[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 60 (Wednesday, May 13, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H3234-H3238]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             PRESERVING THE INTEGRITY OF THE BILL OF RIGHTS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Sessions). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 7, 1997, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Edwards) is 
recognized for 37 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. EDWARDS. Mr. Speaker, in three weeks the gentleman from Oklahoma 
(Mr. Istook) will try to amend the U.S. Bill of Rights, the sacred 
document that has served America for well over 200 years.
  Perhaps the greatest contribution of the American experiment in 
democracy is our Nation's religious freedom. Because of our Bill of 
Rights, America is not torn by religious wars.
  In contrast to the religious strife in Northern Ireland and in the 
Middle East, Americans are at peace. In contrast to Islamic 
fundamentalist states that use government to force religion upon its 
citizens, America's Founding Fathers had the wisdom to write a Bill of 
Rights that separated the power of government from the freedom of 
religion.
  These and others are powerful reasons why the Bill of Rights has 
never been amended in our Nation's 207 years; never, never has been 
amended since the Bill of Rights was adopted 207 years ago.
  Yet Mr. Istook not only wants to tamper with the Bill of Rights, he 
wants to rewrite the first 16 words of the First Amendment of the Bill 
of Rights, those words that say ``Congress shall make no laws 
respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free 
exercise thereof.''
  Now, Mr. Istook calls his bill the religious freedom amendment. I 
would suggest that James Madison and our Founding Fathers beat Mr. 
Istook to the punch by just over 200 years. The real religious freedom 
amendment is called the First Amendment of our Constitution. I believe 
Mr. Istook's bill should frankly be called the religious freedom 
destruction act.
  It is amazing that some of the same people who do not entrust the 
Federal Government to deliver our mail want government involved in 
something as sacred as our children's and grandchildren's prayers. To 
change the Bill of Rights for any reason is a grave undertaking. To 
change it for reasons that simply do not exist is wrong.
  Mr. Istook bases his amendment on several myths. His arguments are a 
temple built on a false foundation.
  Myth number one: Mr. Istook alleges that students cannot pray in 
public schools. Nothing could be further from the truth. The law of 
this land allows students to pray before, after, and even during 
school. What the law prohibits, as it should, as intended by our 
Founding Fathers, is that government-sponsored prayers should be 
prohibited.
  Time Magazine on April 27, 1998, and CNN have recently reported there 
are thousands of prayer and Bible groups that have been formed in 
public schools all across America in just the last few years.
  Mr. Speaker, I enclose for the Record the article from Time Magazine 
of April 27 record entitled ``Spiriting Prayer into School.''
  Mr. Speaker, let me take several excerpts from this Time Magazine 
article. ``Politicians may bicker about bringing back prayer, but in 
fact it is already a major presence, thanks to the many after-school 
prayer clubs.'' The article goes on to say that ``available statistics 
are approximate, but they suggest that there are clubs in as many as 
one out of every four public schools in the country. In some areas, the 
tally is much higher.''
  Later the article says this: ``The resulting Equal Access Act of 1984 
required any federally-funded secondary school to permit religious 
meetings if the schools allowed other clubs not related to curriculum, 
such as public-service Key Clubs. The crucial rule was that the prayer 
clubs had to be voluntary, student-run, and not convene during class 
time.''
  The article goes on to point out the Supreme Court in 1990 sustained 
this law by a vote of 8 to 1.
  Let me read additional excerpts from the Time Magazine article. 
``Evangelicals had already seized the moment. Within a year of the 1990 
court decision, prayer clubs bloomed spontaneously on a thousand high 
school campuses. Fast on their heals came adult organizations dedicated 
to encouraging more. Proffitt's, Tennessee-based organization, First 
Priority, founded in 1995, coordinates inter-church groups in 162 
cities, working with clubs in 3,000 schools. The San Diego-based 
National Network of Youth Ministries has launched what is called 
Challenge 2000, which pledges to bring the Christian gospel to 'every 
kid on every secondary campus in every community in our Nation by the 
year 2000.' It also promotes a phenomenon called 'See You at the Pole,' 
encouraging Christian students country-wide to gather around their 
school flagpoles on the third Wednesday of each September; last year, 3 
million students participated.''
  Mr. Speaker, I would suggest that this article points out very 
clearly that Mr. Istook's allegation that somehow we simply do not have 
prayer at our public schools does not bear out with today's facts.
  The Time article also says, ``Says Doug Clark,'' quoting him, ``field 
director of the National Network of Youth Ministries, `Our energy is 
being poured into what kids can do voluntarily and on their own. That 
seems to us to be where God is working.' ''
  They then go on in the article finally to say, ``For now, the 
prospects for prayer clubs seem unlimited.
  The doom of Mr. Istook's predictions simply is not there.
  Mr. Speaker, the fact is that students can pray silently in the 
classroom, or out loud over the lunch table. For anyone to suggest that 
prayer is not alive

[[Page H3235]]

and well in schools is not facing reality. For anyone to suggest that 
somehow God has been taken out of our schools, underestimates the God 
that I and my family worship. No person, no law, has the power to take 
an all-powerful God from anyplace in this world, much less a school 
classroom.

  Myth number two, used by Mr. Istook to push his amendment of the Bill 
of Rights: Mr. Istook suggests that liberal Federal courts have 
misinterpreted our Founding Fathers.
  That is simply not the case. To begin with, the majority of these so-
called liberal Federal courts have been appointed by Republican 
presidents, Gerald Ford, George Bush, and that well-known liberal 
president, Ronald Reagan.
  I would also point out that Thomas Jefferson could not have been more 
clear in his interpretation of the First Amendment of the Bill of 
Rights inasmuch as it deals with religious freedom. This is what Mr. 
Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson, our third president, the author of our 
Declaration of Independence, said in his letter to the Danbury 
Baptists.
  ``Religion is a matter which lives solely between man and his God 
that he owes account to none other for his faith or worship, that the 
legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, 
I contemplate with sovereign reference that act of the whole American 
people which declared that their legislatures should ``make no law 
respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free 
exercise thereof,'' thus, building a wall of separation between church 
and state.''
  The fact is that modern day Federal judges, including the majority of 
judges that have been appointed in our Federal courts by Mr. Bush and 
Mr. Reagan and Mr. Ford, have interpreted today's law exactly to be 
consistent with the intention of Thomas Jefferson and our Founding 
Fathers; not to demean religion by separating it from government, but 
to respect religion and to defend religious liberty by the very act of 
building a wall of separation to protect religion from the intrusion of 
government.
  Myth number three Mr. Istook has gone so far as to call opponents of 
this bill ``demagogues.'' He has suggested that those opposed to his 
amendment are somehow committed to keeping children from praying in 
schools.
  He has also suggested, or others have suggested, I should say, other 
supporters of Mr. Istook, that opponents of Istook are somehow anti-
religion.
  The implication that somehow Istook supporters are pro-prayer and 
pro-religion and opponents of Mr. Istook's amendment of the Bill of 
Rights are anti-prayer and anti-religion could well be a surprise to 
the numerous religious groups strongly opposing the Istook amendment. 
Let me mention just a few of the religious and educational groups 
opposing the Istook amendment, for the very reason they believe that 
Istook would harm religious freedom in America, not defend it.
  These groups would be disappointed to know that Mr. Istook has 
referred to opponents of his amendment as ``demagogues,'' and if 
opposing Istook and defending the words of James Madison and our Bill 
of Rights, make me a demagogue, Mr. Speaker, then I am in good company. 
Let me just list some of that company that oppose the Istook amendment.
  The American Association of School Administrators; the American 
Association of University Women; the American Baptist Churches, USA; 
the American Jewish Committee; the American Jewish Congress; the 
Antidefamation League; the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs; 
the Episcopal Church; the Lutheran Office for Governmental Affairs; the 
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America; the National Association of 
Elementary School Principals; the National Education Association; the 
Southern Christian Leadership Conference; the United Church of Christ, 
Office for Church and Society.
  I join in good company, Mr. Speaker, along with our Founding Fathers, 
such as Jefferson and Madison and others, in defending the Bill of 
Rights, not amending it; not changing it, not undermining it.
  I agree with Brent Walker, the General Counsel of the Baptist Joint 
Committee, who said this: ``The Istook amendment is unnecessary, 
unwise, and unfaithful to our heritage of religious freedom and 
separation of church and State.''
  The fact is that, in my words, Mr. Speaker, the Istook amendment is a 
house built on sand.

                              {time}  2300

  Its foundation is flawed, unfounded, and false. In the days ahead, I 
will also take time to point out the numerous possible harmful 
consequences of the Istook amendment.
  To name just a few this evening, the Istook amendment could first, 
allow Satanic prayers and even animal sacrifices as part of prayer 
rituals in first and second and third grade public school classrooms 
across America.
  Second, it could lead to censorship of prayers.
  Third, it could allow outside religious groups to proselytize young 
students on public school grounds so that our children will be going to 
public schools learning reading, writing and arithmetic and perhaps 
will be proselytized by some religious group such as those we see at 
our Nation's airports across America. I am not sure America's parents 
sending their children to public schools want to have to worry about 
religious groups, or possibly even cults, proselytizing their children 
while they should be learning on the school grounds.
  Fourth, the Istook amendment could be an unfunded mandate of Biblical 
proportions, stemming from its words that we cannot ``Deny equal access 
to benefit on account of religion.'' Who knows how many decades of 
court decisions it might take and divisiveness in our country to 
interpret that particular language. But certainly, on the surface, it 
could appear that this language of the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. 
Istook) could basically have required the Federal Government to fund 
David Koresh and the Branch Davidians in my hometown of Waco, Texas for 
a child care program or a child care center because other groups, 
nonreligious groups, were given Federal funding for child care centers, 
despite the fact that before his death, Mr. Koresh said that, in his 
religious beliefs, that God had encouraged him to have sex with girls 
as young as 10 years old.
  I am offended by the possibility that America's taxpayers' dollars 
could go to fund such religious groups and programs.
  Fifth, the Istook amendment could lead to majoritarian prayers in 
many of our public schools, and there are many others. But let me just 
read from a statement prepared by the Coalition to Preserve Religious 
Liberty. They said this:

       The following are a few examples of activities that would 
     be permitted under the amendment:
       A tax could be levied for support of sectarian schools.
       Crosses, stars of David, or statues of the goddess Gaia 
     could be erected in public places such as courthouses, public 
     schools and military bases to represent religious heritage or 
     belief.
       New testament readings and specific prayers could be 
     prescribed for all meetings of government employees (except 
     public schools) as long as no one was required to 
     participate.
       Devotional Bible readings or meditations from the Quran 
     could be required in public schools as long as no one was 
     required to participate.
       Upon a student's suggestion, a teacher could lead prayers 
     for his or her kindergarten classes, as long as the prayers 
     were not prescribed by the government and participation was 
     not required.
       Bibles, Books of Mormon or Qurans could be printed or 
     distributed to all public school students or public employees 
     as a way of recognizing the people's heritage.
       Public schools could be required to teach creation science 
     along with evolution as a way of recognizing the beliefs and 
     heritage of the people.
       Tax money could be used to fund mission programs sponsored 
     by Baptists, Buddhists or Branch Davidians, Methodists, 
     Mormons or Mennonites.
       A judge or juror could lead the courtroom in prayer and 
     limit such prayers to the majority faith of the surrounding 
     community.

  Mr. Speaker, I am afraid it will take far longer than one hour to 
point out why so many religious groups and people of deep religious 
faith are opposing the Istook amendment. For that reason, I would like 
to focus on some of the cases of ``Religious persecution'' that Istook 
supporters use to justify their taking such drastic action as amending 
our Bill of Rights for the first time in our Nation's history.

[[Page H3236]]

  I would refer to a recent publication by the People For The American 
Way Action Fund, and, Mr. Speaker, I would like to submit this 
statement for the Record following my remarks. This is what they say in 
the report:

       The true facts behind the Christian Coalition's ``religious 
     persecution'' claims.
       As part of its May 22, 1977 Religious Freedom Celebration 
     on Capitol Hill, the Christian Coalition is presenting 4 
     claims of what it calls ``religious persecution'' which 
     purportedly justify a constitutional amendment concerning 
     religion. In fact, these claims are nothing of the sort. 
     Instead, they are instances where officials properly applied 
     school or job rules without improper religious 
     discrimination, or, in one instance, where school officials 
     made a mistake and promptly corrected it. In the case of the 
     school-related examples that the Christian Coalition is 
     using, all 3 incidents are at least 5 years old. Religious 
     freedom should be celebrated in our country with the true 
     facts about the First Amendment which fully protects 
     religious liberty for all people.
  The People For The American Way Action Fund statement then goes on to 
mention these purported claims by the Christian Coalition of religious 
persecution. Brittany Settle Gossett, ``Received an ``F'' on a research 
paper simply because her topic was Jesus Christ.'' The Christian 
Coalition letter, May 8, 1997. The true facts behind the claim, 
according to this report, are these: ``As both a Federal trial and 
appeals court found, Ms. Gossett grade on this 1991 assignment was 
based not on religious discrimination, but on her ``refusal to comply 
with the requirements'' of the teacher, including changing her paper 
topic, without permission, and choosing a topic with which she was 
already familiar.''
  ``As one judge explained, ``The student has no constitutional right 
to do something other than that assignment and receive credit for it. 
The First Amendment already protects a student's right to address 
religious topics in homework if relevant and otherwise compliant with 
the assignment.''
  The second purported claim of religious persecution that is being 
used to justify amending the Bill of Rights goes to the case of Kelly 
DeNooyer who ``Was told by her school principal that she could not show 
a videotape of herself performing a religious song in church for her 
part in the VIP of the week program in her school classroom ``because 
it had Christian things in it.''
  The response of the facts according to this report is this: ``As a 
Federal Court of Appeals found, the school's decision in 1990 was 
upheld based not on the content of the video, but because the purpose 
of the program was to increase ``students' communication skills by 
requiring a live classroom presentation by the student,'' and that 
purpose ``would be frustrated if every student were permitted to show a 
videotape instead.''
  Example number 3 used by the supporters of the Istook amendment to 
say why Mr. Madison and Mr. Jefferson's first amendment is somehow 
inadequate today. Audrey Pearson was told by school officials that 
``She could not read the Bible on the school bus.'' This is the 
response, according to this report: ``Within days, Audrey was back 
reading her Bible on the bus after only a few phone calls to the 
principal's office in 1989.''
  Mr. Speaker, it is amazing to me that Members of this House and 
supporters of the Istook amendment would use a case from 1989, a 
problem that was resolved within a few hours with a handful of phone 
calls, knowing that that problem had been corrected because of the 
misinterpretation of the law, to use that case to justify massacring 
the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights is unbelievable.
  The final case of religious persecution used to undermine our 
constitutional protections of religious freedom goes to the story of 
Brad Hicks, a North Carolina police officer who was ``Reprimanded by 
his police department for offering a religious tract to a woman whom he 
had pulled over for speeding and was later fired for refusing a police 
department request to refrain from speaking about religion whenever in 
a police uniform.'' The response is this: ``According to the police 
chief, Hicks was dismissed not for speaking about religion, but because 
he refused to stop proselytizing to citizens while on duty. As Hicks 
admitted, for 7 months, ``Whenever I would pull someone over to come 
into contact with them on some kind of call, while on duty and on 
police business, he sought to proselytize and witness.''

                              {time}  2310

  The chief explained that, ``You cannot stop someone on the road as a 
police officer and proceed to give them a church sermon.''
  Mr. Speaker, I would agree with the judicial decision, that a police 
officer in uniform should not be allowed to use the power and 
threatening nature, at times, of his government position to proselytize 
his personal religious views upon the citizens of this land.
  In 3 weeks, Mr. Speaker, Members of this House must make a choice. 
They must choose between defending our Bill of Rights or dismantling 
it. Members must choose between the wisdom of our Founding Fathers, 
such as James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, and the latest and often-
amended version of the Istook amendment.
  We must choose in this House between the cautious, careful 
consideration of our Founding Fathers as they drafted that cherished 
document we know as the Bill of Rights, versus a constitutional 
amendment by the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Istook) that received 1 
day of hearings, 1 day of hearings in 1998.
  Mr. Speaker, it is amazing to me that the leadership of this House 
would even allow a measure to come to this floor attempting to amend 
the first 16 words of the First Amendment of our Bill of Rights, after 
having less days of hearings on it, on amending the Constitution and 
the Bill of Rights, than they had in reviewing the Branch Davidian 
situation in my hometown of Waco.
  In less than 3 weeks Members must choose between America's proud 200-
year history of religious freedom versus the world's history of 
religious intolerance caused by the commingling of government and 
religion.
  How ironic and sad it would be for America, which is a beacon of 
religious freedom to the world, to take the first step down the path of 
Islamic fundamentalist states to prove how religious freedom is 
imperiled when the wall of separation between church and state is 
dismantled.
  The choice is clear, in my opinion. Madison and Jefferson were right, 
and my colleague, the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Earnest Istook), no 
disrespect intended, is wrong. I believe the Bill of Rights should be 
protected, not dismantled.
  The materials referred to earlier are as follows:

         [Prepared by People for the American Way Action Fund]

The True Facts Behind the Christian Coalition's `Religious Persecution' 
                                 Claims

       As part of its May 22, 1977 Religious Freedom Celebration 
     on Capitol Hill, the Christian Coalition is presenting four 
     claims of what it calls ``religious persecution'' which 
     purportedly justify a constitutional amendment concerning 
     religion. In fact, these claims are nothing of the sort. 
     Instead, they are instances where officials properly applied 
     school or job rules without improper religious discrimination 
     or, in one instance, where school officials made a mistake 
     and promptly corrected it. In the case of the school-related 
     examples that the Christian Coalition is using, all three 
     incidents are at least 5 years old. Religious freedom should 
     be celebrated in our country with the true facts about the 
     First Amendment, which fully protects religious liberty for 
     all people.
       The Christian Coalition claim:
       Brittany Settle Gossett ``received an F on a research paper 
     simply because her topic was Jesus Christ.'' (Christian 
     Coalition letter May 8, 1997)
       The true facts behind the claim:
       As both a federal trial and appeals court found, Ms. 
     Gossett's grade on this 1991 assignment was based not on 
     religious discrimination, but on her ``refusal to comply with 
     the requirements'' of the teacher, including changing her 
     paper topic without permission and choosing a topic with 
     which she was already familiar. 1995 Lexis Fed. App. 141, 4-
     5. As one judge explained, ``the student has no 
     constitutional right to do something other than that 
     assignment and receive credit for it.'' Id. at 20. The First 
     Amendment already protects a student's right to address 
     religious topics in homework if relevant and otherwise 
     compliant with the assignment.
       The Christian Coalition claim:
       Kelly DeNooyer ``was told by her school principal that she 
     could not show'' a videotape of herself performing a 
     religious song in church for her part of the VIP of the Week 
     program in her school classroom ``because it had Christian 
     things in it.'' (Rutherford Inst. Rep. Oct. 1992)
       The true facts behind the claim:
       As a federal court of appeals found, the school's decision 
     in 1990 was upheld based not on the content of the video, but 
     because the purpose of the program was to increase 
     ``students'' communication skills by requiring a

[[Page H3237]]

     `live' classroom presentation by the student,'' and that 
     purpose ``would be frustrated if every student were permitted 
     to show a videotape'' instead. 1993 U.S. App. Lexis at 4.
                                  ____


   Statement prepared by the Coalition to Preserve Religious Liberty

       The following are a few examples of activities that would 
     be permitted under the amendment:
       A tax could be levied for support of sectarian schools.
       Crosses, stars of David or statues of the goddess Gaia 
     could be erected in public places such as courthouses, public 
     schools and military bases to represent religious heritage or 
     belief.
       New Testament readings and specific prayers could be 
     prescribed for all meetings of government employees (except 
     public schools) as long as no one was required to 
     participate.
       Devotional Bible readings or meditations from the Quran 
     could be required in public schools as long as no one was 
     required to participate.
       Upon a student's suggestion, a teacher could lead prayers 
     for his or her kindergarten classes, as long as the prayers 
     were not prescribed by the government and participation was 
     not required.
       Bibles, Books of Mormon or Qurans could be printed and 
     distributed to all public school students or public employees 
     as a way of recognizing the people's heritage.
       Public schools could be required to teach creation science 
     along with evolution as a way of recognizing the beliefs and 
     heritage of the people.
       Tax money could be used to fund mission programs sponsored 
     by Baptists, Buddhists or Branch Davidians; Methodists, 
     Mormons or Mennonites.
       A judge or juror could lead the courtroom in prayer and 
     limit such prayers to the majority faith of the surrounding 
     community.
                                  ____


                    [From the Time--April 27, 1998]

                      Spiriting Prayer Into School


  Politicians may bicker about bringing back prayer, but in fact it's 
 already a major presence--thank to the many after-school prayer clubs

                          (By David Van Biema)

       On a overcast afternoon, in a modest room in Minneapolis, 
     23 teenagers are in earnest conversation with one another--
     and with the Lord. ``Would you pray for my brother so that he 
     can raise money to go [on a preaching trip] to Mexico?'' asks 
     a young woman. ``Out church group is visiting juvenile-
     detention centers, and some are scared to go,'' explains a 
     boy. ``Pray that God will lay a burden on people's hearts for 
     this.''
       ``Pray for the food drive,'' says someone.
       ``There's one teacher goin' psycho because kids are not 
     turning in their homework and stuff. She's thinking of 
     quitting, and she's a real good teacher.''
       ``We need to pray for all the teachers in the school who 
     aren't Christians.'' comes a voice from the back.
       And they do, Clad in wristbands that read w.w.j.d. (``What 
     Would Jesus Do?'') and T shirts that declare upon this rock I 
     will build my church, the kids sing Christian songs, discuss 
     Scripture and work to memorize the week's Bible verse, John 
     15:5 (``I am the vine and you are the branches'') Hours pass. 
     As night falls, the group enjoys one last mass hug and 
     finally leave its makeshift chapel--room 133 of Patrick Henry 
     High School. Yes, a public high school. If you are between 
     ages 25 and 45, your school days were not like this. In 1963 
     the Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling banning compulsory 
     prayer in public schools. After that, any worship on school 
     premises, let alone a prayer club, was widely understood as 
     forbidden. But for the past few years, thanks to a subsequent 
     court case, such groups not only have been legal but have 
     become legion.
       The club's explosive spread coincides with a more radical 
     but so far less successful movement for a complete overturn 
     of the 1963 ruling. On the federal level is the Religious 
     Freedom amendment, a constitutional revision proposed by 
     House Republican Ernest Istook of Oklahoma, which would 
     reinstate full-scale school prayer. It passed the Judiciary 
     Committee 16 to 11, last month but will probably fare less 
     well when the full House votes in May. One of many local 
     battlefields is Alabama, where last week the state senate 
     passed a bill mandating a daily moment of silence--a response 
     to a 1997 federal ruling voiding an earlier state pro-school 
     prayer law. Governor Fob James is expected to sign the bill 
     into law, triggering the inevitable church state court 
     challenge.
       But members of prayer clubs like the one at Patrick Henry 
     High aren't waiting for the conclusion of such epic 
     struggles. They have already, brought worship back to public 
     school campuses, although with some state-imposed 
     limitations. Available statistics are approximate, but they 
     suggest that there are clubs in as many as 1 out of every 4 
     public schools in the country. In some areas the tally is 
     much higher, evengelicals in Minneapolis-St. Paul claim that 
     the vast majority of high schools in the Twin Cities 
     region have a Christian group. Says Benny Proffitt, a 
     Southern Baptist youth-club planter: ``We had no idea in 
     the early `90s that the response would be so great. We 
     believe that if we are to see America's young people come 
     to Christ and America turn around, it's going to happen 
     through our schools, not our churches.'' Once a religious 
     scorched-earth zone, the schoolyard is suddenly fertile 
     ground for both Vine and Branches.
       The turnabout culminates a quarter-century of legislative 
     and legal maneuvering. The 1963 Supreme Court decision and 
     its broad-brush enforcement by school administrators 
     infuriated conservative Christians, who gradually developed 
     enough clout to force Congress to make a change. The 
     resulting Equal Access Act of 1984 required any federally 
     funded secondary school to permit religious meetings if the 
     schools allowed other clubs not related to curriculum, such 
     as public-service Key Clubs. The crucial rule was that the 
     prayer clubs had to be voluntary student-run and not convened 
     during class time.
       Early drafts of the act were specifically pro-Christian. 
     Ultimately, however, its argument was stated in pure civil-
     libertarian terms: prayers that would be coercive if required 
     of all students during class are protected free speech if 
     they are just one more after-school activity. Nevertheless, 
     recalls Marc Stern, a staff lawyer with the American Jewish 
     Congress, ``there was great fear that this would serve as the 
     base for very intrusive and aggressive proselytizing.'' 
     Accordingly, Stern's group and other organizations challenged 
     the law--only to see it sustained, 8 to 1, by the Supreme 
     Court in 1990. Bill Clinton apparently agreed with the court. 
     The President remains opposed to compulsory school prayer. 
     But in a July 1995 speech he announced that ``nothing in the 
     First Amendment converts our public schools into religion-
     free zones or requires all religious expression to be left at 
     the schoolhouse door.'' A month later Clinton had the 
     Department of Education issue a memo to public school 
     superintendents that appeared to expand Equal Access Act 
     protections to include public-address announcements of 
     religious gatherings and meetings at lunchtime and recess.
       Evangelicals had already seized the moment. Within a year 
     of the 1990 court decision, prayer clubs bloomed 
     spontaneously on a thousand high school campuses. Fast on 
     their heels came adult organizations dedicated to encouraging 
     more. Proffitt's Tennessee-based organization, First 
     Priority, founded in 1995, coordinates interchurch groups in 
     162 cities working with clubs in 3,000 schools. The San 
     Diego-based National Network of Youth Ministries has launched 
     ``Challenge 2000,'' which pledges to bring the Christian 
     gospel ``to every kid on every secondary campus in every 
     community in our nation by the year 2000.'' It also promotes 
     a phenomenon called ``See You at the Pole,'' encouraging 
     Christian students countrywide to gather around their school 
     flagpoles on the third Wednesday of each September; last 
     year, 3 million students participated. Adult groups provide 
     club handbooks, workshops for student leaders and ongoing 
     advice. Network of Youth Ministries leader Paul Fleischmann 
     stresses that the resulting clubs are ``adult supported,'' 
     not adult-run, ``If we went away,'' he says, ``they'd still 
     do it.''
       The club at Patrick Henry High certainly would. The group 
     was founded two years ago with encouragement but no specific 
     stage managing by local youth pastors. This afternoon its 
     faculty adviser, a math teacher and Evangelical Free Church 
     member named Sara Van Der Werf, sits silently for most of the 
     meeting, although she takes part in the final embrace. The 
     club serves as an emotional bulwark for members dealing with 
     life at a school where two students died last year in off-
     campus gunfire. Today a club member requests prayer for 
     ``those people who got in that big fight [this morning].'' 
     Another asks the Lord to ``bless the racial-reconciliation 
     stuff.'' (Patrick Henry is multiethnic; the prayer club is 
     overwhelmingly white.) Just before Easter the group 
     experienced its First Amendment conflict: whether it could 
     hang posters on all school walls like other non-school-
     sponsored clubs. Patrick Henry principal Paul McMahan 
     eventually decreed that putting up posters is off limits to 
     everyone, leading to some resentment against the 
     Christians. Nonetheless, McMahan lauds them for 
     ``understanding the boundaries'' between church and state.
       In Alabama, the new school-prayer bill attempts to skirt 
     those boundaries. The legislation requires ``a brief period 
     of quiet reflection for not more than 60 seconds with the 
     participation of each pupil in the classroom.'' Although the 
     courts have upheld some moment-of-silence policies, civil 
     libertarians say they have struck down laws featuring pro-
     prayer supporting language of the sort they discern in 
     Alabama's bill. In the eyes of many church-club planters, 
     such fracases amount to wasted effort. Says Doug Clark, field 
     director of the National Network of Youth Ministries: ``Our 
     energy is being poured into what kids can do voluntarily and 
     on their own. That seems to us to be where God is working.''
       Reaction to the prayer clubs may depend on which besieged 
     minority one feels part of. In the many areas where 
     Conservative Christians feel looked down on, they welcome the 
     emotional support for their children's faith. Similarly, non-
     Christians in the Bible Belt may be put off by the clubs' 
     evangelical fervor; members of the chess society, after all, 
     do not inform peers that they must push pawns or risk eternal 
     damnation. Not everyone shares the enthusiasm Proffitt 
     recently expressed at a youth rally in Niagara Falls, N.Y.: 
     ``When an awakening takes place, we see 50, 100, 1,000, 
     10,000 come to Christ. Can you imagine 100, or 300, come to 
     Christ in your school? We want to see our campuses come to 
     Christ.'' Watchdog organizations

[[Page H3238]]

     like Americans United for the Separation of Church and State 
     report cases in which such zeal has approached harassment of 
     students and teachers, student prayer leaders have seemed 
     mere puppets for adult evangelists, and activists have tried 
     to establish prayer clubs in elementary schools, where the 
     description ``student-run'' seems disingenuous.
       Nevertheless, the Jewish committee's Stern concedes that 
     ``there's been much less controversy than one might have 
     expected from the hysterical predictions we made.'' Americans 
     United director Barry Lynn notes that ``in most school 
     districts, students are spontaneously forming clubs and 
     acting upon their own and not outsiders' religious agendas.'' 
     A.C.L.U. lobbyist Terri Schroeder also supports the Equal 
     Access Act, pointing out that the First Amendment's Free 
     exercise clause protecting religious expression is as vital 
     as its Establishment Clause, which prohibits government from 
     promoting a creed. The civil libertarians' acceptance of the 
     clubs owes something to their use as a defense against what 
     they consider a truly bad idea: Istooks's school-prayer 
     amendment. Says Lynn: ``Most reasonable people say, `If so 
     many kids are praying legally in the public schools now, why 
     would you possibly want to amend the Constitution?' ''
       For now, the prospects for prayer clubs seem unlimited. In 
     fact, the tragic shooting of eight prayer-club members last 
     December in West Paducah, Ky., by 14-year-old Michael Carneal 
     provided the cause with martyrs and produced a hero in 
     prayer-club president Bob Strong, who persuaded Carneal to 
     lay down his gun. Strong recalls that the club's daily 
     meetings used to draw only 35 to 60 students out of Heath 
     High School's 600. ``People didn't really look down on us, 
     but I don't know if it was cool to be a Christian,'' he says. 
     Now 100 to 150 teens attend. Strong has since toured three 
     states extolling the value of Christian clubs. ``It woke a 
     lot of kids up,'' he says. ``That's true everywhere I've 
     spoken. This is a national thing.''

                          ____________________