My interest in the Swiss Minaret Ban controversy stems most immediately from a longish conversation I had with my partner this past Thanksgiving weekend as we made the 10-hour drive back from my family's home in Oklahoma. There we listened to part of a podcast about another event stirring up religious/tolerance issues.
The situation? One Erica Corder, a graduating senior at a Colorado high school, was chosen as one of three valedictorians based on her grade point average. As such, she and was given the chance to write and deliver a 30-second speech at graduation. Her remarks were submitted beforehand and approved by school officials, but at the graduation ceremony, Corder altered her speech (text from this Christian Science Monitor story):
"We are all capable of standing firm and expressing our own beliefs, which is why I need to tell you about someone who loves you more than you could ever imagine. . . . He died for you on a cross over 2,000 years ago, yet was resurrected and is living today in heaven. His name is Jesus Christ. If you don't already know him personally, I encourage you to find out more about the sacrifice he made for you so that you now have the opportunity to live in eternity with him."
The school officials, dismayed at the proselytizing surprise, demanded--on pain of withholding her diploma--that Corder submit a formal apology that both specified that the remarks were her own and that she knew that, had she submitted those remarks to the school, they would not have been approved. This she did, but she then sued the school for violation of her first amendment right to freedom of speech. The court (first a federal judge, then the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals) ruled against her, and the Supreme Court declined to hear the case.
Paralleling this situation in many ways is this case of Brittany McComb, who similarly strayed from her approved valedictory remarks to speak on the sacrificial death and resurrection of Jesus--only to have school officials turn off her microphone mid-speech. With the help of the Rutherford Institute, McComb also sued for violations of her free speech rights. As was the case with Corder, federal and appellate courts ruled against her, and the Supreme Court turned down her case for review.
Now--the conservative evangelical spin on/reaction to these cases differs significantly from the cases themselves. To many conservative Christian organizations, these cases represent clear instances of Christian expression's being censored from public life, which they interpret as a violation of the first amendment's establishment clause. Crucially, however, the cases themselves involve not freedom of religion but freedom of speech. The courts' rulings against Corder and McComb deal not with whether the student may or may not make religious expressions but whether or not the schools have the right to control student speech at events those schools sponsor (like graduation). Here legal precedent supports schools' authority to so contorl speech.
Moreover (and this is a point that gets glossed over in some news stories), both McComb and Corder entered into understandings with their respective schools that they would deliver speeches pre-approved by school officials. Both McComb and Corder violated that understanding by straying from their remarks. Thus, to frame these events as schools swooping down to penalize Christians for their beliefs is to block out significant parts of the story.
That being said, clearly the religious nature of the women's speeches were at issue in both schools' actions. Indeed, McComb's school had, on previewing her speech, blocked out the religious references contained therein; McComb's change to her speech as delivered apparently consisted largely of restoring those parts of her statements. So, while freedom of speech was the presenting issue, the special nature of religious expression turns out to be the underlying issue. Schools, as official state institutions, are uncomfortable with appearing to support the expression of a particular religious belief. In deference to the first amendment's prohibition against state establishment of any particular religion, the schools restrict religious expression at their official events.
Conservative evangelicals (here I might specify the more politically active, "religious right" segments of conservative evangelicalism) challenge this interpretation of the establishment clause. While agreeing (ostensibly, at least) that government ought not formally declare support for a particular religion, they would insist that individuals can and must be able to express and practice their religion regardless of the particular context in which they find themselves. For the government to restrict religious speech of its employees or representatives, conservative evangelicals argue, is to take the establishment clause too far, intruding upon the individual's right to religious practice.
The most interesting variant of this argument suggests that the logic of state neutrality towards religion is in fact itself a religious belief, or at least a particular worldview about the proper status of religious belief and expression. That is, the US establishment clause as commonly interpreted casts religious expression as a private practice, an aspect of a person's existence and life-world that the person may bracket or mute in particular situations. A Christian could, in this view, practice her faith by preaching on street corners on day and cease preaching/proselytizing while working as a government census taker the next day. The state thus imagines a world where particular religious expression can and should take a back seat to the greater good of state neutrality toward any one religion.
The counter-argument here (and I'm not quoting from any particular argument I've read) would be that religions are not light-switches to be turned on or off as the situation commands. One is a Christian--one behaves as a Christian and does Christian things--all the time. Especially when presented with a situation in which one's faith demands a particular action, one cannot allow the state's interest in faith neutrality to override the individual Christian imperative to faith expression. A Christianity that can be turned on and off, in other words, is not really Christianity at all. To suggest otherwise is to disrupt a fundamental understanding of Christianity itself.
Now, immediately I can think of (and my partner quickly outlined for me) several objections to this line of thinking.
Let's go over these tomorrow.
JF
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