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jackofallgeeksThis is a (small instance of a larger) hot topic, though I have to confess that I'm really sure why. Particularly in West Virginia. I can maybe acknowledge certain concerns in similar cases elsewhere (though I think they're all rather ridiculous when it comes down to it, my own religious affiliation and thoughts on current interpretation of "separation of Church and State" as far aside as I can consciously put them). But especially in this case, where they were able to raise a couple hundred thousand dollars of private money from the community the school serves in order to fight the suit (with over 6,000 coming from the students themselves)... It seems to me the only one being offended here is the ACLU, who should really leave well enough alone a situation they have no part in.
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Date: 2006-08-17 07:15 pm (UTC)I've never liked the ACLU
Date: 2006-08-17 07:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-17 09:20 pm (UTC)1. A portrait of Jesus hanging in the school hallway doesn't strike me as the most important battlefront in the church/state debate. Were I a student in the school, I'd find it *annoying,* but I probably wouldn't give it much thought.
2. That said, I think both your comments and the comments at the end of the article and about "taking away our freedoms" miss the point of constitutional rights. "Freedom" in a constitutional system != the majority doing as it likes. It doesn't matter if the majority, even the overwhelming majority, of people in the town like the portrait, even enough to give money for its defense. Things like the establishment clause are there precisely to protect minorities from the will of the majority. Even if it's only a few people in town who find the picture offensive, their claims need to be assessed on the basis of whether or not the portrait does in fact constitute an "establishment" of religion, not on whether or not most of the people in town like that establishment. Now, you may think that hanging a Jesus picture isn't "establishment," (and it's not clear to me from the context whether I'd say it was) but that's a different argument.
3. Re: the ACLU. Skokie v. Illinois? Fred Phelps? The ACLU's "social agenda" is 1st-amendment absolutism, something they've never made any bones about.
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Date: 2006-08-18 01:04 am (UTC)2. You're right, Freedom is not the right of the majority to trample the minority. At the same time, though... Why is it that removing something like this is an action *for* religious freedom and not against? The Majority is not in the wrong simply be virtue of being the larger party. When it comes down to it, it's the interpretation of those two lines in the consitution that bugs me -- that is, hanging a picture of a religious leader, even in a public are or government building (if you'd like to call a school a government building, I guess it fits) is not an act by congress to establish a religion (nor, I should think obviously, to prevent the free practice of religion). I would be 100% against any act by congress to make the USA a Catholic (or even Christian) nation officially; but the thought that Government ought to be as cut from religion as cleanly as possible seems ridiculous to me.
3. You're right. But it's their specific interpretation of the 1st Amendment, and the way they are absolute about it that bothers me. I'll conceed that Fred Phelp's right to say what he had to say is protected by the Constitution, but I think it is inappropriate for him and his group to have done it in the manner they did. If they had stood in mall parking lots or gone on PBS to preach it would have been tasteless but fair. But outside of a funeral is not the right place to say such hateful things.
At best I'll say the ACLU has it's heart in the right place, but then, I'd say the same about many fiction villains, too..
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Date: 2006-08-18 02:00 pm (UTC)Whether this counts as an "establishment" or not (and if it doesn't, the majority typically *should* get its way) is a much harder question, as I'm sure you know. Personally, I favor the standard "separation of church and state" interpretation of the 1st amendment, because I think it's the clearest standard and avoids the most problems, but I suspect you don't agree. So, bracketing that... there's a huge gray area that falls short of forcing me to be a Catholic but that still strikes me as dicey on establishment grounds (e.g., can you ban desecration of the Pope's picture? Work on Sunday during church hours? Abortion? Contraception? Surely by the time we get to things like theft and murder, it's OK to legislate, even if many people are against them on religious grounds, but I don't think there's any nice and easy way to say "the line is here.").
In general, I'd rather have more expressions than ban them. And it's hard to know what to say about a Jesus portrait without knowing a whole lot more context. WRT the picture, were I in the school, I'd first go to the principal and ask to, say, put up a tasteful portrait of Krishna, or Bertrand Russell (I think it'd be less obnoxious, of course, to ask to put up someone I really endorsed, not just to make a point - so *I*'d go for Russell...). If they said "no," I'd ask why. Personally, I think the real problem is not so much if Jesus can be on the wall but if *only* Jesus can be on the wall. The core of the establishment restriction is, I think, the idea that (on public space, which a public school is), I should be as free to express my religious views as anyone else. Separation is the clearest principle, because you then don't have to play the game of trying to figure out if, e.g., I get denied permission to put up my Krishna painting because there's no space, that's the *real* reason or just an excuse b/c the principal is a Christian...
Re: other ACLU cases. The ACLU takes an extremely expansive view of 1st amendment protections. Fair enough. But it's one thing to accuse the ACLU of being misguided and another to accuse it of being cynical and/or corrupt. I'd agree that Fred Phelps' actions are inappropriate (and deeply wrong, actually) - but part of the point is that my judgments about what is and isn't appropriate shouldn't govern whether or not he gets to have his say.
The Skokie case is an older free speech case (80s, I think?) - in a nutshell (though there are some wiggles to the case that are technical but affect how reasonable the lawsuit was), the local branch of the American Nazi party wanted to hold a march in Skokie, IL (which had and has a large Jewish population). The town denied them a permit on the grounds that they were, well, Nazis, and the ACLU defended their right to march. The ACLU has also defended lots of religious minorities (e.g., the Jehova's Witnesses in the big flag-salute cases) - all I'm saying is that whatever their agenda is, it's not some left-wing liberal one...
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Date: 2006-08-18 05:52 pm (UTC)I would also dispute that "whether the majority likes it or not is besides the point," simply because... Well, I believe in a sort of weights and measures of rights. That is, some rights (life, liberty) are more important than others (say, property ownership?); further, all else being even, what do you do if a conflict comes down to one person's rights being infringed on vs. twenty other people's rights being infringed on? Sticky, sticky situations, perhaps, but I'm just saying you can't throw away who's involved out of hand.
I'm not sure the gray area you present is all that gray, either. Abortion and Contraception sure, but that's really more of a matter of what a Person is as far as the Constitution is concerned, isn't it? It becomes religious just because my religion informs me one way and yours informs you another, and in such a way that a zygote is a person to me and not to you. But desecrating a picture of the pope? Go ahead. It may enrage people, but I don't think there's a precedent (yet) to criminalize angering or offending others.
I said I've never liked the ACLU, and I still hold to that. In great part it's because they read and act on the 1st Amendment in ways I don't think are appropriate -- in this Skokie case, I think the town was right to deny them the right to march; unless details make it otherwise, it comes down to a conflict between the Nazis' right to publicly demonstrate vs. the Jews' right to feel safe in their own homes. And frankly in that case I think the Jews' right trumps. The Nazis are free to 'assemble peaceably,' but I don't think they ought necessarily marge down Main Street for it.
Perhaps the ACLU isn't quite as despicable per se as I would make them out to be, but I don't think I ever said anything about being left-wing liberals (nor, I think, did Ulrik).
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Date: 2006-08-18 07:30 pm (UTC)Re: The picture of Krishna. Like I said, I think a lot depends on circumstances. I'd be concerned about a picture of Krishna, too. If the situation really was, "everyone can put up a picture of whoever they like," then I think it should be regarded as fine, 1st-amendment-wise.
The problem is that things aren't usually that clear-cut, in the real world. To return to Phelps for a second - his "church" wanted to put up a sort of monument in the park where Matthew Sheppard was killed saying something to the effect of "On [DATE], Matthew Sheppard descended into hell on this spot." Of course, people were appalled. The problem was that the park had a number of other religious items around, and had previously had a policy of, basically, "anyone who wants to put up a religious marker can." Their solution was to take down *all* the religious markers, because they couldn't bar Phelps on any grounds other than that they didn't like *his* religious views.
That's of course more extreme than a Jesus portrait. But I can't usually hang up whatever I like in the school halls. So it would be very easy, e.g., for my Hare Krishna principal to make it very difficult for me to get my Jesus picture up, by stonewalling me, saying there was no room, etc. Meanwhile, Krishna smiles beatifically from every wall (cf., try to get a Church built in Turkey. Now try to get a mosque built. They'll *tell* you it's about building codes, etc...). A court faced with trying to figure out if I couldn't get Jesus hung because of discrimination or because of legitimate administrative reasons is going to have a tough time. As is one trying to decide if Krishna is hanging up there because the school wants to push Hare Krishna on me, or whether it's up there because there's a committment to showing the sweep of great human religions (cf. all those cases where the ten commandments are hung next to, say, Hammurabi's code, and the courts have to worry about whether there's a "religious intent."). Not letting a state agent engage in *any* sort of religious expression is often just a clearer standard to apply. Having no religious art on the walls is also less cluttered-looking than having *everyone's*...
Re: the grey area. I think, e.g., the abortion issue shows exactly what I mean about the difficulty. Sure, it's in some sense about personhood. But there's a lot of religious stuff involved. Should your views on personhood not count because they're explicitly based on religion (some political theorists, like Rawls, have suggested as much)? That seems unfair, but at the same time, you're making arguments that I can't even accept the premises of, and it seems unfair that you should get to define "person" using religious arguments, with consequences for me, yet still say I have freedom of religious conscience. The arguments for and against allowing abortion are a largely inseparable mixture of explicitly religious and non-religious ones, and it's hard to say when they get "too" religious.
Re: the majority. Sure, there should be some balancing of rights going on. And it's hard to argue that we should really come down hard on such a trivial case. But at the same time, it's not as if Christians in West Virginia must practice their dark religion in secret. I don't think either preventing a Jesus picture from being put up in a public place (when there are still plenty of private opportunities) is a grave violation of Christians' rights nor is allowing a Jesus picture a grave violation of non-Christians'. I have trouble balancing two such frivolous concerns against each other. :)
Though, as a non-Christian, I would point out that I think sometimes Christians don't fully appreciate the way these low-level things can get grating. You'll notice that it's really rarely anyone is fighting about those pictures of Krishna hanging about everywhere...
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Date: 2006-08-17 09:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-18 01:04 am (UTC)