Prayer flunks out at graduation
At a recent school district board meeting in Pottsgrove, I observed a spirit of confusion regarding the rights of free speech. The debate centered on the need for the school board to maintain neutrality in matters of religion, while at the same time, preserving the rights of individual students to religious speech. In light of someone taking offense at a prayer at last year’s graduation ceremony, there is now a proposed ban on prayer in all future graduation ceremonies in Pottsgrove.
Over the years, the Supreme Court of the U.S. has created decisions to fit their own predilections that affect public schools, by lifting two key clauses from the 1st and 14th amendments to the Constitution. The 1st amendment (The Establishment Clause) guarantees that Congress shall make no law to either establish a religion nor to prohibit the free exercise thereof. The 14th amendment establishes former slaves with the full right of citizenship by mandating that no state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.
But the overreach of the Supreme Court in the 1st and 14th amendments has created a conundrum for school districts not only in Pottsgrove but across the nation in dealing with the individual rights of students while maintaining their own neutrality. By combining elements of both the 1st and 14th amendments incorrectly, they extend the power of the Supreme Court beyond what the Constitution originally allowed and disallows local and state governments from making their own determinations. Therefore, the federated part of our republic in the minds of the Supreme Court and the Executive branch is null and void. Not unlike the German Republic, or the French Republic or the Soviet Union, our national government now controls everything and tells the states what to do.
In 1857, the Dred Scott decision found that an African American’s right to equal protection under the law was negated to another man’s right to treat him as property. It took more than 100 years to correct that Supreme Court Decision.
A wise man once observed, “The law is paralyzed and justice does not go forth” when we see the rights of an individual’s free speech being reduced. Individual rights to conscience, religious expression and free speech now are being modified or controlled by a heavy handed central (and distant) government. It severely restricts local and state government’s ability to deal with the daily needs of its citizens as was witnessed on June 7, at the Pottsgrove School District meeting.
May the students of Pottsgrove, as well as those around the nation, not have to wait 100 years to restore the rights of all individuals to free speech and freedom of religion.