State funding subverts religion's special role

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Jan 2, 1995 | by Steven K. Green

Recent debate about a proposed constitutional amendment to allow organized prayer in the nation's public schools again has put church-and-state matters in the public spotlight. House Speaker Newt Gingrich has promised a vote on school prayer by Independence Day, and amendment advocates and their opponents, many of whom are members of the religious community, already are lining up to challenge each other's assumptions about the value of religious expression in public schools and in society as a whole.

The current school-prayer controversy is but one facet of a larger debate that has been going on for some time within the legal and academic communities about the role of religious expression in the public arena. Is religious speech entitled to the same degree of protection as other forms of speech? Should religious speech have the same access to the public arena and the same opportunity to be heard as nonreligious speech? Only a few people would answer no. Nevertheless, scholars such as Father Richard John Neuhaus in his book The Naked Public Square and, more recently, Yale law Professor Stephen Carter, in The Culture of Disbelief have argued that religious expression has been marginalized in our culture and relegated to second-class status.

Neuhaus and Carter raise a few valid points, although both overstate the problem by ignoring the pervasiveness of religious discourse and imagery throughout our culture. As a nonevangelical who was raised in the Bible Belt, I can attest that religious expression still suffuses public dialogue and molds conceptions of family and community. Religious belief continues to command the devotion of nine out of 10 Americans. Also, when one considers the vast media empires of Pat Robertson and James Dobson, the 275 "Christian" television and 1,600 "Christian" radio stations (outnumbering public radio stations 3-1) and the growing political muscle of the Christian Coalition, it is absurd to argue that religious speech has been marginalized. In many parts of the country, it is the non-Christian perspective, whether that be Jewish, Muslim or agnostic, that is relegated to the peripheries of the public debate.

Still, no one seriously advocates the marginalization of religious expression. I stand with James Madison, the father of the Constitution, who envisioned a "multiplicity of sects" participating in the "marketplace of ideas." The Supreme Court has agreed with such sentiments, holding that religious expression is entitled to the same degree of protection as other forms of speech. Over the years the court has held that clergy cannot be excluded from public office, that state universities and public high schools cannot deny student religious clubs use of their facilities and, most recently, that civic centers and other public facilities must be made available to religious groups if nonreligious groups (such as Kiwanis or Rotary clubs) have been provided similar access. These holdings clearly were correct and were supported by such "liberal" groups as the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State. In fact, it was a champion of church-state separation, Justice William Brennan, who once remarked that "religionists no less than members of any other group enjoy the full measure of protection afforded speech."

The issue of how we treat religious expression becomes much more complex, however, when government is asked to subsidize religious speech. This is the legal issue underlying the church-state case on the Supreme Court docket, Rosenberger vs. University of Virginia. Ronald Rosenberger, a student at the University of Virginia, asked the university to fund his Christian newspaper, Wide Awake, from the same student fees that are used to fund a variety of secular student organizations and publications. Citing the "unflagging Christian themes" contained in the newspaper and a campus policy prohibiting the use of university funds for "religious activities," the university turned down Rosenberger's request. Rosenberger filed suit, but two federal courts agreed with the university that using campus funds to pay for the publication of a religious newspaper would violate separation of church and state. Now the Supreme Court will decide whether Rosenberger is entitled to receive the same financial support for his religious speech as is given to secular newspapers and publications.

Depending upon where one starts the analysis, this case is either very easy or quite difficult. At first blush, it may appear to be an obvious case of blatant discrimination against religion. After all, 15 campus publications representing a wide variety of views receive university funding, whereas Wide Awake does not. Putting aside for a moment the fact that the university also does not fund fraternities, sororities or political activities (but has chosen to fund two arguably religious student groups under the guise of supporting "cultural organizations," an action that is equally inappropriate), isn't this merely a simple case of discrimination against religious expression? The short answer is yes -- and no.