women. The President, as well as Governors and mayors of many of our States and cities, preside over annual prayer breakfasts. The President-elect takes the oath of office with his hand on the Bible. The standard for oaths, sworn testimony in the U.S. courts contains the phrase, "so help me God." And each new session of the Supreme Court opens with the declaration, "God save the United States and this honorable Court." By banning school prayer, the Supreme Court was not only out of step with the original intentions and traditions of our Founding Fathers, but was actually promoting a new, official line by saying that voluntary expression of religious belief was unacceptable and illegal. In these decisions, the Court placed school prayer on the same level as stealing or drinking or using illicit drugs on public school grounds, all of which are forbidden activities. Under these circumstances, a constitutional amendment is needed to reaffirm America's heritage of allowing those who wish to express their religious beliefs while simultaneously safeguarding the freedom of those who do not wish to participate. Opponents of voluntary school prayer amendment contend that there is no method for preventing school districts from imposing religion on their students; this argument is completely unfounded. The amendment possesses two major qualities, which protect against the imposition of sectarian belief. First, American tradition is one of respect for diversity and for freedom of religious expression. I am aware of no historical or statistical evidence to prove that any State has ever imposed a religious doctrine through a school prayer that rendered schoolchildren emotionally or psychologically disturbed. The fact of the matter is that local school districts have rarely ever sought to stifle diversity or to offend those who hold minority religious views. Second, the amendment absolutely forbids public schools from requiring anyone to participate in any prayer or religious exercise. The student's right to refuse to participate will serve as an absolute safeguard against the imposition of school prayers. In conclusion, the arguments that I have presented today are not new. We have been discussing this issue for over 20 years. Now heavy laden with hypotheticals and technicalities, during those 20 years while God has been expelled from school, we have seen a major breakdown in classroom discipline, a major rise in classroom assaults; possibly, just possibly, beginning the day in an atmosphere of reverence and serious reflection would help restore classroom civility. Other measures have largely failed, and it is certainly worth a try. I would recall to your attention that the bottom line is that the American people want voluntary prayer returned. They feel it is proper and necessary. I believe that for every person distraught over returning prayer to the classroom, many would be delighted. The polls bear record of this fact, and I believe it is time that the representatives of the people bring their views into line with the public demand and historical precedent. Mr. Chairman, I would suggest to you that a publication that was put out by the Republican Study Committee last year-it was not written by me so I can praise it as a good piece-but I would urge that you consider including this as part of the record. It has some very fine historical work done in it. And if I may take just one other second Senator HATCH. Without objection, we will place that in the record. Mr. DINGMAN. Thank you, sir. If I may, just one or two other comments that are really in response to a couple of things that were said earlier today. There seems to be a lot of concern about those who might object to prayer and the peer pressure that it would put on students. I would submit to you that during much of the debate in recent years over such things as sex education, the solution that the proponents have always come up with was that of excusing those who choose not to participate. And I find it rather paradoxical that when it comes to school prayer that that is not an adequate solution, but it is on such other matters as sex education. And certainly, we are in a pluralistic society, and we cannot have a value-free educational system. I recall when I moved from the northern part of this country to the southern part during my elementary school years, that somehow there was a slightly different twist on the outcome of the Civil War when I got in the South than there was in the North. And I think that reflects a bias in the teachers and certainly you cannot expect that all teaching is going to be value free, nor would we want it to be. We also find the same problem in the matter of creation versus evolution. And I note that the people who are for the evolution theory alone feel that creation is a religious doctrine and therefore should not be taught. But they refuse to agree that by taking the evolution theory alone, that that is hostility toward religion and it is antithetical. So I would suggest to you that there seem to be many paradoxes in the arguments being presented by those who oppose school prayer. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Senator HATCH. Thank you, Mr. Dingman. On May 17, President Reagan sent to the Congress for consideration proposed language for a Constitutional amendment to restore voluntary prayer in public shcools. It was introduced in the House by Rep. Tom Kindness on May 25 as H.J. Res. 493, referred to the House Judiciary Committee on May 25, and to the Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights on May 27. No hearings have been scheduled. Currently there are 50 co-sponsors. It was introduced in the Senate by Sen. Strom Thurmond on May 18 as S.J. Res. 199. Currently there are six co-sponsors. It was referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee on May 18, which held hearings on July 29, August 18 and September 16. Despite enormous popular support for voluntary school prayer by rank-and-file Democrats as well as Republicans across the country, the Democratic House leadership has bottled up this bill in committee to avoid the embarrassment of roll call This material was prepared at the request of a member of the Republican Study Committer The views contained in it should not be construed as ROOM 433, CANNON BUILDING, US HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON, DC 20515 (202) 225-0587 II - 131 votes before an election. According to The Washington Post "[House Judiciary] Committee leaders ... acknowledge that most of these [social] measures will never see light of day unless extraordinary procedural means are used to pry them loose.... [Don] Edwards is also deliberating over whether to hold hearings on a constitutional amendment the Reagan administration plans to submit to allow prayer in public schools. 'That's a tough one,' he said. 'It's so popular with the American people. And how do you vote against God?'"' Rep. Kindness is gathering signatures for Discharge Petition #20, to bring the proposal to the full House during this 97th Congress. II. The Need to Correct the Court's Interpretations This amendment would, in effect, reverse the Supreme Court's misinterpretations of the First Amendment in 1962 and 1963, which created a federal prohibition against voluntary prayer in public schools. The amendment would thereby: End the demotion of the right to pray to a second class right; O Stop the harassment and discrimination against students who are Return authority over school prayer to state and local authorities, • Restore a sensible balance between the rights of willing students to Reverse what Justice Stewart called "the establishment of a religion of secularism" in public schools; Reassert America's heritage as a nation "under God;" Redirect the federal government from inhibiting to safeguarding the Respect the public opinion of the vast majority of Americans of every While Congress is considering this amendment as a permanent solution to the Supreme Court's rulings, it need not preclude other legislative remedies, such as statutes to restrict federal court jurisdiction over school prayer cases. Passage of an amendment should not be necessary to make the Constitution say what its authors meant in the first place. It is ironic that supporters of school prayer should have to fight the torturous amending process, made difficult by design of the Framers, merely to reconform the Constitution to those Framers' intent. In simple fairness, it is the opponents of school prayer -- not the supporters -- who should have had to accomplish their revision of the Constitution by the established democratic process. Instead, they have taken the shortcut of changing the Constitution by edict of simple majority votes of nine unelected men on the Supreme Court. III. The Loss of Religious Freedom Under Current Rulings In In Engel v. Vitale (1962),2 the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional the voluntary recitation of a 22-word non-sectarian, state-composed prayer in public schools. Abingdon School District v. Schempp and Murray v. Curlette (1963), the Court declared unconstitutional the reading of verses from the Bible (unaccompanied by comment) and recitation of the Lord's Prayer. Since these landmark rulings, courts and school administrators have progressively eroded the right to religious expression in the schools -- and elsewhere in public life as well. For example: T * Student-initiated, voluntary prayer meetings by a high school group called "Students for Voluntary Prayer was banned by a board of education in New York. Federal Judge Irving R. Kaufman of the 2nd Circuit Court of appeals upheld the ban. The banned student group sought to meet in a class room immediately before school, without supervision or faculty involvement, and stated that its activities were voluntary and would not conflict with other school functions. Although the Supreme Court has ruled that students do not "shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate, Judge Kaufman vigorously upheld the disciminatory ban on the right of the students to exercise their religious free exercise and free speech rights. Moreover, he did so in language which underscored the double standard and second class treatment that exists for students who wish to pray. "While students have First Amendment rights to political speech in public schools," the judge declared, "sensitive Establishment Clause considerations limit their right to air religious doctrines. (Emphasis added.) "Equally compelling, the students in this case proposed to conduct prayer meetings (Emphasis in original.)" Judge Kaufamn's opinion implied that no religious activity whatsoever is permissible in public schools: To an impressionable student, even the mere appearance of As the Christian Legal Society observes, "This language would logically lead school officials to prevent students from bowing their heads before lunch, carrying their Bibles to school, or doing any other overt religious act of free exercise within the boundaries of the school." Judge Kaufman's expression of anxiety for the plight of an "impressionable" high school student suffering the potential fate of possible irreversible "misconceptions" as a consequence of attending school where other students merely meet for prayer before classes begin, is curiously lacking from another ruling in which he decided in favor of a high school teacher who had been discharged for wearing a black armband to protest the Vietnam war. Unlike the vulnerable adolescents depicted in the Brandon decision who (the judge said) were impermissibly endangered by other students, these students were held not to be endangered. In this case, it was a teacher -- an authority figure, employed by the government who was expressing his beliefs. Further, the teacher engaged in this provocative activity during (rather than before) classroom periods, in - |