ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Thursday, Nov. 01 2007

We've drifted from founders' vision of religious freedom
By Colleen Carroll Campbell

The latest salvo in America's war over prayer in public schools was fired in
Illinois last week when atheist activist Rob Sherman sued his daughter's
suburban Chicago district to protest a new state law that mandates a daily
moment of silence. Sherman and his 14-year-old daughter, Dawn, said the
15-second silent period observed in her high school is interrupting her
education.

The Shermans have a habit of sweating the small stuff. Dawn successfully
campaigned to scratch "God Bless America" from her school's homecoming song
list this fall. Her father has battled to remove religious symbols from city
seals, sever the link between the Boy Scouts and a local police department and
stop student recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance.

Like most of his crusades, the law Sherman is battling now is more symbolic
than substantive. Even its defenders do not claim that a few seconds of silence
will transform public schools into havens of piety and order.

But both sides know that symbolic laws can have serious consequences. Since
1947, when the U.S. Supreme Court first began defining how states should handle
religion in schools, the courts have waged a vigorous campaign to secularize
public education. Through a series of rulings on largely symbolic matters,
judges have sent a powerful message that religious faith is something citizens
should keep to themselves.

That message does not match the vision of America's founding fathers. Contrary
to claims by revisionist historians, the founders did not see the First
Amendment as a way to purge religion from the public square. They saw it as a
way to prevent the establishment of a state church that threatened to stifle
authentic religious expression and make religion subordinate to the state.

The founders considered religion essential to America's character and crucial
to the endurance of a vibrant, virtuous democracy. George Washington said
"religion and morality are indispensable supports" to political prosperity.
John Adams warned that our Constitution was designed "only for a religious and
moral people" and is "wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

Even Thomas Jefferson, patron saint of American secularists, professed respect
for religion's role in public life. As president, he attended church services
at the U.S. Capitol and provided the Marine Band to play for them at public
expense.

Strict separationists cite Jefferson's reference to a "wall of separation
between Church and State" as the key to interpreting the First Amendment's
establishment clause. But he was not in the United States when the founders
were drafting the First Amendment, and his phrase is not in the Constitution.
It appears in a private letter Jefferson wrote more than a decade after the
amendment was drafted.

Such inconvenient facts have not stopped secularists from invoking the founders
as they seek to banish all religious influences from public life and public
schools. Thanks to activist judges, they have succeeded in making many public
schools places where condoms are distributed but Christmas carols are banned,
and where school officials punish teachers for leaving Bibles on their desks,
football coaches for joining their players in prayer and valedictorians for
thanking God at graduation.

Surveys find that the public resents such extreme secularization efforts.
Proselytizing and force-fed Bible verses have no place in public schools, but
most Americans can distinguish between catechism classes and 15-second silent
periods.

Those who cannot are free to persuade their fellow citizens and elected
representatives of their views. Such persuasion is less glamorous than
litigation. But it can teach students more valuable lessons — about the
challenges of religious pluralism, the demands of democratic self-governance
and the right to free expression that belongs to believers and atheists alike.

Colleen Carroll Campbell is an author, television host and St. Louis-based
fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Her website is
www.colleen-campbell.com.