AS A SELF-CONFESSED bleeding-heart liberal, adamantly in favor of the separation of church and state, I should really be getting riled up about Virginia's adoption of a moment of silence in its public schools. I should be thumbing through the Constitution looking for evidence that the founders would be rolling over in their graves about this. I should be concocting new protest chants.
Sadly, I just can't seem to get on board the indignation train. Why? Because there isn't a fight here, and because there are other things that we bleeding-heart liberals should be focusing on if we are truly worried about the separation of church and state.
About a year ago, the Virginia State Legislature passed a statute saying that public schools must incorporate a minute of silence into the school day. The law says that students can use the minute of silence "to meditate, pray or engage in any other silent activity."
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The American Civil Liberties Union has been lobbying to get the law overturned. Last week, with the start of a new school year fast approaching, they asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the minute of silence law. The ACLU argues that the law violates the establishment clause found in the First Amendment, which declares that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
There are a couple of reasons why I just can't get my hackles up about this. First, the minute of silence is just that -- a minute of silence. It is not a minute of prayer. Prayer is offered as one of the options for how students can use the time in addition to the suggestions of meditation or another silent activity. Students can use the time to think about their upcoming day, try to remember the dream they had the last night, or ponder the deep meaning behind the lyrics of the latest Britney tune -- whatever. The minute of silence does not mandate that students must or even should pray, by any calculation. It is simply offering prayer as an option.
The minute of silence the state legislature imposed does not fit the bill of a law respecting an establishment of religion either, because -- beyond not advocating that students should pray -- it does not advocate a certain way to pray.
Some opponents of the law think that it favors Christianity in some way and imposes that religion on students. It is difficult to see how that could be so, just because prayer is included in the list of things students can use the minute for. It's odd that the word "prayer" is, in some people's minds, associated with Christianity and only Christianity when, in fact, almost every religion provides for some sort of silent worship or reflection.
Sure, Methodists and Catholics pray, but so do Muslims. Buddhists meditate. Hindus pray; Jews do too. Heck, it's a big prayer party. The point is, Christians don't have a monopoly on prayer, so adding the word as an option for how students can spend their minute of silence isn't an indication that the state is in some way favoring or promoting Christianity.
The ACLU thinks the minute of silence law is a sneaky way for legislators to bring prayer into the school. They claim that "although the statute permits students to engage in other forms of silent or meditative activity during the daily time period set aside in the classroom, the statute was enacted specifically to facilitate and encourage student prayer at that fixed time" ("Va. Minute of Silence Challenged," The Washington Post, Sept. 1). Actually, the reality is much more benign, and considerably more boring.
The author of the law, State Sen. Warren E. Barry, is a Republican from Fairfax who describes himself as "not a religious person," according to the Post article. He told the Post that he proposed the legislation not to promote prayer, but to improve kids' behavior in school simply by requiring them to be quiet for at least one minute every day.
Sure, perhaps it is all part of an underhanded plan to get religion into schools. Maybe the Virginia state legislature will advocate that public school children begin singing hymns or something. If that happens -- if the slope becomes slippery and a measure is proposed that would actively encourage or require religious activity -- we can deal with it when it comes.
For now, people who are committed to championing the separation of church and state have more important things to worry about. To name one, government funding of faith-based charities that aren't forced to comply with anti-discrimination laws. Faced with such a real, immediate threat to the First Amendment, a minute of silence that does not even actively encourage or mandate prayer just isn't an effective use of energy.
(Laura Sahramaa is a Cavalier Daily associate editor. She can be reached at lsahramaa@cavalierdaily.com.)
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