Does Schoolroom Prayer Require a New Amendment?

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . . --First Amendment

To alter the latest interpretation of those time-honored words, which go back to 1791, is the goal of 170 proposed amendments to the U.S. Constitution, now being hotly debated before the House Judiciary Committee. In an unprecedented assault on the Constitution's first ten amendments, which are known as the Bill of Rights, all of the new amendments, whatever their wording, have one aim: to reverse the Supreme Court's recent decisions against school prayers and Bible reading.

Dubious Business? From Alabama's Governor George Wallace to Roman Catholic Bishop Fulton Sheen, a parade of largely anti-court witnesses testified before the committee last week. Ala bama refuses to "order God out of our neighborhood schools," cried Wallace. "We will stand up for God! We will stand up for America!" More constructively, Sheen suggested that no amendment was needed. But he added, "I fear for a country which outlaws prayers in schools." Said he: Let schools be allowed at least to adopt "the prayer that every member is carrying in his pocket --'In God We Trust.' "

Things looked good for New York Republican Frank J. Becker, author of an amendment approving voluntary school prayers. Becker claimed 167 signatures on a discharge petition, only 51 short of the number required to get his proposal out of committee and onto the House floor. But opposition was stiffening for one compelling reason: even mild tinkering with the First Amendment is dubious business. Said the Rev. Eugene Carson Blake, Stated Clerk of the United Presbyterian Church: "I take alarm at this experiment with our liberties. The Bill of Rights should remain unamended, for the rights are inalienable."

Much of the cry to "Get God Back in the Schools" reflects deep misunderstanding of what the court actually said. In Engel v. Vitale (1962), it overruled the required daily recitation of a nondenominational prayer composed by a governmental body, the New York State Board of Regents. In 1963's Murray v. Curlett and Schempp v. School District, it overruled school-required reading of Scripture in Maryland and Pennsylvania. All three decisions were based on what the court deemed to be an inescapable reading of the First Amendment's "establishment" clause. Far from being antireligious, the court simply aimed to keep government from interfering with religion.

Wrong Clause? Many constitutional lawyers who agree with the ultimate decision still fault the court on its reasoning. Its use of the establishment clause seems to proscribe any link at all between government and religion, yet such links are embedded in the realities of U.S. society. To infer that government now has a duty to cut them may well force the court to later confront unnecessarily painful questions, including the constitutionality of tax exemption for churches. Such future troubles could have been avoided, critics say, had the court arrived at the same school decisions by a somewhat different route--the First Amendment's "free exercise" clause, thus allowing the court to stress freedom of worship and thus to follow the logic of an increasingly pluralistic society.

Despite this criticism, most lawyers take a dim view of any Draconian amending of the Constitution to "authorize" school religion. Who but some governmental body would compose and control the religious observance? What official orthodoxy would result--as against diverse U.S. beliefs in different bibles and different gods? The whole idea could nullify the First Amendment and its purpose of guaranteeing religious freedom. Warned New York's Republican Representative John V. Lindsay: "It was that amendment that probably the founders of the country and the first immigrants fought for the hardest."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.