Louisiana mayrestore school prayer
By Kathy Finn
NEW ORLEANS, (UPI) -- The way LouisianaGov. Mike Foster sees it, the issue of whether public school studentsshould be allowed to pray in a classroom is simple.
"The Supreme Court opens with a prayer,the Congress opens with a prayer ... we have 'In God we trust'on all our currency ... yet (prayer) is almost totally prohibitedin the school system," Foster said. "It's frustrating."
For at least the last 40 years, politiciansand courts have batted back and forth the question of whetherstudents in public schools have a constitutional right to prayin a school setting. Some say the roots of the question reacheven deeper into U.S. history.
"If the state cannot accommodate allreligious beliefs, including nonbelievers, then (religion) oughtto be kept separate -- that's what Thomas Jefferson meant aboutseparation between church and state," said Joe Cook, executivedirector of the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana.
Intent of the founding fathers aside, Cook'sposition is at odds with the Louisiana Legislature, which recentlysent Foster two bills that would ease restrictions on prayer inthe state's public schools.
One bill, authored by state Rep. Tony Perkins,a Republican, reinstates the legal right of public school studentsto participate in silent prayer or meditation within an educationalsetting.
The measure restores protections that previouslyexisted in the state but were altered in 1999 when Louisiana amendedits law to include prayer spoken aloud; a federal judge laterruled the 1999 law unconstitutional. An appeal of that rulingis pending.
The new prayer bill states that public schoolboards will allow for a brief period of silent prayer at the beginningof each school day. It drew no opposition on either the Houseor Senate floor, and Foster said he would sign it soon. "It'spretty much the will of the people," he said.
In some states, questions over the divisionbetween church and state seldom stir much debate. But where religioustraditions intermingle closely with cultural and social habits,the separation tends to be a bigger issue.
In Louisiana, with a staunch Baptist traditionin the northern part of the state and a pervasive French Catholicinfluence in the south, there are relatively few people who don'ttake religion seriously.
Perkins said the pressure to make it easierfor Louisiana students to pray in school settings grew especiallystrong last year. Frustration over the issue became acute afterthe terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, he said.
"The president was calling on the wholenation to come together and pray," Perkins said. But sinceLouisiana's 1999 school prayer law had been struck down, the statewas "without any statutory guidance" on the matter.
Perkins said he began receiving calls frompublic school administrators in his district seeking advice onhow to proceed without putting themselves at legal risk.
He believes his bill addresses the problemwithout exerting undue pressure on students.
"It's completely a silent and voluntarything," he said. "I'm a firm believer that, while theACLU won't be able to hear the silent prayers, that God will hearthe prayers of the children in our schools, and that's what countsin my opinion."
Cook takes issue.
In his opinion, Louisiana and other statesare showing an "anti-religious freedom" bent in pushingschool prayer.
"We are the most religiously diversenation in the world, with some 1,500 different groups identifiedwith particular religions or beliefs," Cook said.
"The ACLU is pro-religious freedom,"he adds.
But Cook said bills like those recentlysent to Louisiana's governor are not about protecting freedomof speech. Rather, he said, the outcome of "government- orstate-endorsed prayer" is to "coerce students to goalong with it in order not to be seen as outsiders or displeaseteachers or administrators."
Since the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed mandatoryschool prayer in 1962, various state and local governments havesought to modify the stand. Turning back one such effort justa few years ago, the high court said that student-led prayersat the football games of a Texas high school were unconstitutional.
The court leaned in another direction lastyear on an issue in the Northeast. It ruled in June that a NewYork school district could not stand in the way of prayer gatheringsby students after normal school hours.
This month in Louisiana, yet another billarose in tandem with the silent prayer measure now on the governor'sdesk. Proposed by Republican state Rep. Jane Smith, the bill wouldallow student-led and student-initiated prayer in schools withinBossier Parish, the Louisiana equivalent of a county.
Smith said the bill aims to enable groupprayer before such events as high school football games. In viewof the high court's stance on a similar law in Texas, this onecould be headed for an early challenge.
The governor has not yet fully consideredthe bill but said he will likely sign it. Meanwhile, the ACLU'sCook insists that both Louisiana bills push into territory wherethe Legislature does not belong.
"Government ought not to be in thebusiness of endorsing religion as prohibited by the Supreme Court,"Cook said.
"Remember that slavery and such thingsas the denial of women's right to vote were legal for a long time,"he said.
"Some things ought not to be put upfor a majority vote."