Persecuted 12-year olds

[Michael deHaven Newsom]

Rick makes too great a leap for me here.  I think that there are ways to
involve other civic institutions.   Reliance on the common schools (or some
private equivalent) is, I think, misplaced.  On the other hand, I do not
think that the public schools ought to teach, affirmatively, that religion is
bad, private, or some combination of the two.  I know that this is a little
nuanced, but I think that there are some other possibilities that those bound
and determined to have majoritarian religion in the public schools are
overlooking.

Michael deHaven Newsom
Howard University School of Law

Rick Duncan wrote:

> Like Paul, I have great sympathy for young children
> who are persecuted in public schools and other public
> institutions. Children who don't wish to pray, should
> not be required to pray. And children who do wish to
> pray, or to paint a picture of Jesus in art class and
> have it displayed on the walls along with the art of
> other children, should not be silenced.
>
> This is why we need school choice, so parents can send
> their children to schools which respect the religious
> and non-religious lifeways of students and families.
>
> What good is a single prayer at commencement when
> children have been indoctrinated for 12 years in a
> strictly secular curriculum?
>
> Blessings on all of our children, Rick Duncan
>
> --- "Horwitz, Paul" <PHorwitz at OMM.COM> wrote:
> > Rick Duncan and Scott Idleman raise interesting
> > psychological exegeses; I
> > hope, and now have reason to feel sure, that their
> > Establishment Clause
> > analyses will pay proper heed to the psychological
> > pressures inherent in
> > voluntary school prayer, invocations at graduation
> > exercises, and the like.
> > If religiously devout federal judges -- who are also
> > tenured for life and
> > accorded every manner of public and private respect
> > -- can feel "beset" by
> > "psychological tension," and the chief justice of a
> > state court can feel
> > that his beliefs have been downtrodden and oppressed
> > by a powerful majority,
> > then what pressures must beset a person of no faith,
> > or non-majoritarian
> > faith, who is encouraged by overt and covert
> > measures to pray with her
> > fellows, who must sit while others stand, who is
> > investigated by the
> > authorities if she complains (as the litigant
> > appears to have been in the
> > Santa Fe case) -- and who, unlike Judge Moore, is
> > all of twelve years old?
> > Is one who believes that Judge Moore acted out of
> > the grip of pitiable
> > psychological compulsion equally obliged to agree
> > with Judge Kennedy's
> > remarks in Lee v. Weisman that what "to most
> > believers may seem nothing more
> > than a reasonable request that the nonbeliever
> > respect their religious
> > practices, in a school context may appear to the
> > nonbeliever or dissenter to
> > be an attempt to employ the machinery of the State
> > to enforce a religious
> > orthodoxy," or that public and peer pressure,
> > "though subtle and indirect,
> > can be as real as any overt compulsion"?
> >
> > Of course, there are still bases for the legal
> > argument that such arguments
> > should not count in law, however true in fact they
> > might be -- and thus,
> > that Lee is wrong in law but Moore's actions,
> > whether legal or not, are
> > understandable (and thus sympathetic, to some
> > degree) in fact.  If that's
> > so, it still seems to me that one's posture toward
> > litigants like Doe in
> > Santa Fe or Deborah Weisman ought to be equally
> > understanding and
> > sympathetic, rather than describing such litigations
> > as "oppressive powerful
> > groups."  I would at least hope one might appreciate
> > the tension between
> > letting the milk of human sympathy overflow for
> > Judge Moore while depicting
> > his opponents, and those who have secured the legal
> > results that are
> > described as suppressive powerful groups.  If Judge
> > Moore is "liberty
> > speaking truth to power," isn't Deborah Weisman too?
> >  [This is obviously
> > directed more at Rick Duncan's more forceful remarks
> > than at Scott Idleman's
> > more nuanced and even-handed suggestion that the
> > legal system simply ought
> > to acknowledge the role of religious beliefs for
> > those in positions of
> > authority.]
> >
> > Beyond any of this, I think with respect that the
> > psychological analysis
> > advanced above doesn't fairly describe Judge Moore's
> > position.  After all,
> > he maintained his Ten Commandments in his courtroom
> > for some time before
> > they attracted attention; his opponents were
> > ultimately not able to dislodge
> > them; he garnered enough popular support nationwide
> > that, while he may feel
> > embattled, he is equally likely to feel vindicated;
> > and if that weren't
> > enough, he's currently the head of the state
> > judiciary, and has now mounted
> > religious inconography in the halls of the state
> > Supreme Court.  Given those
> > facts, I'd say he less likely feels oppressed and
> > coerced, and a little more
> > likely feels like a boxer who keeps getting cheered
> > every time he throws a
> > punch to the kidneys, and decides he'd rather listen
> > to the crowd than the
> > ref.
> >
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> >
> > Paul Horwitz Direct Dial: (202)383-5150
> > O'Melveny & Myers LLP Recep: (202)383-5300
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>
> =====
> "Do you not think an angel rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm."
>     --President George W. Bush (quoting John Page)
>
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