8.27.2007
Avoiding Religious Lawsuits?
Harvard Law Professor Noah Feldman writes an opinion piece for the New York Times in which he proposes a solution to preventing lawsuits over accommodating religion in public schools.
"The source of the confusion is the mistaken notion that the categories "religious" and "secular" are strictly binary, like an on-off switch. It's true that some things are inherently religious, like a prayer or a church or a Torah scroll. (It would be impossible to make heads or tails of them without reference to their religious nature.) But it's also true that many things that are not inherently religious are not inevitably secular either: they can be infused with religious meaning through the intention of a believer. A gymnasium or a warehouse has a perfectly secular use but also can be consecrated by worshipers who invoke God's name there for purposes of worship. Examples of what you might call "dual use," such things can be at once secular to one person and religious to another."
Will an emphasis on "dual use" really solve most religious-based lawsuits? It seems to me that looking back at some recent cases that involved modern Pagans in a school setting, the real problem (for us at any rate) isn't the usual secular/Christian (or other dominant monotheism) split you usually see, but the issue of inclusion. Will a multi-purpose prayer room (or a "wellness" room as discussed in the article) trying to avoid lawsuits really open its doors to Pagan practice? If school administrators aren't willing to be broad-minding enough to realize that "dual purpose" (or "religious speech" provisions) can't be just secular students AND monotheists then the courts will continue to hear plenty of lawsuits over religion in school. Dual use spaces, if they are going to work in preventing lawsuits, must be completely inclusive or must not exist at all.
ADDENDUM: To further illustrate my point is an editorial from today's Dallas Morning News, concerning the new law in Texas that "protects" religious speech in schools.
"Consider some scenarios. When a Wiccan student council president closes morning announcements each day with a prayer to the Mother Goddess, will Christian families object? What happens when the captain of the football team decides to use his pep rally speech to mock the faith of opposing players – and, potentially, the faith of some students in his own school? Under this law, the hands of school officials are tied."
Can Christians fighting for more religion in school allow for Pagan involvement in order to keep it Constitutional? The jury (as they say) is out.
Labels: law, New York Times, Noah Feldman, Religion, Religious Freedom
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