A new Mississippi law requires public schools to develop policies to allow students to pray over school intercoms and at assemblies and sporting events. The
law permits students to pray publicly with a disclaimer from school
administration. I imagine the disclaimer will be read at super warp speed as at
the end of commercials for financial planners and prescription drugs.
In supporting the
new law, the New York Times reports
that Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant said: “We are about making sure that we
protect the religious freedoms of all students and adults whenever we can.”
What Bryant means to
protect is not the freedom to practice one’s own religion, but the freedom to
practice it in public. He forgets that much like tobacco smoking, overtly
public religious expressions create a kind of second-hand smoke that bother
others, especially when those praying use AV systems and especially in public
schools.
Mississippi is just
the latest of the southern states to try to get around the basic constitutional
separation of religion and state. The Times
notes that last year Florida approved a bill to allow students to read
inspirational messages at assemblies and sporting events. Also last year, Missouri
voters approved a constitutional amendment that gives residents the right to
“pray and acknowledge God voluntarily in their schools,” and a similar
amendment was introduced in Virginia this year.
South Carolina legislators introduced a bill last year that would allow
for prayer during a mandatory minute of silence at the start of the school day,
provided that students who do not want to hear the prayer can leave the
classroom.
For more than 30
years, we have seen a concerted encroachment on public spaces. The first
wave—starting with Reagan and continuing today—consisted of reducing funding
for public spaces, facilities and institutions, be it parks, schools, public universities,
libraries or mass transit. In trying to assert the right of religious
expression in a public place, proponents of bringing prayer into schools
represent a second wave, in which conservatives seek to put public space to
private use.
Most frightening to
me is the rationale that former Arkansas Governor and religious right-wing nut
Mike Huckabee gives for prayer in schools: “We ask
why there is violence in our schools, but we have systematically removed God
from our schools. Should we be surprised that schools would become places of
carnage?”
When
Huckabee says that putting religion in schools will make schools less prone to
violence, he is ignoring the violent histories of many religions, including
Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Hinduism. He forgets the countless religious
wars and the countless other wars in which religion was a thin veil for an economic,
dynastic or national struggle. In fact
for most of recorded history, rulers and generals have firmly stated that “god
is on our side in our war against the unbeliever.” They’ve done it in Europe
and in Asia, they’ve done it in the United States and Russia. Even the
defenders of the foul institution of slavery in the Confederate States of
America claimed that god was on their side.
I would
assert that bringing more religion into schools might actually increase
violence. It’s not the fact that religion so often advocates violence that
concerns me. It’s the permission that religion gives people to engage in
violent acts. Those who believe in a life after death must by definition be
more prone to engage in violence because they think they will survive into
another life and therefore are more willing to take the risks associated with
violent behavior. No atheist believes in a life after death. Only those who
believe in a personal god believe that a conscious part of us survives this
life Instead of risking life,
believers in life after death think they are risking only this life. Thus believing in a religion makes one more likely to be
ready to commit a violent act. That
religion also gives people a motive—god
wants me to kill the enemy—also feeds the psychology of violence.
Now
inciting people to violence is appropriate in certain contexts—the military for
example. So it’s not surprising that
soldiers tend to be more religious than the general public. For example, the most recent Pew Foundation study on religious affiliation found that 39.2% of all Americans
are either atheist, agnostic or have no affiliation. By contrast, the most recent
poll of military personnel by The
Military Times finds that only 28.68% of our fighting men and women are
atheist, agnostic or have no affiliation.
But a
public school is not the military. It’s only half-facetiously that I write that
putting religion in public schools could be the equivalent of pouring gasoline
on a fire.
Yet even
if religion decreased violence, that would still be no reason to bring it into
public schools. In the United States,
religion is supposed to be a private matter. Those wishing to turn our public
spaces into celebrations of their own religious beliefs are about as
un-American as one could possibly be.
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