Supreme Court Upholds Ban
The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear a high school valedictorian’s argument that school officials violated his civil rights by refusing to let him give a speech that a lower court described as a religious sermon.
Chris Niemeyer, co-valedictorian of his class, had planned to ask the audience to accept God’s love and pattern their lives after Jesus’ example at the June 1998 ceremony. After reviewing an advance copy of the speech, school officials told Niemeyer that he needed to remove the religious references. When he refused to change his speech, school officials canceled his participation in the ceremony.
Attorneys for the Oroville Union High School District said that the proposed speech was a religious testimonial, and added that Niemeyer’s co-valedictorian, who is Jewish, had also objected to the speech.
Niemeyer filed a civil rights lawsuit seeking financial damages from the school district, but lost at trial. The ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the ruling, saying that the speech would amount to government sponsorship of, and coercion to participate in, particular practices. The Supreme Court affirmed the ruling.
This closely follows last year’s Court ruling that public school students cannot lead stadium crowds in prayer before football games under the constitutionally required separation of church and state.
—The Advocate, (Baton Rouge, LA), Mar. 6, 2001; www.theadvocate.com
Prayer and Government Aid
According to the New York Times, Samaritan’s Purse, a Protestant organization that received more than $200,000 in government aid to provide relief after the devastating earthquake in El Salvador, held half-hour prayer sessions before teaching villagers how to construct temporary houses. The Times further reported that the group’s workers distributed religious materials and tried to persuade earthquake victims to accept Christ as their Saviour.
In a one-page statement, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) cited concerns of a possible appearance of a link between Samaritan’s Purse prayer sessions and the distribution of government aid. The agency said it plans to work with Samaritan’s Purse to ensure that they maintain adequate and sufficient separation between their prayer sessions and their USAID-funded activities.
USAID policies require that faith-based organizations keep separate accounts for government funds which are to be used for humanitarian aid and private funds used for religious activities.
Representatives of Samaritan’s Purse, which was founded by Franklin Graham, son of evangelist Billy Graham, maintain that the group was not using federal funds for its religious activities.
The delicate balance between state humanitarian aid and religious outreach is a sensitive issue at a time when federal agencies are considering the logistics of President George Bush’s plan to provide government aid to faith-based charities.
—The News and Observor, (Raleigh, NC), Mar. 7, 2001; www.newsobservor.com
Kansas Educators Reinstate Theory of Evolution
In March, 18 months after eliminating several evolution-related topics from the public school curriculum, while incorporating other theories such as creation, Kansas educators reintroduced the theory of evolution into the state curriculum.
The Kansas Board of Education voted 7-3 to reject the 1999 standards that allowed local school districts to determine what to teach students about the theory of evolution. Under the standards, schools were not required to teach concepts such as the estimated age of the earth or the common ancestry of apes and humans. While religious groups applauded the standards, critics charged that the program left students ill prepared for college science classes.
Religious group argue that evolution cannot be proved and that the teaching of evolution undermines biblical teachings about the origins of life.
Efforts to remove evolution from science curricula have had varying degrees of success in Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Nebraska, and several other states in recent years.
The conflict between religious organizations and public schools surfaced in the 1925 Scopes monkey trial, in which teacher John Thomas Scopes was prosecuted for infringement of a Tennessee law banning the teaching of evolution. Prosecuted by famed politician William Jennings Bryan and defended by noted trial attorney Clarence Darrow, the widely publicized case held the title “Trial of the Century” until the trial of O. J. Simpson arguably displaced it in the 1990s. Scopes lost at trial and was fined the minimum $100 fine. The Tennessee Supreme Court reversed the verdict on a technicality.
—Church & State, Mar. 1, 2001; www.au.org/churchstate
Preamble Instead of Prayer
In a creative attempt to circumvent court rulings outlawing school-sponsored prayer in public schools, a Louisiana politician has proposed a bill that would require students to recite the preamble to the Louisiana state constitution. If the proposed legislation passes, public school students could find themselves beginning each school day thanking God for the civil, political, economic, and religious liberties they enjoy.
The proposed law requires all school boards in Louisiana provide students with a daily opportunity for group recitation of the language. Participation would be purely voluntary.
The American Civil Liberties Union is researching the constitutionality of the legislation in search of what could be a violation of existing court rulings prohibiting school-sponsored prayer.
Louisiana state senator James David said he filed the bill in response to a court ruling striking down attempts by school officials to pray at school-sponsored events. “I don’t see how they [the ACLU] can say this is a prayer,” said Cain. “I don’t know how they can fight me over a phrase in the constitution.”
—The Times–Picayune, (New Orleans), Jan. 26, 2001; www.timespicayune.com
Church Survives Without Government Funding
For 400 years it took an act of Parliament to change the prayer book of the Church of Sweden, the official Lutheran denomination. Every newborn was registered as a church member by default, and cabinet officials chose the bishops. To finance the operation of the church, the government collected a mandatory church tax that in recent years amounted to more than $500 million in annual revenue.
Though the grand cathedrals could hold more than 900 worshipers, only two or three dozen attended weekly services. Eighty-five percent of the population of 9 million Swedes consider themselves members of the Church of Sweden.
On New Year’s Day 2000 the government pulled the plug on the mandatory church tax. Though the government still continues to collect money for the church from individual taxpayers, participation in the program is voluntary and taxpayers can also choose to allocate a portion of their tax funds to other religious groups.
In spite of church leaders’ fears over the lack of revenue, church leaders are reportedly noticing an increased commitment to the mission of the church among church members and an increasing understanding that the members, not the government, have the responsibility of maintaining their church.
—The Washington Post, Dec. 29, 2000; www.washingtonpost.com
Brochure Causes Concern
According to the Washington Post, the city of Washington, D.C., has voluntarily stopped distributing flyers proclaiming “Jesus Is Our Hope!” The flyer advocates increased funding for AIDS research and compassion for people with the disease.
Though many civil liberties groups and AIDS activists support these goals, they were concerned that the religious overtones of the pamphlet (which included 30 Bible references) breached the separation between church and state.
The pamphlet, entitled “A Christian Response to AIDS,” was distributed at a recent health fair and was available through the city health department. According to a city spokeswoman, the department spent $380 on 1,000 copies of the brochure, which originally had been ordered for a church conference. The American Civil Liberties Union called the brochure “outrageously unconstitutional,” but will not take legal action since the city voluntarily withdrew it.
—The Washington Post, Feb. 28, 2001; www.washingtonpost.com
Compiled by Michael Peabody
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