Wednesday, 5/28/97 Prayer has been, is, will always be voluntary
RELIGION: Judge’s display of Ten Commandments shows fine line in
church-state debate
By Jim Wright Just where to draw the line between a nation
rooted in religious faith and a state-sponsored religion continues
to plague the minds of our most fastidious legal dogmatists. In
Alabama, a local judge named Roy Moore has been defying the edict
of a higher state court concerning a large plaque proclaiming the
Ten Commandments directly above the judge’s bench, and Moore’s
practice of inviting exclusively Christian clergy to lead his
juries in prayers. The Montgomery, Ala., court declared the prayers
an unconstitutional exercise of official power to force the judge’s
own particular religious beliefs upon others. The Ten Commandments
could stay, said the higher court, if displayed with other objects
of "historical, educational or secular context." This did not suit
Moore, who vows to keep the commandments exactly where they are
with no other adornment and to continue the practice of prayers by
Christian ministers. Alabama Gov. Fob James hastened to back Moore,
swearing to use "force of arms" if necessary to prevent
implementation of the superior court’s order. These are state, not
federal, courts. But on March 5, the U.S. House of Representatives
jumped headlong into the fray. By 295 to 125, the House voted
support for Moore’s position – no doubt a popular political vote,
putting supportive incumbents safely on the side of the Ten
Commandments. Moore, spoiling for just such a fight, seems happier
than B’rer Rabbit in the briar patch. Moore might have satisfied
the Alabama courts by placing framed copies of the Declaration of
Independence and the Bill of Rights on either side of his Ten
Commandments display and discontinuing the official court-sponsored
prayers. Instead, he called the doctrine of separation of church
and state "a lie," volunteering that he’d never permit any Muslim
or Buddhist prayers in his courtroom because "they do not
acknowledge the God of the Holy Bible." This, thoughtful people may
agree, is where the judge stepped across the line. The First
Amendment forbids public authority from either establishing a state
religion or "prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Separation of
church and state means not the separation of religion from life,
but preventing public power from propagating specific religious
beliefs or stifling others. By itself, there can be nothing wrong
with a copy of the Ten Commandments hanging in a courthouse. Their
preachments are fundamental. They underlie much of the law enforced
there: Thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not steal. In a courtroom,
"Thou shalt not bear false witness" seems especially relevant. In
this instance, the Montgomery court held that Moore was using the
symbol as a weapon to force his own brand of religious belief upon
others. It’s a fine line. In colonial times, several colonies had
official churches, some supported by taxation. But these ties were
eventually severed by the First Amendment. We wanted no national
church, no official dogma, no religious wars, no persecution.
Everyone should be free to worship or not as individual conscience
dictates. Still, ours is a heritage of prayer and faith. To say
otherwise would be to ignore history and current reality. Our
Declaration of Independence speaks of the Creator, of nature’s God,
of divine providence. When delegates came to a seeming impasse in
writing the Constitution, Benjamin Franklin called them to prayer.
Both House and Senate begin their daily sessions with prayer
conducted by a chaplain who is paid with tax dollars. Just off the
Capitol’s rotunda is a small room, equipped for private meditation
and prayer. Its stained-glass window depicts George Washington
kneeling in prayer. Every Thursday morning while Congress is in
session, House members gather for a private prayer breakfast.
Senators have a similar unadvertised arrangement. Every year for
the past 44, the president has attended an annual presidential
prayer breakfast. When Richard Nixon was president, he invited
guests to weekly Sunday morning worship services in the White
House. Our coinage proclaims, "In God We Trust." Our pledge of
allegiance calls us "one nation under God." Abraham Lincoln spoke
at Gettysburg of "this nation under God," and his second inaugural
address may be the most profoundly religious utterance ever made by
a head of state. Even in the Soviet Union, through some 70 years of
Communist rule when official doctrine denied the validity of
religion and government tried to suppress its practice, its fires
never went out. Judge Moore of Etowah County, Ala., might as well
relax. The preservation of the nation’s religious heritage does not
depend upon his courtroom display. And the likes of Madalyn Murray
O’Hair may just as well forget it. They’ll never expunge religion
from American life. With the Ten Commandments in mind, the noted
18th-century English legal scholar Sir William Blackstone wrote in
1765 that the law of God "is of course superior in obligation to
any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries, and
at all times: no human laws are of any validity if contrary to
this; and such of them as are valid derive all their force, and all
their authority, from this original." So it is with religion, and
ever will it be. No government can command or forbid it. Since time
began, no human has forced another to pray, or prohibited another’s
doing so. Prayer is, by its very nature, voluntary. It is
individual. And therein lies its strength. Previous Daily Bruin
story: Separating church and state