The Progressive Southerner No. 1

www.southerner.net

Sunday, Dec. 2, 2001

- A COLUMN ONLINE -

Vol. 1, No. 1

Glynn Wilson

Secular Education Forever
By Glynn Wilson

Secular education now, secular education tomorrow, secular education forever. That might make a good battle cry in a run for public office today, although it would not get you elected.

It would offend a majority of voters. Public opinion polls show most Americans favor school prayer. According to a Gallup poll conducted in August, 78 percent favored a Constitutional Amendment to allow voluntary prayer in public schools .

You might recognize this battle cry as much different from a slogan used by a nationally prominent politician from Alabama, who said, in his run for governor in 1962, "segregation now . . . tomorrow . . . forever." George Wallace didn't get it then. He also liked to blame society's problems on the lack of prayer in schools. That was part of his mass appeal.

Why is it worthy to raise that specter now, while we're in the midst of a so-called "crusade" against the Islamic fanatics of the Taliban?

Because preserving our secular education system against religious fundamentalists on the domestic front is our only hope of preventing the creation of right-wing Christian terrorists here. Think Timothy McVeigh or Eric Rudolph. Church sponsored education in Pakistan and elsewhere in the Arab-Muslim world is what created the threat we face today from abroad, run as it is by religious mullahs, with no wall between church and state.

American Christians don't seem to get this. Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and a host of local religious leaders are urging Americans to pray to God for a terrorist defense shield in the sky, and to defy the Constitution by fighting for prayer in public schools.

The governor of Alabama and the Chief Justice of the state's Supreme Court obviously don't get it. They allowed the erection of a monument to the Ten Commandments in the lobby of the Alabama Judicial Building, as if reading 10 laws from the Old Testament would stop a crack addict or a Muslim terrorist from killing.

Many of my students seem to get it, after reading stories like these from the New York Times by Rick Bragg (Nurturing Young Islamic Hearts and Hatreds, Oct. 14); John W. Fountain (Prayer Warriors, Nov. 18); Thomas Friedman (Breaking the Circle, Nov. 16); and David Firestone (Suit On Commandments Display, Nov. 1).

But my students are not the masses. Their IQs are mostly above average (100). Researchers on intelligence know that 84 percent of "the people" have IQs below 120. That doesn't mean they can't be educated to understand the difference between knowing something through science or through faith -- if our political leaders would actually do a bit of leading on the subject, rather than following the mass response on public opinion polls.

This is a critical thing the founders of the United States grasped two and a quarter centuries ago. People who claim to know something based on faith or authority (from a book or a would-be dictator) should not be allowed to govern in a society where knowing something based on knowable facts carries obvious benefits.

Why attack the American Civil Liberties Union, for example, when it fights in the courts for free speech — even for Jerry Falwell?

The Communists took this too far by banning all worship. In Cuba, when you ask a local to explain the statue of Jesus in Havana, he or she might say: "That is an important man who lived long ago," not "that is the Son of God who died for our sins." There is something appealing, however, about a society where no one would dream of taking class time in a school to pray to a Christian God or a Muslim God.

It is obvious President Bush doesn't get this either. He fans the flames of religious fanaticism here by calling for a national day of prayer from a congressional podium, from the very heart of our government. How is that message to be interpreted by the masses? Prayer to a Christian God in a public place is good, so why can't we do it in our schools? It's no wonder this causes confusion.

The message seems to be: "Damn the Muslims, full speed ahead" in the crusade toward Armageddon.

Is that what Osama bin Ladin wants? A global Jihad between the Christians and the Jews against the Muslims? A war to bring on the end of the world? Is that what American Christians want?

Just as the Taliban should not be allowed to govern in Afghanistan, Christians should not be allowed to stream roll our government into allowing prayer in schools.

Where is the Supreme Court when we need it this Sunday morning? At church I presume, refusing to hear a school prayer case from Virginia. Considering how this Supreme Court handled the 2000 presidential election fiasco, though, it might be best if the court stayed out of this fight.

If I were a praying man, my prayer might be: "God help us preserve our secular education system forever." Export that.

Glynn R. Wilson, ABD-Ph.D., is an instructor in the Department of Communications at Loyola University New Orleans, a free-lance writer and Editor-in-Chief of The Southerner magazine, and an Alabama native who covered Wallace's last years in office as a newspaper reporter.

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