cognitive dissident

This letter appeared in my local newspaper this morning:

Why only outrage when Christians pray in public?

I've waited patiently now for a few days for the "outrage" to show up in the opinion pages regarding the recent front-page article showing a Muslim student exercising his right to pray on school property during Ramadan. The silence is deafening.

Where is the ACLU now? Where is the outrage by Christian-bashing families and atheists? If that were a Christian student reading the Bible on their own time at lunch hour in the cafeteria, the ACLU would have been filing lawsuits faster than we could say what happened. We'd also be hearing from atheists and anti-Christians about the indoctrination of their children, and how they are outraged that this unconstitutional act was allowed to take place on school property.

The silence is deafening, and their hypocrisy knows no bounds. The student shown was perfectly within his right to pray, just as any other child, including Christians, would be within their right to do the same. The Constitution protects all people of all faiths, all of the time, and in all places, no exceptions.

[name and address redacted]

My response follows:

ACLU: defending everyone’s civil rights

For the past several decades, it has been obvious that many Christian conservatives are far more comfortable denouncing false caricatures of liberalism and atheism than they are critically engaging actual liberals and real-life atheists. A recent letter writer serves as a case in point, complaining about the lack of reaction to a Muslim praying in school while setting up a series of straw men to distort his opponents’ principles.

I am proud to be a card-carrying member of the American Civil Liberties Union: not because the organization shares my atheism, but because it protects freedom of conscience for everyone. The ACLU, often viciously maligned by the Right, has filed and joined numerous suits to defend religions that few people practice and political positions that even fewer espouse. Like other liberals, I recognize the moral necessity of protecting the liberty of others to believe and practice as they choose; would that more conservatives felt the same.

Despite conservatives’ grotesque misrepresentation of the ACLU as anti-religious, the actual history of the ACLU shows their consistent defense of religious liberty. With help from the ACLU, public school students are free to: give religious performances at school talent shows, wear religious clothing, write religious yearbook entries, hand out candy canes with religious messages, and distribute religious literature at school. The ACLU, of course, defends religious expression outside the schoolhouse doors as well as the other freedoms enumerated in the Bill of Rights.

Although I cannot speak for either all atheists or all members of the ACLU, I know of no objections to anyone’s individual and uncompelled prayer. The problem with school prayer as practiced decades ago is that it involved coercion of minors. The state’s imprimatur belongs on no one’s prayer or religious practice; the First Amendment guarantees the separation of church and state in order to prevent the commingling of politics and piety.

Regarding public prayer, many Christians seem to be as poorly versed in their own Bible as they are in our Constitution and Bill of Rights. I would like to hear a defense of the Pharisaical practice of ostentatious public prayer—the crux of the school prayer controversy—from a Christian who is familiar with this passage from Matthew:

And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

Atheists and the ACLU have been silent about the referenced Muslim praying in school because there is neither a violation of civil rights nor a restriction of religious freedom. There is also no hypocrisy, except on the part of those who expect special privileges for their own beliefs while disparaging those of others.

update
This letter was published on 10 November. The follow-up piece is here.