Subject: [Atheist] AANEWS for July 24, 1996 (Special Supplement) Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 12
Subject: [Atheist] AANEWS for July 24, 1996 (Special Supplement)
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 12:47:09 -0700
From: AMERICAN.ATHEISTS@listserv.direct.net
Reply-To: aanews@listserv.atheists.org, AMERICAN.ATHEISTS@listserv.direct.net
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#105 uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu 7/24/96 (Special Supplement)
In This Issue...
* Testimony Presented On The Proposed Religious Equality Amendment
(Editor's Note: The following is a statement mailed to members of the
House Judiciary Committee, The Constitution Subcommittee today on behalf of
American Atheists.)
Committee on the Judiciary
U.S. House of Representatives
Subcommittee on the Constitution
Att: Mr. Charles T. Canady, Chair
Mr. Henry Hyde, Chair
2141 Rayburn HOB
Washington, DC 20515
in re: Proposed Religious Freedom Amendment
to the Constitution of the United States
Messrs. Canady and Hyde:
American Atheists, Inc. is a non-profit, non-political, educational
organization founded by Dr. Madalyn Murray O'Hair as a "watchdog" for
governmental state/church separation breaches which undermine the
constitutionally protected right of freedom of conscience of those 10-13% of
Americans who are Atheists and other freethinkers. These figures have been
confirmed by The Heritage Foundation's Cultural Policy Studies Project, "Why
Religion Matters"(Jan. 25, 1996). Time Magazine reported last year that more
than 18% of all Americans do not belong to any of the hundreds of religious
organizations that freely thrive within our society. These figures are
consistent with every religious demographic study prepared over the last 20
years by both secular and religious sources.
As Atheists, we are concerned at this time that the right to freely
embrace or reject participation in specific religious rituals is being
seriously undermined by forces that, based upon the wildest of speculation,
have predetermined it to be in the best interests of all concerned, that we
should sacrifice our intellectual freedom and submit our wills to that which
those same forces have already freely submitted their own. This is not only
a gross violation of basic human rights but an attempt at religious tyranny
and intellectual blackmail through the use of the legislative process. This
is one area where no law can induce conformity, nor should it. This is one
area where we will not sacrifice the minds of our children. It is simply
illegal and immoral for elected officials to require a statement of belief or
unbelief as a condition of citizenship and equal accomodation under the law.
I.
In his book "The Supreme Court and Religion", author Richard E.
Morgan observed:
"The treatment of prayer proposals by Congress seems, as much as
anything, a reflection of the state of the level of morale within the
institution. If congressional morale is high and much is going on, little
attention is paid to such hardy perennials. When, however, Congress begins
to feel excluded and ineffectual, the bad penny of a prayer amendment seems
to turn up and begins commanding attention again."
It appears that this spectre of low morale and inffectiveness has
now beset the United States Congress. Under the auspices of the Subcommittee
on the Constitution of the House Judiciary Committee, hearings on such a "bad
penny" as prayer are now being undertaken under the guise of "further
protect(ing) religious freedom."
It must be noted that such an amendment is the primary objective of
the Ten Commandments handed down by the Christian Coalition's Ralph Reed to
the members of Congress under the rubric of a "Contract with the American
Family."
As the premiere Atheist organization in the United States, we are
not only deeply concerned, but decidedly alarmed with the wording and the
motivation behind the discussion of such a "Religious Freedom Amendment" to
our Constitution. The timing of its reintroduction in the House is also
suspect, considering the current penchant for political grandstanding during
an election year.
II.
Having carefully watched this charade, it is necesary that American
Atheists make the following analysis and submit it for inclusion in the
record of the hearing. Please construe this to be an educational effort on
behalf of the persons affiliated with American Atheists.
III.
Of all state/church cases decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in
recent decades, it seems none have created an uproar like the 1962 and 1963
rulings on prayer (Engle v Vitale and Schempp v Abington School DIstrict;
Murray v Curlett). Both of these cases have been twisted and manipulated by
the religious right so as to cause massive misreading and misunderstanding.
American Atheists observes that a good deal of the confusion has
been deliberately generated by those who want to gain political points by
stirring up the public with emotional non-issues. More succinctly, this is a
hunt for votes in an election year designed to keep incumbents in office.
Additionally, the introduction of the proposed permissive
legislation into both houses of Congress is based upon a currently
theoretical premise that all public life must be either infused with or
accomodated to religion.
IV.
It has long been established not only by the Supreme Court, but by
courts across this great and free land, that organized, ritualistic prayer
violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment in that it
constitutes an establisment of religion.
The debate surrounding prayer has always centered on the locus of
the prayer, not the implications or the theological baggage associated with
prayer. To hear the fundamentalists and other proponents of this measure,
one would think that prayers are like jumping jacks.....or running in place.
The assumption is that this is something we should all be doing. Prayers
are like eating an apple every day to keep the doctor away. Well, prayers
are not apples. The presuppositions associated with the act of prayer are as
significant as they are varied.
In 1859, John Stuart Mill, in his book "On Liberty", wrote:
"Where there is tacit convention that principles are not to be disputed;
where the discussion of the greatest questions which can occupy humanity is
considered to be closed, we cannot hope to find that generally high scale of
mental activity, which has made some periods of history so remarkable. The
greatest orators have left it on record that one should always study his
adversary's case with as great, if not with still greater, intensity than
even his own. He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of
that."
V.
What is prayer? Prayer is the very breath of religion, its most
quintessential, characteristic activity. Without prayer there would be no
religion. Every religion is predicated upon such prayers. In fact, those
who most fervently fight public school prayer themselves believe in the
efficacy of such prayers, with the central argument being only the locus of
prayer. What has been missing from this debate is the "why" of prayer, not
the "where."
Prayer is supplication to the unknown to remedy a felt inadequacy
of the supplicant. It presupposes three primary ideas:
1) That there is a superintending, self-aware, conscious force in
the universe personally concerned with governing not only the thoughts, but
the ultimate fates of individual persons;
2) That each individual person, alone or through an intermediary
such as a priest, rabbi, or mullah, can be in direct communication with that
self-aware authority through the use of prayer;
3) That this outside, individual conscious force can, upon whim,
grant or refuse certain supplications and, if need be, suspend the laws of
nature to accomplish that which it would not have done otherwise, had it not
been persuaded though the exercise of prayer.
Atheism is the accepted lifstyle of those 25 million or more
Americans who eschew these doctrines. Our rejection of these doctrines is
based upon the grounds that such doctrines are firmly established upon
nothing more that imaginative hearsay.
It is unconscionable that our government sees fit to tamper with
our constitutional right to individual opinion of such matters by attempting
to legitimize such hearsay through the mechanism of the state. And as
intellectually free, law-abiding Americans, we reject any legislation
predicated on mere hearsay. This is clearly a biased attack on the right to
be free of religion.
VI.
This amendment goes beyond the scope of simple prayer. This is
part of a much larger agenda which includes the infusion of religion into as
much of the school curriculum as possible. Even the proponents, in their
literature, state that this amendment would "allow private religious
expression in circumstances where nonreligious expression is allowed." Under
this disguise, religious pseudoscience in the form of "biblical creationism"
could be introduced as an "alternative theory" to evoution, bypassing the
rigors of scientific scrutiny, simply because it would become protected
"religious expression". Anything critical of religion and its role in human
society, such as it promotion of the slave mentality, and its brutal
treatment of dissent, could be suppressed into extinction. Religion could
reserve for itself the right to censor bold, provocative, and challenging
arguments it deemed inappropriate or damaging.
It would not be an exaggeratin to point out the many acts perceived
by individuals as positive "religious expression" which have resulted in
harassment, violence, and death for thousands of innocent victims. The
bombings in both the World Trade Center in New York City and the federal
office building in Oklahoma have their roots in "religious expression." From
the shores of Ireland to the sand of the Middle East, we continue to reap the
fruits of "religious expression."
VII.
The tragic irony of these proceedings is that this amendment, while
claiming that students can pray "without government sponsorship or
compulsion", is IN FACT government sponsorship of prayer. Students, indeed
all Americans, have always had the right to indulge in a wide spectrum of
rituals, rites, and practices "without government sponsorship or compulsion."
By allowing such uniquely Christian-endorsed, Christian-manipulated
rituals to be determined by simple majority vote completely misinterprets
our First Amendment and relegates non-believing American citizens and their
families to "second class" status. Our Bill of Rights was created
specifically to protect minority freedoms from simple majoritarian mob rule.
This official sponsoring of religious ritual is a Trojan horse by
means of which it's backers, once they have their way, could inject other
components of their personal religious agenda into the law. As parents with
children in the public schools, we find this attempt at back-door
evangelization to be shocking, offensive, and irresponsible.
A law is not needed to grant the free citizens of the United States
a right they already have. This is redundant. This is flagrant political
grandstanding that rings with personal aggrandizement, not genuine concern,
and certainly it has no concern for Atheists and their families.
VIII.
We demand that our children be accorded equal accomodation and the
same degree of respect accorded to children of "faith-based" households
within the school environment. Litigation after litigation has dramatically
demonstrated that the effect of even "student-initiated" or "student-led"
prayer in the public school setting is coercive in nature, and damaging to
the cohesion necessary to promote a civil environment for education. This
also undermines the ability of teachers to maintain the type of control
necessary for educational pursuits. In a majority of the litigations, it has
been Christian or Jewish students who have refused to "go along with the
crowd." And each one has suffered isolation. Each one has been harassed,
ridiculed as "Satan-worshipers" or "Christ-killers." And, more shockingly,
in many cases they have been publicly humiliated and physically attacked.
My parents always advised me to never "go along with the crowd
because the crowd was headed was usually nowhere but trouble." This small
paradigm of parental wisdom has served me well. I have never, and do not
now, and I suggest you do not now, take this piece of advice lightly.
The passage of this amendment would not only place our government
in the role of providing forums for religious rituals, but would further
entangle government and religion until such time that the two would become
indistinguishable, thus a state-sponsored religion.
More tragic is that religion is not based upon democratic
principles, and to use religion as a guideline for the governance of a free
republic is the antithesis of what our Constitution stands for. This is the
nightmare of all patriotic Americans who cherish the freedoms guaranteed in
our Bill of Rights. It was Thomas Jefferson who declared that a society that
sacrificed liberty for the sake of order, deserved neither, and would lose
both.
IX.
Besides the prayer issue, a most troubling aspect of this amendment
is that it will now become the government's role to provide us with a forum
to "acknowledge and serve God according to the dictates of conscience."
This subcommittee is comprised of elected officials. You are here
because you have been chosen to be servants of the people. You are salaried
handsomely with tax-payer dollars. You are in no position, nor do you have
the right, nor do you have any compelling interest whatsoever to waste
taxpayer time and money totaling in the millions of dollars, suggesting
legislation requiring that we acknowledge or serve anything except the
Constitution of the United States. I would suggest that, as public servants,
it is you who should acknowledge and serve us - the citizens, the taxpayers -
the people who struggle day after day providing for their families' health,
education, and security.
While the common taxpayer must meet the unavoidable demands of life
on a week to week, and in too many cases, day to day basis, you should be
vigorously addressing the very real problems which are characteristic of a
free, and overwhelmingly complex society.
As government officials it is simply not your place to instruct us
to acknowledge, accept, or serve that which cannot be described any further
than a figment of the collective religious mind.
As Atheists and citizens, we refuse to acknowledge or serve
anything other than the laws of this great and free nation and the families
that make it great and free.
As Atheists we are tired of riding in the "back of the bus" of
American society.
As Atheists we reject being the scapegoat of what religionists
describe as a breakdown of morality in American.
Discrimination in favor of evangelical Christianity denies equal
protection under the law to other competing religions, as well as to no
religion at all.
We, as Americans and Atheists, are entitled to be free from
religion and to have our children attend schools free from the anxiety
induced by confusing, competing, and offensive religious dogma. As parents
we have far more important things to attend to than wondering if our children
are going to be proselytized behind our backs, without our permission, in
areas upon which speculation, hearsay, and bizarre, cruel penalties for
non-conformity abound.
As Atheists, we prefer our children to think, not to beg through
prayer.
The argument put forth by this amendment's proponents, that the
Establishment Clause "requires the government to censor the speech and
conduct of religious citizens" is without merit. On the contrary, it is
non-Christians who can be offended with impunity. On any Sunday,
religionists can be found in the pulpits of tax-free buildings savaging
Atheists, agnostics, and competing religions without the government being the
least bit concerned about the feelings and sensitivities of the targets of
those vitriolic tirades.
Passage of this amendment would give special protections and
special rights to the vague, varied, and often contentious issues surrounding
"religious expression."
Simply because a manner of expression cloaks itself in religiosity
is no grounds for accommodation or agreement. In the free marketplace of
ideas, religion should be treated like any other idea, given no special
treatment, no special protections or advantages, subject to neither
preference nor prejudice mandated by government. Rejection of an idea is as
democratic as its acceptance. The attempt to litigate respect for
"religious" ideas raises the question as to just how valid are these
arguments if the arm of the state is to be employed to accomplish whole-scale
conformity. We are again reminded of the words of Jefferson who wrote "It is
error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by
itself."(Notes on Virginia, Query 17).
And we would urge those asking for government intervention to
remember the words of the Supreme Court in 1952: "It is not the business of
government in our nation to suppress real or imagined attacks upon a
particular religious doctrine."
X.
In closing, may I remind this esteemed gathering that since the
public schools are built and maintained with taxpayer monies - not church
money - it is disturbing that the opinions of those who pay no taxes are
given preference over those who do. The public shools are for ALL AMERICAN
CHILDREN, not for just a select few.
Whatever our differences of personal opinion are regarding matters
religious, you would, I trust, agree that the 10% of Americans we represent,
a sizable portion of the taxpaying public - those who struggle daily to meet
their civil obligations, who work day to day to provide a sound educational
and ethical framework for our future citizens - deserve a place of equality
at the table of the democratic process. Certainly our children and our
"family values" demand equal accomodation under the law, and the same respect
and opportunity in the public classroom as do those children who come from
"faith-based" families.
The defeat of this amendment is a guarantee that we will all be
able to continue to enjoy complete freedom of conscience as affirmed and
protected by the Bill of Rights of the greatest document ever conceived by
man - The Constitution of the United States of America.
"If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it
is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in
politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion, or force
citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein." - Robert H.
Jackson, Supreme Court opinion(West Virginia State Board of Education v
Barnette, 319 U.S. 624{1943})
Thank you
AMERICAN ATHEISTS, INC.
Ms. Ellen Johnson, president
********
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