Posted on 07/01/2002 3:17:27 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
Civil libertarians and religious conservatives, who differ in many ways, have one thing in common at the moment: They don't know whether to laugh or cry. That's because of the startling juxtaposition last week of two court decisions. The first, from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, ruled the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional because of its religious content. The second, issued by the Supreme Court, upheld school vouchers that go mostly to religious schools in Cleveland.
The ACLU applauded the former and deplored the latter, while the Bush administration did exactly the opposite. Across the spectrum, the verdicts produced intensely mixed emotions. In many quarters, the news was like hearing that your new Mercedes had gone off a cliff -- with your least favorite in-law behind the wheel.
It may be maddening to see courts reach such contradictory conclusions, seemingly going to war against religion in one case and coming to its assistance in the other. But consider another possibility: that the two courts were not only both right but were acting on behalf of the same sound constitutional principle.
The principle can be summed up in two words: official neutrality. It stipulates that in dealing with religion, the government should be neither ally nor adversary. The First Amendment not only protects freedom of religion but forbids government support of religion.
These provisions are not opposed but complementary. Both are meant to assure that religion is entirely the voluntary decision of every American. In the words of James Madison, architect of the Constitution, "It is the duty of every man to render to the Creator such homage, and such only, as he believes to be acceptable to him."
The two court decisions are opposite sides of the same coin. The Cleveland program gives parents vouchers that can be used to pay up to 90 percent of tuition at private schools, including religious ones. Opponents say this violates the constitutional ban on the establishment of religion by channeling tax dollars into church-run institutions.
It turns out that 82 percent of the private schools participating in the system are religious, and 96 percent of the students using the vouchers go to religious schools. "The scale of the aid to religious schools approved today is unprecedented," argued dissenting Justice David Souter.
But this is not aid to religious schools. This is aid to parents trying to assure the best education for their children. There are several non-religious schools in the city that families may select -- and, with the program's survival assured, others may spring up to offer other options.
If parents are choosing freely, it shouldn't matter whether 96 percent select a religious education or 96 percent spurn a religious education. The meaning of neutrality is that the government lets citizens choose and respects their choices. By the dissenters' logic, vouchers would be permissible if no one used them at religious schools. That's the opposite of neutrality.
"The program challenged here is a program of true private choice," wrote Chief Justice William Rehnquist. "There are no financial incentives that skew the program toward religious schools."
The departure from neutrality comes not in the Cleveland voucher program but in the Pledge of Allegiance. The establishment clause of the First Amendment clearly means the government cannot pass a law declaring an official religion of the United States. But that's effectively what Congress did in 1954 when it inserted the words "under God" into the Pledge.
Sen. Homer Ferguson, the Michigan Republican who sponsored the change, said it "highlights the real fundamental difference between the free world and the Communist world, namely belief in God." It declares us to be a religious nation. And it uses public funds both to spread that message and to coercively indoctrinate school children in it. That's also the opposite of neutrality.
Defenders of the Pledge say it's "absurd" to treat those two words as a constitutional violation. They would feel differently if Muslims gained control of a school board and instructed teachers to start each day by leading students in chanting, "Allah Akbar!" (Arabic for "God is great").
The only difference is that the words in the Pledge are familiar and in keeping with the sentiments of most Americans. But familiarity and popularity are no excuse for putting government policy and funding squarely on the side of religion.
How can we bar public schools from encouraging students to pay homage to God while allowing public money to go to schools whose whole purpose is to pay homage to God? By leaving decisions involving faith to individual conscience. A crazy idea, but it just might work.
Actually, giving people back their own tax dollars is not really "aid." It's common sense. Libs should be "pro-choice" when it comes to education. Their problem seems to be in thinking of the pursuit of knowledge as a compulsory state function (as in totalitarian systems) rather than as part of freedom and private association. A student's relationship to a teacher is not (and should not be) the same as a citizen's relationship to judges, senators, congressmen, etc. It's not a compulsory or obligatory citizenship-defining moment. "We, the people" make the rules for our government. Creating state monopolies over the distribution of knowledge, education, and intellectual inquiry has been a disaster.
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