When religion loses out

Charles C. Haynes
Published: August 2, 2008

By CHARLES C. HAYNES

First Amendment Center

Hashmel Turner of Fredericksburg, Va., wears two hats: City Council member and part-time pastor of the First Baptist Church of Love.

Rev. Turner wants to pray in the name of Jesus Christ — including at council sessions.

But on July 23, Turner lost the latest round in his battle to invoke Jesus when the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the Fredericksburg City Council’s policy requiring that prayers at meetings be
nondenominational.

In an opinion written by retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, the court ruled that the prayers at issue are “government speech” and therefore the prayer policy does not violate Turner’s free
speech or free exercise of religion.

Welcome to the confusing world of government prayers.

Like other communities, Fredericksburg is divided about the practice of invocations at council meetings. The current dispute began in 2005 when the council changed its policy of allowing sectarian
prayers to avoid a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The new policy, in turn, provoked a lawsuit from Councilman Turner. When it comes to state prayers, government officials are often sued if they do and sued if they don’t.

The Fredericksburg prayer dilemma traces back to Marsh v. Chambers, a 1983 U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding the constitutionality of legislative prayers — so long as such prayers don’t advance
a particular religion. In Marsh, the high court wants to have it both ways: Keep the longstanding tradition of opening legislative sessions with prayer but at the same time prohibit government prayers that
proselytize or endorse one faith over another.

But here’s the rub: To-whom-it-may-concern prayers strike many people as a very bad idea. For Rev. Turner and some other religious Americans, generic prayers aren’t real prayers. And for other
believers and nonbelievers, any state prayer violates religious freedom.

I’m in the camp that sees state prayers as antithetical to authentic faith. Consider the infamous “plastic reindeer test” crafted by the Supreme Court in cases involving holiday displays. Governments, it
seems, may include a crèche in the official display, as long as it is surrounded by enough reindeer, Santa, Frosty and other seasonal paraphernalia to render the baby Jesus a secular symbol.

Or consider the use of “God” in the Pledge of Allegiance and on our currency. Various Supreme Court justices have opined over the years that such references to deity don’t violate the First Amendment
because the expressions have been drained of their religious meaning and have become what Justice William Brennan called “ceremonial deism.”

State religion, in other words, is constitutional as long as it doesn’t mean anything religious. Why anyone of faith supports this arrangement is beyond me. Perhaps they believe that empty symbolism is
better than none at all.

A better solution is to liberate religion to be authentic by taking government out of it. A good example is how most public schools have moved from school-sponsored to community-sponsored
baccalaureate services during graduation weekend. Not only are such events constitutional, but they also free the community to have real sermons and real prayers rather than the lowest-common-
denominator religious services of the past.

City council meetings, of course, present a different challenge. The current practice of opening with generic prayers — although constitutional under the Supreme Court’s rulings — continues to offend
many believers and nonbelievers alike. If we must have an invocation at government functions, then let’s do it in silence.

Charles C. Haynes is senior scholar at the First Amendment Center, 555 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20001. Web: firstamendmentcenter.org. E-mail

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