By Sid Salter
Publisher, Scott County Times
Readers, when you go down in the basement, out in the woods, in the closet, on a deserted street corner, underwater, in your attic, behind the barn, in the trunk of your car, in a motel room under an assumed name, behind a mask, or where ever it is that you normally go to say your prayers, say one for the Mississippi chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.
That's how we're supposed to pray, right?
Behind closed doors. Out of sight. In the dark. Out of earshot. Someplace where no one is offended, feels uncomfortable or is confronted with a public display of faith.
The Bible does indeed encourage private, humble prayer -- but it certainly addresses those who hide their faith out of fear of the government, too. See Peter, denied Jesus three times, cock crowed. New Testament.
The ACLU isn't against prayer. They're just against having to see or hear it -- or having their children have to see or hear it in schools. I feel the same way about a guy standing on the street corner with a boom box blaring rap music -- but of course the ACLU would defend the gangsta's right to free speech and expression, so that's my tough luck.
Prayerful people, the ACLU feels about you the way the White Citizens Council used to feel about black people in this state -- you're fine as long as you stay in your place and keep your mouth shut.
Terrible thing, this public school prayer business. The mental hospitals are literally full of formerly normal schoolchildren driven to the brink of insanity because of an invocation before kickoff at a high school football game, a benediction at graduation or some other utterance of faith on school grounds.
Some might buy that argument, but I've never seen it manifested.
Prayerful people are, it seems, to stay in the closet. The ACLU has adopted a don't ask, don't tell policy about school prayer and they're looking for nitwit judges to help them enforce it.
Attorney General Mike Moore -- with the support of Gov. Kirk Fordice and the majority of the Mississippi Legislature -- is trying to get the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene in Mississippi's fight to allow the school children of our state to engage in organized prayer in the schools.
A 1994 state law allowing students -- under specific terms and conditions -- to initiate and lead prayer in the school was struck down by U.S. District Judge Henry T. Wingate two years ago. That ruling was appealed to the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans earlier this year and the Fifth Circuit refused to overturn Wingate's ruling.
Now Moore is asking the highest court in the land to decide the case in Mississippi's favor. That's not likely to come about, either, but Moore at least is making the effort.
For their part, the ACLU is engaging in yet another round of breast-beating about the dangers of public prayer in the schools -- and they base their argument on the notion that the founding fathers intended a constitutional separation of church and state.
Mississippi ACLU Executive Director David Ingebretsen told the Associated Press: "The law is clearly unconstitutional and to try to get the Supreme Court to hear this case is once again having the state interfere with the religious rights of its citizens, especially our school children."
Baloney.
The U.S. Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, not freedom from religion. History clearly records and documents that Washington, Adams and Jefferson not only believed in public prayer in government venues, they practiced those beliefs. In the early days of the country, government buildings were used as houses of worship. Prayer was part of the normal order of business in the Congress and the oath those founding fathers took incorporated the language "so help me God".
What the U.S. Constitution guarantees is a prohibition of the state adopting an official religion and a legal tolerance of the practice of any and all religions -- including the right of a citizen to believe in nothing at all -- without penalty.
Since Madelyn Murray O'Hare, this country has operated on the notion that separation of church and state somehow implies separation of church FROM state. The history of the founding of this country in no way implies such an interpretation.
What anti-school prayer forces seek is a world in which no one is ever made to feel uncomfortable should their religion or lack of religion place them in a minority. The is no constitutional right to never be embarrassed -- if there was, no one would have allowed Rosanne to sing the "Star-Spangled Banner" in public.
Funny thing, the ACLU has never raised any Cain about insisting that the public school stop observing religious holiday vacation days. Following their logic on the issue of school prayer, the ACLU really ought to begin insisting that children who don't share religious ideologies should go to school on Christmas, Thanksgiving or Easter.
If my child and some of her friends want to utter a prayer in a public school building that my tax dollars support, I believe the Constitution gives her that right. If her she and her schoolmates want to engage in non-sectarian prayer before a ball game over the PA system, I believe they have that right, too.
I've been covering high school football for 20 years and I've never seen anyone injured during the invocation -- particularly in the stands.
Mississippi will likely lose this appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, but it remains a fight worth fighting. Because freedom of religion continues to be assaulted in the courts by those who advocate freedom from religion -- something our founding fathers and mothers never intended.