Rick is the one who is cheering students who force their religion on
others. And I am still waiting for the answer whether it was a Catholic
or Protestant Lord's Prayer and wondering if any of the Catholics
(assuming it is a Protestant version) find this offensive. I of course
found either version offensive when schools forced me to say them as a
child. The fact is, this is about he tryanny of the majority in a place
where all children should be free to not have to worry about the school
or their class mastes harrassing them about religion. There is no
"tyrant" here preventing children from praying; it is a simple time
place issue; public schools are not the place and when in public school
is not the time to engage in religous worship. Why is that so hard to
understand?
Paul Finkelman
Kurt Lash wrote:
I think that the denigration of Rick and his original post has gone a
bit overboard.
As I understand the facts (and I could be wrong), the students voted
on a graduation speaker and that speaker planned on including a prayer
as part of her speech. In an injunction based on a suit filed only
days before, the judge prohibited the student from praying.
Apparently prayers were a traditional part of the ceremony, but it's
not clear how they took place.
But taking the facts as known, I am not at all convinced that the
Court's establishment clause jurisprudence forbids all prayers by
invited private speakers (including students) at school events. Could
she have been held in contempt if she declared "God have mercy on the
souls of those killed in Iraq"? It seems to me that when the
government opens a space for private speech, forbiding private
speakers from engaging in "religion talk" raises serious First
Amendment issues.
It begs the question to assert "tyranny of the majority." As I tell
my students, the only thing worse than a tyranical majority is a
tyrannical minority--or a single tyrant. The issue is whether a
supermajority of the people, at a moment in time, enshrined a
principle in our constitution which justifies the injunction in this
case. Unless I am wrong about the facts, I am not at all convinced
that it does.
The students' action/protest not only accepted (for the moment) the
court's ruling (no lynch mob here), I thougt its symbolism was quite
potent: "The courts cannot silence our private religious speech."
They may have acted from a religious/majoritarian impulse, but the
constitutional principle involved protects both the majority and
minority from unwarranted government censorship--whether by courts or
by school boards, and whether the speech is secular or religious.
Kurt Lash
Loyola Law School (L.A.)
PS: There is, of course, a serious issue regarding the degree to which
members of an an audience may prevent a speaker from speaking, or a
ceremony from taking place, through their disruptive protests--whether
religious or secular based. This issue, however, has nothing to do
with the establishment issues raised by those responding to Rick's
post.
--
Paul Finkelman
Chapman Distinguished Professor of Law
University of Tulsa College of Law
3120 East 4th Place
Tulsa, OK 74104-3189
918-631-3706 (office)
918-631-2194 (fax)
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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