Nonsense and the First Amendment

When will we recognize that religious freedom is the premier freedom of the Bill of Rights?

In 1644, the English poet John Milton wrote the Areopagetica, an impassioned plea against censorship after the government tried to control some of his earlier published work. In that earlier work Milton had stated his perspectives on biblical faith as against the pompous show of the state church. Milton’s Areopagitica would help ignite revolutionary fires in the American colonies. It contributed to a firmer foundation for the First Amendment freedoms in our own Constitution.

Ironically, that same First Amendment has become a lethal weapon aimed at one of the causes for which Milton stood—the free expression of religious ideals. Today the battle is being fought in the nation’s public school systems. Whether the particular issue is prayer, the posting of the Ten Commandments, or the gathering of students for quiet Bible study, the same tiresome complaint is heard: Because the First Amendment prohibits the establishment of religion, any trace of religion in any public school must be a constitutional trespass. The American Civil Liberties Union has used this convolution (along with its willingness to sue) to bully local school boards into erasing all evidence of religious expression from junior and senior high schools. The usual result has been that voluntary prayer or Bible study groups are refused permission to meet on school property, even though all manner of nonreligious student clubs are active. In a few cases, the decisions have been bizarre:

•The principal of the Lake Worth (Fla.) Community High School stopped the distribution of the 1982–83 yearbook when he discovered an objectionable page. On it was a picture and description of the school’s Bible club and a Scripture passage, John 3:16. The principal ordered his staff to cut out the page with razor blades.

• In the Boulder, Colorado, school district, two or more students cannot sit together for the purpose of religious discussion.

• A teacher in that same district was reprimanded for passing out invitations to a private Christmas party. The error was the use of the word “Christmas.” In Boulder schools, the accepted term is “winter holiday.”

Earlier this year in Washington, D.C., Sen. Jeremiah Denton held hearings on the situation, and speaker after speaker raised questions that carved this irrational state of affairs in bold relief: How is it that high school students can address God profanely in the hallway, but not reverently in the classroom? Why must they pledge allegiance to a nation under God, yet be denied permission to discuss the nature of that God? By what logic can students meet after school to hear the philosophies of Plato, Marx, and Hitler but not Moses, Jesus, and Paul?

The First Amendment to the Constitutions of the United States

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Thankfully, the nonsense seems to be near its end. Over the summer, first the Senate, and then the House, passed bills (see the article in News) based on the free speech argument. They granted equal access to public school facilities for students who wish to hold religious, philosophical, or political meetings. (The inclusion of the last two categories was a sop to certain senators who begrudged any attention given only to religion, although clearly it has been only religion that has been the subject of discrimination. No one is harassing the Young Democrats or the Aristotelian Society.)

House Speaker Thomas P. O’Neill inspired no one by his strenuous and futile gyrations to kill the bill in the face of overwhelming bipartisan support for it. By the time the bill reached the House, the Senate had already passed it 88 to 11, and in spite of O’Neill’s obstinance, the House passed it 337 to 77. President Reagan’s support made his signature certain.

By the stunning refusal of the American Civil Liberties Union to endorse the bill, even with its clear foundations in the First Amendment right of free speech, the ACLU has proven itself to be what evangelicals have believed for some time: infected by virulent, antireligious prejudice. Its own handbook on student rights is unequivocal in advising high school students that they may exercise free speech rights by protesting, passing out literature, holding rallies, inviting outside speakers, and forming school clubs. The handbook was published to guide students in expressing antiwar sentiment during the Vietnam years of the early seventies. Now in the eighties, when the issue is religious sentiment, the ACLU keeps silent, and thereby speaks volumes about itself.

Those who oppose the equal access bill make one of two arguments. The first is that high school students are immature, too vulnerable to handle religious pressures properly. Yet those who say this are by and large the same ones who champion the right to abortion and contraceptives for these same students without parental consent. (Under the equal access bill, parents may withhold consent for their children to attend religious meetings at school. Under current law, they have no such right in the matter of abortion or contraception.) Additionally, the Supreme Court has ruled clearly that, immature or not, high school students do not leave constitutional rights at the schoolhouse door. We can appreciate that high school students are not mature adults. But the eradication of all religious influence from their high school communities is unnatural. It teaches powerfully that religion is not among the respectable choices in life, and this is an intolerable overreaction to the problem of church-state separation.

The second argument of the opposition is that the bill invites the admission of not only legitimate groups, but every cult and religious aberration. Actually, under the bill school principals retain full control over disruptive influences. But the larger point is that evangelicals do not fear the free marketplace of ideas. The real fear, borne out in tearful history, is that the intolerance of the state, either by its government or its official church, is by far the greater danger. It was John Stuart Mill who said, “Men are not more zealous for truth than they often are for error, and a sufficient application of legal, or even of social penalties will generally succeed in stopping the propagation of either.” Mill noted that the Reformation was put down 20 times before Luther.

We are thankful this bill has passed Congress, and yet we feel a certain dissatisfaction with the state of the matter. The premise of equal access is that by virtue of the First Amendment, extracurricular religious meetings deserve the same considerations given all others. That is true, but it does not end the discussion. Religious freedom is the first of the preferred freedoms in the Bill of Rights, and what that means must be recognized. The country cannot endure without the primacy of Judeo-Christian principle, nor was it meant to. In his farewell address to the young nation, George Washington said, “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.” Only when that truth is once again honored will the turmoil over religious freedom cease.

Have something to add about this? See something we missed? Share your feedback here.