The Intolerance of Tolerance

Our nation was founded on Judeo-Christian principles basic to our democracy, the foundation of which spawned tolerance. This would not have been the case in an Islamic nation, for example. Our land, because of its religious Judeo-Christian heritage, set up tolerance for all faiths, but some people are seeking to use this tolerance to promote intolerance toward the basic faith in this land, because they say it offends a minority.

Our Commander and Chief declared in his recent Mideast tour that America is not a Christian nation.  His “new” Pentagon denied the flyover of “GOD and Country Rally” for first time in 42 years, because of its “Christian Nature.”  In response to this, Congressman Forbes on the floor of the House of Representatives asked, “Did America ever consider itself a Judeo-Christian nation?” and “If America was once a Judeo-Christian nation, when did it cease to be?”

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution expressly prohibits the United States Congress from making laws “respecting an establishment of religion” or that “prohibits the free exercise of religion.” It seeks to set a balance!  This amendment was established to keep the nation from having a state church, such as was in England at the time the nation was founded. The government was not to infringe on freedom of speech or the freedom of the press, to limit the right to peaceably assemble, or to limit the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances in accord with freedom of or from religion.

According to US Supreme Court rulings, public school teachers are not to proselytize students, but there are still a lot of religious freedoms that students and teachers retain in school.  But the ACLU recently won a prayer ruling in Pensacola, Florida and stopped a public prayer for lunch. The case was filed on behalf of two students at Pace High School. The will of the minority carried!

For nearly the entire 2008-2009 school year, the Board of Education had been taken to task because Principal Frank Lay and teacher Michelle Winkler each allowed and even led prayer during school activities and ceremonies. The school pointed out that at no point in time was any student forced to comply with prayer time but it was offered for those who chose to participate; and for most of Pace High School, that didn’t seem to be a problem.

In a bold move, all 400 students of the 2009 graduating class decided to take it upon themselves and stand up for their right to free speech by reciting the Lord’s Prayer in the midst of their commencement ceremonies. Furious with the ACLU for hijacking their free speech rights, the students decided to take a stand. As soon as the principal asked everyone to be seated at the ceremony, the entire graduating class remained standing and recited the Lord’s Prayer.

The ACLU has not yet taken any legal action about the graduation but has stated that something should have been done to stop the prayer. Some students even emblazoned crosses on their graduating caps in protest of their constitutional religious freedoms being taken away.  However, before the graduation, the ACLU had demanded the school censor students from offering prayers or saying anything religious, and they charged Principal Lay and Ms. Winkler with contempt of court for offering up prayer opportunities during the subsequent school activities.

The principal, Frank Lay, is headed for a court hearing on September 17, 2009, because he asked the school athletic director, Robert Freeman, to “bless the food” at a luncheon for school personnel and booster club members at Pace High School.  Freeman prayed three words, “In Jesus’ name,” and Lay and Freeman were accused of violating a court order to keep religion out of the school.  Lay and Freeman could each face up to six months in jail or a $5,000 fine.  Here is intolerance parading under the title of tolerance!

It’s interesting that the ACLU would insist that others’ religious views be protected.  Yet, the majority was apparently supposed to shut up, sit down, and ignore their own religious convictions.  This is certainly an example of the intolerance of tolerance seeking to deprive the majority of the rights our constitution guarantees, because a minority might be offended by it.

The ACLU has stated something should have been done to stop the prayer, so it made the case against the principal and the coach.  But the question comes,  “If the ACLU couldn’t stop 400 students, then how did they expect a few teachers and a principal to halt the free speech and prayer of 400 students praying in unison during graduation?”

Legal reps from the Liberty Counsel made a statement: “Neither students nor teachers shed their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse gate. The students at Pace High School refused to remain silent and were not about to be bullied by the ACLU. We have decided to represent faculty, staff and students of Pace High School, because the ACLU is clearly violating their First Amendment rights. Schools are not religion-free zones, and any attempt to make them so is unconstitutional.”

The southern town of Pace is a conservative, family-oriented community, and a majority of the teachers and students at Pace High School are also Christians. The idea of kicking God out of the schools has never really gotten through to Pace. Until August 2008, the high school had developed a fairly Christian flavor about it, and students and outside leaders were regularly asked to pray at school events. Teachers were free about discussing religious matters in class and did not shy from talking about their churches or encouraging students to join religious clubs.  In fact, all 400 graduating students voted to pray the Lord’s Prayer in unison at the 2009 graduation.  The ACLU attack on this, is that it is unconstitutional,

It is interesting that even Charles Darwin, the great evolutionist, in his book– Descent of Man—wrote that, “with more civilized races, the conviction of the existence of an all-seeing deity has had a potent influence on the advance of morality.”  The Bible and prayer in our culture was very prominent in all education for the first century and a half of our nation, but in the last fifty years, it has been whittled away under the guise of tolerance that actually has become intolerance, particularly against the Judeo-Christian morality that formed this land.  And out the window has gone the moral influence like Darwin mentioned years ago.

by Joe Renfro, Ed.D., Radio Evangelist, Retired Teacher and Pastor, Box 751, Lavonia, Georgia 30553, 706-356-4173, joerenfro@windstream.net