't about "free speech" or even a 60-second prayer; it's about who gets to define what kind of nation we are." Charles Haynes First Amendment Center   I agree with this insight. I don't think this issue is about the majority of students bullying a classmate as some have suggested. Do you really think that booing the Muslim student who objected to the prayer is *not* bullying? If so, perhaps you have a very different definition of booing than I do. I think it is about students taking a stand against a particular view of America, a view that wishes to impose a strictly secular establishment in the schools. I guess they (the students who took a stand and their parents who applauded) would say that it is better for the people to define the role of religion in the schools than for the ACLU and federal courts to do so. That's an absolutely absurd position. By that position, if "the people" decided to mandate that all students pray 5 times a day toward Mecca, the ACLU and federal courts could have no say in it. It's one thing to argue that this particular type of prayer does not violate the establishment clause (I think most of us agree that it's a close call, given the precedents); it's quite another to think that "the people" should get to decide whatever role religion will play in public schools. That is a pure recipe for majoritarian tyranny.   I personally am not one who wishes to use public schools to impose religion on dissenters. But I am also strongly imposed to the public schools becoming an engine of secularization, a place where religious children need to wear a secular mask when taking part in school activities. And you honestly think that if students cannot force other students to sit through their religious exercises, then schools are "engines of secularization"? By that logic, then, could not a Muslim argue that allowing others to force them to sit through Christian prayers makes the schools an "engine of Christianization"?   Again, school choice is the solution to this problem of "defining" what kind of nation we are and what kind of schools we attend. It does not have to be either religious schools and prayer or secular schools and no prayer. It can be both. The one for those who value religion as a necessary part of the education of children; and the other for those who don't. I agree with this, but we still must decide what goes on in public schools right now as they exist. And since A) public schools include a diverse student body of a multitude of religious viewpoints; B) religious exercises have no role to play in the educational mission of the school; and C) allowing any one religion to have access to force other religions to sit through their religious exercises during school activities can only result in alienation and conflict; it is clear to me that the best policy is simply to keep religion out of school activities altogether.   But if we have a government school monopoly, and if someone tries to impose a strictly secular environment within that monopoly, then I will applaud students who stand up and say "we will not be silenced; we are going to participate in defining what kind of nation we are." These kids are heroes in my book. Their parents should be proud of them. But I doubt you would feel that way if the facts were turned around only slightly. Let's take a hypothetical. Let's say in the middle of the student's prayer, a group of Muslim students stood up and began to loudly recite an Islamic prayer in Arabic. Would you still applaud those students for standing up and saying "we will not be silenced, we are going to participate in defining what kind of nation we are"? I highly doubt it. I think you only applaud this because your views sit squarely with the majority, which in my mind means that it does amount to bullying - we have the numbers, so you're just going to have to sit there and take it while we carry out our religious exercises during a school event where religion is completely irrelevant to the process of education. If you were in the minority, I suspect your opinion would be dramatically different. Ed Brayton

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