COMMENTARY | According to reports from the Associated Press, the Cranston School Committee voted 5-2 to not appeal the court ruling against allowing Cranston High School West to display a banner titled "School Prayer." The case was brought by a young atheist by the name of Jessica Alhquist, a student at the school, and backed by the ACLU.
I feel that the court has made an error in judgment, and I sincerely hope that the school system will continue to fight this poor ruling despite the financial burden.
The people who founded this country and the state of Rhode Island, where this school is located, came here so they could freely practice their religion. England was the homeland of many early American colonists. The years leading up to the colonization of the New World saw England ripped apart in bloody conflict between the Catholic Church and Protestants. To be a government official in England required membership in the Church of England because the king was the head of the church. This is what the Bill of Rights and the First Amendment was meant to avoid. It was not meant to be used as tool of militant atheists to try and wedge God out of every aspect of public life.
Rhode Island's state constitution particularly invokes religion and the Christian God. The preamble reads: "We, the people of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, grateful to Almighty God for the civil and religious liberty which He hath so long permitted us to enjoy, and looking to Him for a blessing upon our endeavors to secure and to transmit the same, unimpaired, to succeeding generations, do ordain and establish this Constitution of government."
What would the men who wrote those words say regarding the decision removing this banner?
In the past, the nation's courts have ruled in favor of such hallowed expressions of faith in government documents to remain. Statements such as the nation's motto "In God We Trust" and "One nation, under God" which is found in the Pledge of Allegiance, have withstood many legal challenges from extreme atheists. As found on the Cornell Law website, the U.S. Supreme Court said in Zorach v. Clauson (1952) that "We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being." In my opinion this school banner is one and the same in intent and function as these statements. It should have been afforded the same privileges.
While I can understand the financial burden the school would face in continuing to fight this lawsuit in court, reported as over $173,000 already and another $500,000 to defend this case to the U.S. Supreme Court, I wish the Cranston School Committee would stand its ground and not allow the banner to be removed simply because the ACLU has a larger warchest.
Freedom of religion does not mean freedom from religion.
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