Virginia School Prayer Bill

The Virginia assembly is considering a bill, HJ537, which would amend the Virginia constitution's provisions concerning religious liberty and disestablishment, provisions that were taken directly from Thomas Jefferson's Act for Establishing Religious Freedom. Currently the Virginia Constitution, in Article 1, Section 16, contains the following language:

That religion or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and, therefore, all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity towards each other. No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but all men shall be free to profess and by argument to maintain their opinions in matters of religion, and the same shall in nowise diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.

This language is taken directly from the text of Jefferson's act. While he was in France, James Madison, his partner in so many battles for religious freedom and disestablishment, brought this Act up for a vote in the Virginia assembly and pushed it through, over the protests of Patrick Henry, who was pushing an alternative bill to allow the use of state tax dollars to support multiple establishments. In 1785, Madison composed a document called the Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments, one of the most powerful and compelling political arguments in our nation's history. In this document addressed to his fellow legislators in the Virginia General Assembly, Madison argues against Henry's bill, which would have assessed a tax for the support of multiple Christian denominations, and for the principle that no man should ever be forced by government to support any religious institution that he does not himself believe in. "Who does not see," Madison wrote,"that the same authority which can establish Christianity, in exclusion of all other Religions, may establish with the same ease any particular sect of Christians, in exclusion of all other Sects? that the same authority which can force a citizen to contribute three pence only of his property for the support of any one establishment, may force him to conform to any other establishment in all cases whatsoever?" Madison's argument won the day; Patrick Henry's bill was defeated and Jefferson's Act was enacted. The text above was incorporated into the Virginia constitution as a result. Now Charles Carrico, a Virginia delegate, wants to change that provision and add the following to it:

To secure further the people's right to acknowledge God according to the dictates of conscience, neither the Commonwealth nor its political subdivisions shall establish any official religion, but the people's right to pray and to recognize their religious beliefs, heritage, and traditions on public property, including public schools, shall not be infringed; however, the Commonwealth and its political subdivisions, including public school divisions, shall not compose school prayers, nor require any person to join in prayer or other religious activity.

Such a shoddy and dishonest premise for the bill. The people, of course, already have the right to "acknowledge God according to the dictates of conscience" in Virginia, so there is no need to "secure" that right further. What they do not have the right to do is force others to do the same, or to support it with their tax dollars, or to sit through the religious exercises of others in a mandatory setting designed and intended for another purpose entirely, which is the only thing this bill would change. Each and every Virginia citizen is free to pray whenever and wherever they wish, in churches, in their homes and even in school; they just can't expect that everyone else should have to stop what they're doing to either join in or wait for them to finish before going about their work. Allowing prayer in schools does nothing to advance the cause of religious freedom on the part of those who wish to pray, as they already have that freedom, but it does inconvenience others, who then have to interrupt what they are forced to be there to do, which is to get an education, to wait for others to do publicly and collectively what they are already allowed to do individually and in privately.

The absurdity of this bill can be seen by asking one simple question. Are only Christian prayers allowed, or would others be allowed as well? I would suggest that whatever the answer is, we've got a problem. If the answer is that only Christian prayers are allowed, then you clearly do have an establishment of religion. I doubt anyone would argue that. But if the answer is that other prayers are allowed as well, imagine what would happen in a situation with a Muslim teacher and a class with numerous Muslim students. Can you imagine the reaction of the Christians in a community where a Muslim teacher decided to exercise their "right to pray and to recognize their religious beliefs, heritage, and traditions on public property" by interrupting their teaching 5 times each day so his students could get out their prayer rugs, kneel upon them facing Mecca, and pray to Allah (which is merely the Arabic word for God)? Would you care to wager on the response from the same people who are for this bill? As I said, either answer is a problem. Either you are establishing Christianity as the official religion by allowing only those prayers to be said, or you would literally have open religious warfare in any school district with a mixture of religions represented in the student body.

As it turns out, Carrico is only really interested in allowing Christian prayers because that is our "founding religion", and he bizarrely appeals to the example of Muslim theocracies as one we should follow! From the AP report on the bill:

The religious-freedom resolution found wide support for remedying what its sponsor, Del. Charles W. Carrico Sr., contends is a growing bias against Christians.

He said other nations upheld their founding religious tenets and compelled respect for them, specifically noting the Muslim culture of Arab countries as an example.

By all means, Saudi Arabia, or perhaps Afghanistan under the Taliban, are exactly the role models we should be emulating. Good lord, did this guy really get elected to public office? Even better than that, he also appeals to a false quotation from Patrick Henry, the man whose views lost in 1786:

Then, he quoted Patrick Henry in appealing for greater leeway for Christianity.

"I want to quote this phrase -- [Henry] was a five-term governor of Virginia -- (who) once said, 'It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was not founded by religionists but by Christians,'" Carrico said.

There's just one problem - Henry never said that. This is one of a long list of quotations that have been foisted on the public by the likes of David Barton, but even he reluctantly had to admit that this quote has never been found in Henry's writings or speeches. But of course, even if he had said it, it would not be an argument in favor of Carrico's bill. Even if Henry had said that the nation was founded by Christians, it would not logically follow that therefore Christians should be allowed to have special time set aside for them to say their prayers during school while everyone else has to watch or have their education interrupted. If you have to resort to such weak and illogical arguments to support your position, your position must be pretty hard to defend.

Also note that Carrico is actually arguing that not having the right to force others to observe your religious observances whenever you feel like having them is evidence of "a growing bias against Christians". Isn't it incredible how they think not allowing them to have exclusive right to push their religious views on others is "bias against Christians", yet they refuse to admit that allowing them to do so constitutes bias against non-Christians? It should also be noted here that Carrico does not speak for all Christians, many of whom are staunch advocates of separation. And this was always the case, going back to the original debate between James Madison and Patrick Henry. In a letter to James Monroe, Madison noted that the churches were divided over Patrick Henry's proposal for establishment in that day as well:

The Episcopal clergy are generally for it. . . . The Presbyterians seem as ready to set up an establishment which would take them in as they were to pull one down which shut them out. The Baptists, however, standing firm by their avowed principle of the complete separation of church and state, declared it to be "repugnant to the spirit of the Gospel for the Legislature thus to proceed in matters of religion, that no human laws ought to be established for the purpose.

Let us hope that the good people of Virginia put a stop to this nonsense. One could only wish that there was a Madison today, a man who could, through the sheer power of his words, convince his fellow citizens that they are headed down the wrong path. The principle of separation that were so brilliant advocated by Madison and Jefferson have served America and the state of Virginia well for 220 years; to allow a man like Carrico to invalidate them on the basis of such facile arguments would be a disgrace.