THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, November 19, 1994 TAG: 9411190020
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A16 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 51 lines
A constitutional amendment to authorize voluntary prayer in public schools is not in the Republicans' Contract With America.
It doesn't belong in the Constitution, either. That document requires amending only sparingly, and carefully. We have an amendment that covers school prayer, the First Amendment. We don't need another.
So why is Speaker of the House-to-be Newt Gingrich, who parlayed the Contract with America and popular discontent with Democratic incumbents into GOP control of the next Congress, pushing a school-prayer amendment now?
Sincere concern for the issue is one reason. Mr. Gingrich has said he wants to ``re-establish the right to teach that there is a Creator from whom your inalienable rights come.'' When public schools are serving up breakfast, lunch and dinner to all too many students whose parents do not, serving up grace as well might seem a logical necessity: Children certainly need to be given spiritual, principled moorings somewhere. But the right places to teach them are the home and houses of worship.
What needs teaching in the classroom - along with the basic skills - are the basic ethics that major religions and philosophies share, including the inescapable responsibilities that come with such inalienable rights as life and liberty. Among them is not obliging students in public schools, either by administrative fiat or peer pressure, to join in any public communion with their Creator. And not a soul, now or ever, can prevent their private communication anywhere, any time.
Sincere as Mr. Gingrich may be about a prayer amendment, even his fellow Republicans admit the odds are against getting either the two-thirds vote in Congress or the subsequent approval of three-fourths of the states. Mr. Gingrich's move at this moment risks repeating the mistake Bill Clinton made in choosing gays in the military as the initial test of his presidency: that is, making a controversial, polarizing issue a priority when far more important issues - the federal deficit, welfare reform, defense - should be the first order of business.
President Clinton chimed in on the prayer amendment, too - at least until White House aides yanked him back from this post-election bow to the right. So much for his sincerity on the subject.
But Mr. Gingrich's timing, too, looks increasingly like an attempt to keep the religious right behind him and, win or lose, get this issue behind him, too. He will lose, and the sooner the better so Congress can get on with the business of government. by CNB