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Katha Pollitt and Sam Tanenhaus

the breakfast table
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from: Katha Pollitt

Bow Your Heads. Now!

Posted Tuesday, June 1, 1999, at 12:02 PM ET

Good morning, Sam, sorry to be posting so late. Are you having as much trouble re-entering the world of news after the long weekend as I am? I was away in the country reading mystery stories and trying to get the garden into shape, and every day, long after the neighborhood's slender stock of New York Timeses had been sold out, I'd think, Oh, right, the newspaper! Didn't miss it at all. Or NPR either--those earnest, solicitous voices are really getting on my nerves. What is the point, I wondered, of keeping up? Half of what you read isn't even true--trouble is, you don't know which half, and by the time you figure it out, it's too late to have any effect, even if you were in a position to take some action, which, almost always, you're not. This is how most Americans feel all the time, of course. Maybe they're on to something. Are you a news junkie, Sam? And if so, why?

Back to work: I'm still mildly astounded by a story in the Washington Post last week. At a high-school graduation ceremony in Calvert County, Md., thousands of people in the audience recited the Lord's Prayer in booming voices when Julie Schenk, the class speaker, called for a moment of reflection. Ms. Schenk, it seems, belongs to an organization called Fellowship of Christian Athletes and had wanted to say a prayer but had been dissuaded by, among others, her classmate Nick Becker, who pointed out that Christian prayer at a public ceremony was unfair to other students and arguably unconstitutional too. When the audience--including some local and county politicians-- started praying, Becker walked out, and when he tried to re-enter the auditorium to receive his diploma, he was detained in a squad car and threatened with arrest. He was also barred from the post-ceremony party.

Several features of the story interest me. First, in view of how suspicious people are of high-schoool kids these days, the young people had a lot more sense than the grownups. Julie Schenk and Nick Becker worked out their disagreement--it was the audience of parents, school officials, and local worthies of both political parties who acted like yahoos. Second, the story shows that prayer in public schools is not, as its more disingenuous supporters claim, a nice bland ritual intended to make everyone feel safe and warm and part of a caring community. It's intended to evangelize the non-Christian. "There are so many people who don't know Christ in my school," said Julie Schenk. "Yes, I can pray at home, but I think they need to hear that there are people who are praying for them. That God does love them." God equals Jesus. Nonbelievers and those of other faiths need to be saved by being prayed at. And pay for the privilege with their taxes. Imagine if a Muslim tried that on!

Third, have you noticed how often it is that the scenario posited as the limiting case, the bottom of the slippery slope, turns out to be the very first thing that happens? Opponents of school prayer talk about how hurtful and divisive it is, to which defenders reply with reassuring murmurs and legal subterfuges like "student-initiated" prayer. "Audience-initiated" prayer--a spontaneous outpouring on the part of good, hard-working blah blah Americans. How can you be against it? Well, look at the results: a non-Christian kid barred from his own graduation and pushed around by the police--the State of Maryland, in other words, using its considerable muscle to back Christian worship.

Give Nick Becker a medal, I say. And fire the principal.

What have you been thinking about, Sam? I have all the papers here, neatly folded and awaiting your summons. Talk to you soon,

Cheers,
Katha

the breakfast table
entries
123456789101112
from: Katha Pollitt

Bow Your Heads. Now!

Posted Tuesday, June 1, 1999, at 12:02 PM ET
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Katha Pollitt is a columnist for The Nation and the author of Reasonable Creatures: Essays on Women and Feminism (click here to buy the book). Sam Tanenhaus is the author of Whittaker Chambers: A Biography (click here to buy the book) and a contributing editor to Vanity Fair.
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