RELIGIOUS FREEDOM? June 3, 1998 The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer Transcript

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A proposed constitutional amendment that would, among other things, allow for prayer in public school is set to be voted on in the House of Representatives. Following a background report, Phil Ponce and guests discuss the Religious Freedom Amendment. Also, join the debate in an Online Forum.

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A RealAudio version of this segment is available. NEWSHOUR LINKS: April 21, 1998 A debate on whether public schools should teach evolution or Creationism. June 25, 1997 The Supreme Court strikes down the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Browse the NewsHour's coverage of religion and Congress. OUTSIDE LINKS: Information on the Religious Freedom Amendment from the House. The Christian Coalition. The American Civil Liberties Union. The Anti-Defamation League.

PHIL PONCE: Tomorrow the House of Representatives is expected to take its first vote on school prayer since 1971. At issue: Whether the Constitution's two centuries old protections regarding religious freedom need an update. Current law on prayer or use of religious symbols in public places is governed by the so-called establishment clause in the First Amendment, which reads: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." But Supreme Court decisions interpreting that clause have elicited vigorous debate, and an effort led by Republican Congressman Ernest Istook would amend the Constitution to bring back student-initiated voluntary prayer in schools.

The Religious Freedom Amendment.

The amendment would read as follows: "To secure the people's right to acknowledge God according to the dictates of conscience: Neither the United States nor any State shall establish any official religion, but the people's right to pray and to recognize their religious beliefs, heritage, or traditions on public property, including schools, shall not be infringed. Neither the United States nor any state shall require any person to join in prayer or other religious activity, prescribe school prayers, d discriminate against religion, or deny equal access to a benefit on account of religion." Adding an amendment to the Constitution requires approval by two-thirds of both Houses of Congress and then ratification by 3/4 of the states.

PHIL PONCE: Now, two views on the public prayer amendment. Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reformed Judaism and co-chair of the Coalition to Preserve Religious Liberty, and Rev. Richard Land, the president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Commission on Ethics and Religious Liberty. Gentlemen, welcome to you both. Rev. Land, why do you support the proposed amendment?

REV. RICHARD LAND, Southern Baptist Convention: I support it because we've waited for over 30 years for the courts to get this right, and they haven't. I want to say at the outset that most of the supporters of this amendment do not want to go back to the days prior to 1963, when there was official school-sponsored prayer. In fact, this amendment specifically prohibits it. But we've gotten too many calls and too many letters from too many constituents over the last three decades of students who have earned the right to give the valedictory address and have been told they cannot mention their faith in God, who have been told they can't pray over lunch, who have been told they can't have a prayer time with their fellow students, that they can't express their religious beliefs.

Rev. Land: "...our First Amendment rights have been abridged, and they need to be reasserted...."

We believe that it is now time for us to make it clear to the Supreme Court that our First Amendment rights have been abridged, and they need to be reasserted, and this religious freedom amendment will do so. And it specifically says that each American has the right to express his or her religious belief according to the dictates of conscience. That protects the rights of minorities, as well as the rights of majority religion.

PHIL PONCE: Rev. Land, how pervasive are those instances that you allude to where someone was reportedly prohibited from referring to religious principles in valedictory speeches and that sort of thing?

REV. RICHARD LAND: Well, far more prevalent than they ought to be, and we get these reports on a regular basis, and so do other similar groups like the American Center for Law & Justice and the Family Research Council and others. And some of these have even gone to court, where a student, the courts upheld the right of a teacher to give a student a zero on a paper, because she chose to write a paper on her faith in Jesus Christ.

PHIL PONCE: Rabbi Saperstein, are those-is that anecdotal evidence? Is it widespread? How do you respond when you hear stories like that?

RABBI DAVID SAPERSTEIN, Coalition to Preserve Religious Liberty: There's not one of the things that Rev. Land just called for that is not now currently protected under the Constitution. There's not one single decision of a court anywhere in this country that I know of, and certainly not at the higher federal court, the Supreme Court level, that has ever barred a student valedictory speech including religion, prevents children from praying before meals together, expressing their religious beliefs at a voluntary level. Madison and Jefferson believed the best way to protect religious liberty was to keep government out of religion. Representative Istook is going to try and protect religious liberty by bringing government control into an endorsement and sponsorship, into all kinds of religious activity. It will be a disaster for religion and a disaster for our freedoms.

PHIL PONCE: Rabbi, do you accept the fact that those instances have occurred?

RABBI DAVID SAPERSTEIN: Very rarely. Almost every one of those times we've heard about this, it is a distortion or an anecdote, or an abuse at a local level that a phone call was able to solve, that never even made it to the courts, let alone no court decision ever upheld that kind of view. So, sure, when you have millions of schoolchildren, millions of schoolchildren, there will be abuses occasionally. And we work with the Southern Baptist Convention and other groups to try and stop those on the ground. But do it by enforcing the First Amendment when people failed to enforce it, don't do it by gutting and abandoning and changing for the first time in 210 years our Bill of Rights.

PHIL PONCE: Rev. Land, how do you respond to the argument that the First Amendment allows all kinds of things that reflect the reports that you've been hearing?

REV. RICHARD LAND: Well, the Amendment, the First Amendment, should, and if it weren't for the disastrous court decisions over the last 30 years, we would agree with Rev.-Rabbi Saperstein. But he knows better than what he's saying. He knows that, for instance, there are groups out there that oppose the Istook Amendment, because it precisely refuses to allow government sponsorship and government-official government support for religion. There are groups on the right that are opposing it specifically because it does not do what Rabbi Saperstein says that it does do. And the Equal Rights Amendment-equal rights bill which-the equal access bill-which we went all the way to the Supreme Court to fight to get-and we got-which said that in high school, before school or after school, if students-if school districts have other, non-curriculum-related student clubs, they can't forbid religious clubs, over 2,000 high schools, they said, well, if we have to have religious clubs, then we won't have any clubs at all. There is in various locales at the ground level a hostility from school officials-and a fear from school officials that they're going to violate the Constitution. And I would just gently suggest that my constituents and the constituents of similar groups are the ones who are being more suppressed and censored by this than Rabbi Saperstein's, and our groups call us. They don't call Rabbi Saperstein.

PHIL PONCE: Rabbi Saperstein, could you-although you alluded to some-to some examples-could you just sort of list the things that-in your opinion-the First Amendment already allows, as far as religious expression is concerned in schools.

Rabbi Saperstein: "It is a horrible solution in search of a problem."

RABBI DAVID SAPERSTEIN: Well, just in schools; children can pray when they want to, aloud or silently, with their friends or on their own, they can say grace before meals; they can say the Jewish - after meals. They can write on religious subjects if kids are given their choice of what to write on. They can meet in clubs after school if other clubs are meeting after school. There is robust diversity of opinion. The only thing they can't do is get government support and endorsement for that. They can't have the government leading those prayers, endorsing, supporting, interfering with those prayers. Government has to stay neutral, and they can't interfere with the class. You can't go into a captive classroom with a captive audience and start preaching to your fellow students in that kind of setting, leading prayers, where kids either have to be part of prayers that they don't believe in, or embarrassed by leaving the classroom. All of that is allowed. ABC, your network here, CNN, Time, Newsweek, within the last month, have all done stories on the robust religious expression in schools. It just isn't there. This solution, however, will be a disaster for religion. It is a horrible solution in search of a problem.

PHIL PONCE: Rev. Land, do you agree with the list that the Rabbi just gave as far as the things that are currently allowed?

REV. RICHARD LAND: Those are the things that should be currently allowed if the First Amendment were being enforced and if the courts were insisting that it be enforced, but they are not being allowed in numerous places. In numerous places, repetitively over the last 30 years-and as I pointed out just a moment ago-many schools are so hostile to religious expression that when they were faced with either having no curriculum -- non-curriculum -- related clubs or allowing religious clubs before school or after school in high schools, they said, well, we just won't have any kind of clubs, and we don't think just high school students-we believe middle school students and at least upper grade elementary school students ought to be able to meet on public school property voluntarily, without school sponsorship, and have a time of prayer, or have a time of Bible study if they're required to be most of the waking hours of most of the school days of their formative years on public school property. They don't leave their First Amendment free exercise rights on the boundary to the public school property when they get on the public school property. And I would also say that everything Rabbi Saperstein says is just one judicial decision away from being swept away. We want to reassert, reinvigorate what has been vitiated, our First Amendment rights have been vitiated, and we want to reinvigorate them, and I want to say one more time there are numerous groups on the right who are opposing this religious freedom amendment because it refuses to do precisely the things that Rabbi Saperstein accuses it of doing.

RABBI DAVID SAPERSTEIN: The truth is-as I challenged Rev. Land before-there is no court decision that prevents any of the things he described in the beginning. Conversely, the president's Department of Education sent out guidelines to every school district in the country that makes it clear every one of those things is allowed. But let me tell you what this amendment would do. This amendment would allow for government-sponsored prayer, proselytization, religious activity, not only-

REV. RICHARD LAND: That is nonsense-

RABBI DAVID SAPERSTEIN: --not only in the schools of America.

REV. RICHARD LAND: --and you know it.

PHIL PONCE: Rev. Land, let the Rabbi finish, and I'll get to you, sir.

RABBI DAVID SAPERSTEIN: In any government setting-whether we're talking about since it guarantees the people's right without restriction. That includes mayors and judges in a courtroom, and generals in the army. It would allow for religious symbols to be placed anywhere on government buildings, flags, stationery, et cetera, and it would allow for government to tax people and use their tax dollars to go to any kind of religious activity of religious organizations across America, the greatest unfunded mandate I could think of here in this case. I'm surprised that conservatives want government telling their kids what to do religiously in the courtroom and want that unfunded mandate.

PHIL PONCE: Rev. Land, we don't have time to go through each point, but respond to the general concern about government immersion in religion.

REV. RICHARD LAND: Well, the amendment says according to the dictates of conscience, and it says neither the United States nor any state shall establish any official religion, neither the United States nor any state shall require any person to join in prayer. They shall not-they expressly prohibited from establishing any kind of official sponsorship of religion.

RABBI DAVID SAPERSTEIN: But that's not the issue. Is a teacher a person? Is a principal a person-a mayor, a general-they all do-

REV. RICHARD LAND: They are citizens.

RABBI DAVID SAPERSTEIN: --that religious activity-

REV. RICHARD LAND: They are citizens, and they have the right to express their views. Are you telling me you don't think a congressman has a right to--

RABBI DAVID SAPERSTEIN: Including in a government setting.

REV. RICHARD LAND: --express his view?

PHIL PONCE: One second please.

REV. RICHARD LAND: They open the Congress with prayer, David. Do you want to quit doing that?

PHIL PONCE: Rev. Land, in the time that we have left, what is your assessment of the likelihood of passage?

The fight for passage.

REV. RICHARD LAND: Well, we're not going to get 2/3 on this vote. This is the first time that we've been able to get a vote since 1971. But I can assure you that we're going to get a majority, and we're going to get enough of a majority that we're going to be within striking distance, and we're going to do our very best to make sure that Congressmen who vote against the people's right to express their religious beliefs, according to the dictates of conscience in public settings, will have a chance to explain to their constituents why they voted against this amendment. And when they finish explaining, then they get to stay home after next November, we'll have an even higher percentage of votes in the next Congress.

PHIL PONCE: Rabbi, quickly. You were lobbying today on the Hill. What kind of a response were you getting, and what's your assessment?

RABBI DAVID SAPERSTEIN: Showing how our robust rights to participate in American life are under the Constitution. Overwhelmingly, the American people don't want this kind of amendment. They don't want government telling their kids when to pray, and how to pray in the schools. They don't want their tax dollars bundled for the government to support religious groups they find anathema. It will be rejected. It may even be rejected by a majority vote. It'll be rejected decisively.

PHIL PONCE: Gentlemen, I'm afraid we're out of time. Reverend, Rabbi, thank you both.

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