OPINION:
We are witnessing the emergence of an unstated yet court-sanctioned right that makes no appearance in the Constitution and yet seems to trump the First Amendment at every turn: the right to not be offended.
Claiming to promote tolerance and diversity while seeking a homogeneous mindset, many workplaces, schools and public places have become intolerant of any but the most politically correct viewpoints.
Subscribe to have The Washington Times’ Higher Ground delivered to your inbox every Sunday.
For too long, these forces of political correctness — helped along by the courts — have been allowed to distort the spirit and meaning of the First Amendment, turning the expressive right to freedom of religion into an oppressive act of state-sanctioned censorship.
Anything that might raise the specter of controversy is avoided at all costs.
America’s public schools have been particularly guilty of adopting a zero-tolerance attitude towards religious expression. In fact, The Rutherford Institute has litigated countless cases in which even non-verbal expressions of faith — (a coach bowing his head out of respect while student-athletes offer a pre-game prayer; a student wind ensemble’s choice of an instrumental arrangement of “Ave Maria” at their high school graduation ceremony; and a small cross on memorial tiles for students killed in a school shooting) — have been censored by school officials in a misguided attempt to respect the so-called wall of separation between church and state.
Special Event: Higher Ground presents a conversation with Washington Times columnist Dr. Everett Piper and host of the Higher Ground Podcast Billy Hallowell.
Indeed, in recent years, the federal courts have chipped away at religious freedom to such an extent that even non-verbal forms of expression in public have been deemed to be illegal.
While religion and religious expression have been objects of censorship in public schools for quite some time, the intolerance of anything related to religion has taken a turn for the absurd, resulting in a host of inane actions over the years, from the Easter Bunny being renamed “Peter Rabbit” to Christmas Concerts being dubbed “Winter” Concerts and some schools even outlawing the colors red and green, saying they’re Christmas colors.
It’s not all bad news, however.
More than a decade after the U.S. Supreme Court refused The Rutherford Institute’s request to safeguard the right of high school football coach Marcus Borden to bow his head and take a knee during a student-led prayer, the Supreme Court finally affirmed in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District that a public high school coach has a First Amendment right to kneel and silently pray on the school’s football field after a game.
Unfortunately, even with this fleeting victory (Coach Kennedy has since resigned from his post citing a hostile work environment), the schools, being a microcosm of what takes place on the national stage, continue to cleanse religious expression from their midst.
Consequently, we have gone from a nation where religious freedom was highly prized to one in which religion is being privatized and forced out of public institutions and public life.
As social critic Christopher Lasch detailed in his book “The Revolt of the Elites and the Betrayal of Democracy,” an educational and governmental elite (which includes the courts) in American society that views religion as irrelevant has come to predominate:
The separation of church and state, nowadays interpreted as prohibiting any public recognition of religion at all, is more deeply entrenched in America than anywhere else. Religion has been relegated to the sidelines of public debate… Those who have adopted this secular outlook frequently cite the “wall of separation between church and state” as justification for censoring, silencing and discriminating against religious individuals, especially in the public schools. The threat posed by this extreme secularism is that religion and religious people are not merely kept separate from the school system but are instead forced into a position of utter subservience.
Indeed, while the First Amendment to the Constitution affirms freedom of religion, it has erroneously been misconstrued as freedom from religion.
Rest assured, if this trend continues unchecked, it will not be long before “freedom of religion” is done away with altogether and replaced with a more restrictive, government-sanctioned “freedom of worship” that limits people of faith to worship in the privacy of their church, synagogue or home. However, as essayist Joseph Bottum makes clear, there is a world of difference between the right to “freedom of religion” and “freedom of worship”:
Think of it this way: If you have “freedom of religion,” you can bring up your children in your faith, hold public processions, and print books. If you have only “freedom of worship” you can pray quietly in your home, as long as it remains out of public sight.
If we do not maintain this ideal of religious freedom, then the only alternative is a form of secular society and government that respects no one’s freedom or opinions at all.
–
Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His latest books “The Erik Blair Diaries” and “Battlefield America: The War on the American People” are available at www.amazon.com. Whitehead can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org. Nisha Whitehead is the Executive Director of The Rutherford Institute. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.