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The Nation's Pulse
Religion Under Harassment
A new report surveys the the ever growing hostility toward religious belief in America.
(Page 2 of 2)
THE FORGOING IS BUT THE TIP of the proverbial iceberg of First Amendment litigation, however. In a number of cases government actively sought to suppress free speech by religious people. Several cities attempted to mandate disclosures by pregnancy resource centers that do not support abortion. Others sought to limit the activities of anti-abortion protesters. Phoenix, Arizona employed a noise ordinance against religious organizations, such as ringing church bells. The Dallas Housing Authority banned religious services on its property, before retreating under pressure.
Invocations and prayers at government functions and on government property generated many lawsuits. There is little consistency in the rulings, other than the tendency of jurists to count the number of angels dancing on pinheads in order to distinguish one case from another. In Colorado a state court voided the governor’s proclamation of a day of prayer for favoring those who prayed over those who did not do so. In Lodi, California, the city was attacked for allowing any citizen, of faith or no faith, to offer an invocation before city council meetings.
Holiday observances, too, have sparked extensive litigation. Suits have been filed when government closed offices on or allowed workers to take off religious holidays. Lawsuits over Christmas decorations — including crèches, menorahs, nativity scenes, and Christmas trees — are endless and the rulings are endlessly arbitrary, resting on fine distinctions rarely observable to the untrained legal eye.
Lawsuits even have been threatened when government employees put up religious decorations in their own offices. The Petoskey, Michigan School Board gave up plans to return to Christmas Break from Winter Holiday Break when threatened with a lawsuit. Public protests caused Merced, California to abandon plans to change the name of its Christmas Parade to Holiday Parade. A suit was filed against the erection of the World Trade Center cross, made up of two steel girders saved from the wreckage of the two original buildings. One housing authority told residents of its senior citizen facilities that they could not sing Christmas carols.
Another government seniors’ home told residents that they could not display religious decorations outside of their rooms. The Indiana Department of Health banned “Christmas” parties, even during the lunch hour, before retreating after receiving a legal demand letter. A school in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, told students and teachers not to say “Merry Christmas.” In Naples, Florida, a fire station removed Christmas lights in response to neighborhood complaints. A library in Chandler, Arizona, eliminated its holiday display, with materials on Hanukkah and Kwanzaa, after a pastor requested inclusion of books on Christmas.
LEGAL BATTLES ALSO SURROUND government memorials and monuments. Crosses are the most obvious point of contention. For instance, the Association of Atheists and Freethinkers complained about a cross erected privately at Camp Pendleton to the memory of all fallen Marines. Displays of the Ten Commandments suffer a similar fate, with cases revolving around whether their role is seen as secular or religious. Similar challenges, with similar results, are regularly launched over government mottos, sculptures, and seals. Longevity, history, and tradition mean little when religious symbols are involved. While Richmond County, Virginia’s 130-year-old seal survived an establishment challenge, the 90-year-old seal for the city of Zion, Illinois, did not.
Schools, from elementary through university, provide another constant battleground. One set of issues involve the right to start religious clubs and use school facilities. Schools often resist, with frequent success, student efforts to organize, sometimes on the grounds of “nondiscrimination.” Schools have attempted to censor student papers and readings, valedictory speeches, research projects, class participation, songs, pictures, poetry, event invitations, Valentine’s Day cards, clothes, jewelry, greeting cards, community service, and personal gifts to eliminate any religious content, as well as limit political speech, such as the wearing of t-shirts. University graduate programs in counseling have begun to expel students unwilling to affirm homosexuality.
Miami-Dade Community College threatened to arrest students who distributed religious cards on campus. Pellissippi State Community College barred students from handing out Christian materials. A lawsuit was filed to prevent a high school choir from singing religious songs. The Santa Rosa County, Florida school district prohibited students or teachers from saying “God bless.” Teachers and administrators have thrown away students’ Bibles and book covers with religious themes.
Student-initiated and -led prayers routinely face legal challenge. In many cases schools concede the issue without a formal legal fight. At the College of Alameda two students were suspended for “disruptive behavior” for praying in an office. Two years of legal battles ensued with a student victory.
Litigation has been intense involving scholarship, choice, and voucher programs. The legal distinctions between decisions are as arcane and arbitrary as elsewhere. Free speech by teachers and administrations also often is at issue. A high school principal and athletic director were charged with criminal contempt for praying over a meal. Pennsylvania barred teachers from wearing religious jewelry. A Clay County, Florida principal was sued by the assistant principal for including religious comments in emails. A biology teacher in Capistrano, California, was forbidden from discussing religious topics on school grounds, even outside of class.
A professor successfully sued the University of North Carolina-Wilmington for denying a promotion based on his religious and political views expressed off-campus. The University of Toledo fired a professor for writing a newspaper editorial on her religious views of homosexuality. The University of Illinois fired and then reinstated an adjunct professor for lecturing on homosexuality in his introductory class on Catholicism. A Santa Barbara, California principal was fired for participating in a community prayer breakfast — and later was reinstated by a federal judge. Religious schools also have faced legal challenges when attempting to enforce doctrinal requirements on teachers, though the courts generally supported the schools.
Another set of legal battles revolve around the access of religious students to school facilities. The Supreme Court affirmed that Hastings Law School could violate the right of association of religious students in the name of nondiscrimination. Variants of this policy played out across the nation at high schools and universities.
Schools routinely found themselves threatened with lawsuits for holding graduation ceremonies in religious facilities even for nonreligious reasons. Several libraries banned the discussion of religious books or use of space by religious groups. Land use restrictions, especially on the construction or expansion of church or para-church buildings, also are common. Discrimination against religious organizations hurts Islamic and Jewish religious communities as well as Christian ones.
Most of the forgoing cases should never have ended up in court. Most of them could have been resolved with a little more good will on one side or the other. Very few represent irreconcilable conflicts.
Non-believers are, and should remain, free to reject religion. However, hostility toward faith appears to be rising, which is not good for Christians or anyone else. It is more important than ever for religious people to be vigilant and resist state threats against this most fundamental liberty.
About the Author
Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. A former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he is the author and editor of several books, including The Politics of Plunder: Misgovernment in Washington (Transaction).
Letter to the Editor View all comments (27) | Leave a comment
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Darin| 9.25.12 @ 6:38AM
Seeing what's happening to America is further evidence we are nearing the End Times. The world will turn its back on God. Not all individuals will do so, but nations and their governments will. America is quickly going down this path, and I'd argue that our government has already turned away from God at least privately.
spike59| 9.25.12 @ 6:42AM
"I'd argue that our government has already turned away from God at least privately."
----------------------------------------------------
All the more reason to reject the 'we belong to the government' nonsense the Left has been spewing
Alan Obama Fan Brooks | 9.25.12 @ 9:39PM
Agape love is virtually nonexistent; people only care about their own people.
Appleby| 9.25.12 @ 7:00AM
This is the time to get your spiritual house in order, in whatever way seems best to you -- and if you don't know how, ask someone whom you know. It's not tough to do; God is always available for your prayers and straightforward conversation -- you don't need to be elaborate and flowery. Just talk to Him like folks. As that doomed Nazi said to Indiana Jones, "It's time to ask yourself what you believe." And don't be cute about it. Speak up. Because you never know who may need a lifeline. Fight back against anyone who tries to shut you up or persuade you that just a pinch of incense on the emperor's altar is "no big deal". Even here in Kanukistan things are beginning to slowly turn to God. Our Catholic church has finally caved to pressure from the congregation and is holding Bible study for adults!
Appleby| 9.25.12 @ 7:00AM
This is the time to get your spiritual house in order, in whatever way seems best to you -- and if you don't know how, ask someone whom you know. It's not tough to do; God is always available for your prayers and straightforward conversation -- you don't need to be elaborate and flowery. Just talk to Him like folks. As that doomed Nazi said to Indiana Jones, "It's time to ask yourself what you believe." And don't be cute about it. Speak up. Because you never know who may need a lifeline. Fight back against anyone who tries to shut you up or persuade you that just a pinch of incense on the emperor's altar is "no big deal". Even here in Kanukistan things are beginning to slowly turn to God. Our Catholic church has finally caved to pressure from the congregation and is holding Bible study for adults!
Bill8472| 9.26.12 @ 12:22PM
Every time is the time to get your spiritual house in order.
Intelligent Design| 9.25.12 @ 7:35AM
Obama and his Demo-Socialists are attacking the First Amendment, and every religion except the one that isn't: Islam. They like and support Islam because it's a 7th century totalitarian political ideology the essence of which is forced state "religion", not unlike Nazism and Communism. The Demo-Socialists like the collectivist core of Islam, which takes away individual rights in favor of total state control. The Muslim Brotherhood is currently active in the U.S. trying to subvert the Constitution via campus groups, mosques, and fake charities, with help from Obama his fellow Demo-Socialists.
Muslims would do well to leave the 7th century and join the 21st by committing apostasy, but they will have to be brave since Islam's penalty for apostasy is death. What true religions kill you for "resigning"? As the Ayatollah Khomeini said, "Islam is politics or it is nothing."
Jack in Wi| 9.25.12 @ 7:55AM
This is a terrific essay. Doug Bandow should be here on a full time basis. He is a wonderful writer and reporter.
Joellen| 9.25.12 @ 8:00AM
Well said Appleby, pray for our Priest here in America. They and the many of the Nuns have fallen into the Liberal/Progessive ideology. In fact, for years I have told/asked fellow Catholics NOT TO GIVE to the annual Bishops Appeals. As many of you know, they give/gave to ACORN; Planned Parenthood, etc. Now I do like I do with the Republican Party, I pick & choose myself where my money is going. Anyways - PRAY, Sept 28th, starts the prayer/fast before the election.
TLP| 9.25.12 @ 8:57AM
The Left doesn't like GOD?
No way! When did that happen?
Why would anyone believe that a Group who believes that THEY KNOW BEST, would share their Pedestal with something that requires FAITH?
I believe that one of Their Saints - Saint Stalin - once wondered aloud, about the Numbers of Soldiers, Tanks, and Artillery in the Vatican's Arsenal.
Why would any people who see Nothing Wrong with Murdering their own Unborn Child, or having some Butcher, pull their Baby out until just its head is inside, and then Gutting it open like a Fish, have any interest in GOD?
GOD is hard. GOD has Rules, and Punishments for breaking those Rules.
He has Commandments, which the Left fights, tooth and nail, to keep them away from the Public Square, Out of Sight, and Out of Mind.
I believe that the old Loon from Canada, is right.
I think that Good People are coming back to GOD. Coming back to Church. And, for good reason.
Every Major City resembles Soddom and Gomorrah, these days, as opposed to: A shining City on a hill.
Everyone in this Administration is GODLESS.
They might go to Church, like The Fräulein of Death - Kathleen Sebelious. But, those are NOT Churches. They are the Houses of the False Prophet. The Beast. President Bojangles, raised in the Unholy Muslim Schools and Mosques of Murder World, in Indonesia.
Have Faith.
Come November, GOD Willing, we take Black Jesus down from his Cross, and throw him into The Pit.
Where he belongs.
Nancy in NC| 9.25.12 @ 8:29AM
Read the book "The Harbinger". We will pay for our evil ways.
TLP| 9.25.12 @ 6:43PM
Read the Book "Revelation".
THEY will pay for their Evil Ways.
Alex Feltham | 9.25.12 @ 9:08AM
There is, of course, one big exception to religions getting harassed.
On that subject there was a great interview between CNN’s Erin Burnett and Pamela Gellar available here:
http://john-moloney.blogspot.com/
where Erin gives a hilarious definition of Jihad, and means it.
Enjoy
Bill8472| 9.25.12 @ 9:14AM
We read about the experiences of Lot and his family and the sodomites of Sodom, who went so far as to discuss publicly whether or not they were going to sodomize God's angel when he visited Lot, and then we talk about the end times because there's harassment of religious people in the U.S.?
People, we weren't in the end days when the Separatists were hounded so badly they felt they had to leave England for Holland, then the New World. We're certainly not in the end days now. So stop it already. It's just a bad time, that's all.
Skippy| 9.25.12 @ 3:24PM
Very good.
I'm a christian, but all this endtimes baloney puts me in mind of the Millerites 2 centuries ago.
They were wrong too.
Live your life as though it all ends tomm., and maybe love will be what you decide to do.
Von Mises Jr| 9.25.12 @ 9:19AM
Totalitarians cannot succeed when the people follow God unless that religion is a statist tyranny such as Islam. Here are some interesting words by Ludwig Von Mises regarding God and statism:
“The state is a human institution, not a superhuman being. He who says “state” means coercion and compulsion. He who says: There should be a law concerning this matter, means: The armed men of the government should force people to do what they do not want to do, or not to do what they like. He who says: This law should be better enforced, means: the police should force people to obey this law. He who says: The state is God, deified arms and prisons. The worship of the state is the worship of force.”
Who Knows?| 9.25.12 @ 11:37AM
The thing to take away from this litany of “assaults” on religion in America, circa 2012, is encapsulated in one word---
SUE.
In place of the actual wars between religions, enlightened Americas, as Rush Limbaugh used to say, have WAY too much free time, and so they fight in court, using WORDS.
The fruit of separation is war.
It’s just the way it is.
Poor me! My religion is being dissed!
Muslims behead. Others sue.
And, the world wags on.
Wars rage on.
There’s nothing to do about it. Your rights end at the tip of my nose.
One might note that might makes right, or is that left, or up, or down, or under, or over, or permeating, or nowhere…
First transcend the mind, not the body. Inwardness is flight from love. Be the Whole Body, than which there is no other.
Intuition IS the Absolute. This is Absolutely True.
Ryan| 9.25.12 @ 11:41AM
Intuition is the absolute? What does that even mean?
How can I trust my intuition if I have sinned so many times?
Who Knows?| 9.25.12 @ 2:08PM
The Intuition that transcends separation, not "my" intuition, is the Absolute.
Sinning is to miss the mark, of there being Only God.
Ryan| 9.26.12 @ 3:19PM
That...doesn't mean anything.
Clara| 9.25.12 @ 1:46PM
I was called a child abuser by a social worker after telling her that I was going to teach my children to value life and that abortion is wrong. It's only a matter of time before they come for our children.
Skippy| 9.25.12 @ 3:26PM
I hope you laughed in her face, and have weapons to protect your kids from the tender mercies of Big Govt.
darcy| 9.26.12 @ 12:08AM
Best not to expose yourself to the tyrants in the social services; they act like they want to help when what they're doing is gathering evidence with which to prosecute you. Never, ever, deal with them personally. Get a lawyer, even if you can't afford one, to do the talking for you -- if you have the misfortune to fall within their radar.
cicero| 9.25.12 @ 3:58PM
Change will only come when those who value their religious faith take a stand. Just once, I would like to see a Catholic bishop tell a politition who speaks out in favor of abortion on demand that they are not welcome to receive the sacrements. Just once, I would like to see the Christian and Jewish communities refuse to back a politition who openly disrespects their faith and customs. Until that happens, it is just so much bleating into the wind. And the end result will be the triumph of the secular. The secular will not stand up to radical Islam (see Europe), resulting in world tragedy.
mike 3/505| 9.25.12 @ 9:10PM
Seriously...when was the last time Pelosi , an allegedly practicing Catholic, was denied communion for failing to repent her evil support of murder.