Schools Harass Christians, Coddle Other Faiths
by David A.Yeagley
FrontPageMagazine.com
June 21, 2001
IN NEW YORK CITY, Muslims can pray in public schools. Christians can’t. Muslims can assemble in school auditoriums, during school hours, and pray. Christians cannot.
So says the New York Post, in a Dec.1, 2000 article titled, “Muslim Kids Get To Pray In School For Ramadan,” by Carl Campanile. This article didn’t make it far in the national news. I found it referenced in a rather obscure Christian newspaper out of Fort Worth, Texas, The Hour of Prophecy.
I thought, “Are these Texans the only people that care? How could this situation not make national headlines?” It marks one of the most dramatic inconsistencies of Constitutional interpretation in recent history.
At Lafayette High School, in Bensonhurst, in Brooklyn Technical & International in Queens, and in other Brooklyn schools, Muslim students are allowed to assemble and worship publicly in school auditoriums or makeshift prayer rooms during the regular school day.
At Lafayette, “The school lets us do our own prayer. It’s beautiful,” said Umit Kulug, a 17-year-old senior from Turkey, according to the Post. “They let one hundred of us boys and girls pray together in a big auditorium. Some of the non-Islamic students get a pass to watch us pray.” Kulig said teachers help students catch up on what they missed in class.
On the other hand, the Post notes, a Bensonhurst school mural dedicated to youths who had died was painted over just a few weeks before Ramadan, because it featured Jesus Christ.
Christmas songs heralding the name of Christ are not allowed in public schools. There cannot be Bible reading or Christian prayer, because this violates the separation of church and state.
The First Amendment reads: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Americans disagree on what this means. Chief Justice Rehnquist has opined that, “There is simply no historical foundation for the proposition that the Framers [of the Constitution] intended to build a wall of separation [between church and state].” (Wallace v. Jafree, 1985)
On the other hand, the Supreme Court ruled in 1962 that school prayer violated the Constitution. But how did any of this ever come to mean that Muslims can worship in public schools, but Christians can’t?
There is more.
In 1998, Tibetan monks conducted Tantric Buddhist devotionals in the public schools of Grand County, Utah, according to reports by the Jefferson 21st Century Institute. Two California school districts have introduced New Age curricula honoring Lucifer, God of Light.
Liberal authorities seem to show unlimited compassion for anything that is foreign to America’s foundational values. Is this the intent of the Constitution? If Christian worship in public schools is prohibited because it would be considered the state’s “respecting an establishment of religion,” then why doesn’t the same logic apply to the Muslim, Buddhist, New Age or Satanist religions?
Ralph Waldo Emerson considered a foolish consistency “the hobgoblin of little minds.” Recently, the Supreme Court took a step in the direction of Emersonian large-mindedness. On the front page of the Dallas Morning News, June 12, Mark Curriden reports that the U.S. Supreme Court “clarified a murky area of constitutional law involving the separation of church and state.” In “Justices Say Religious Clubs Can Meet At Public Schools,” Curriden seems to laud the court decision [Monday, June 11] that allows church groups to use public school facilities, so long as the meetings are open to the public.
The decision directly affects a situation in Dallas. The Dallas Independent School District had heretofore refused to let church groups use school facilities, rejecting more than 70 such requests just last year. Now the DISD is reversing its policy, and will allow churches, like any other civic group, to use school buildings.
So, we have Muslims allowed to worship in school, during school hours, and now Christian church groups can at least use the school buildings – after hours. It’s not exactly equality, but that has to be some kind of step in the right direction, no? Well, leave it to those freedom-loving Texans to at least report this news as well.
Don’t worry. I’m not going to advocate the peyote cult of my Comanche ancestor Mumsekai for public school practice. We Indians are much more reserved about our religious beliefs. I just think America needs to remember the principles it was built on. And I don’t think Islam, New Age-ism or Buddhism were among them.
Dr. David A. Yeagley will begin teaching humanities at the College of Liberal Studies, University of Oklahoma in the fall. His opinions are independent. He holds degrees from Yale, Emory, Oberlin, University of Arizona and University of Hartford.