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Public Prayer, Public School?

On August 28, 2003, at Housatonic’s Freshman Orientation, Reverend Michael Hawkins gave an Invocation--a public prayer--at this public institution.  This clearly violates the Constitutional separation of church and state and calls into question our school’s motives for inviting him.

                 Some people might consider this to be a legal technicality, but it’s far more than that.  The drafters of our Constitution recognized that religion is a private, personal matter of individual conscience.  If so, the state must be restricted from interfering with its practice except in certain cases of conflict with civil and criminal law.  No purely religious belief can be endorsed or punished because that would put the state in charge of an entirely private matter.

                 This matter was important back then and has not lost any importance since.  Only recently, Judge Roy Moore tried to force his religious beliefs down the throats of everyone who visits the court by illegally placing a stone monument to the Judeo-Christian Ten Commandments in public view. 

                 The religious extremists who killed 3,000 Americans on Sept. 11, 2001 had the goal of taking away our right to choose our own religious beliefs, punishing us for not conforming to theirs.  If the recent trend towards weakening the wall that protects the church and state from each other continues, we will be accomplishing their goal for them.

                 There are members of the clergy who are professional public speakers, capable of providing reverent words that are inspirational, interfaith and inclusive, appealing to and embracing everyone from the most devout theist to the most secular humanist.  Unfortunately, Hawkins’ prayer, much like Moore’s monument, presented a particular, sectarian view of religion, namely conservative Christianity, excluding anyone who doesn’t happen to share their personal religious beliefs.

                 Instead of staying on neutral ground and inspiring us to apply ourselves to our education, Hawkins specifically and repeatedly invoked God, and then went on to endorse the conservative doctrine that God is the author of all knowledge and our success in obtaining this knowledge is by His grace alone.

                 If you still feel that he did not overstep his bounds, just imagine if he had instead mentioned Allah or Krishna.  The uproar over something like that would be heard in our halls still.  Instead, there is silence, even apathy.

                 I wrote to Lisa Montgomery, Dean of Students, to find out why he was chosen and whether the concerns mentioned above were considered.  Her response, while timely and polite, did not answer my concerns about separating church from state.

Montgomery said, "Generally, we ask any clergy invited to participate in College events to give non- or inter-denominational prayers and/or remarks.  However, beyond making a polite request, we do not attempt to proscribe what is said during their remarks. One of our purposes in inviting clergy from a variety of faiths and religious backgrounds to participate in our various College's events, is to make our students aware of the diverse number of faiths and religions that exist within our local communities. At varying times, we have invited clergy from many religious backgrounds including Catholic, Episcopalian, Buddhist, Lutheran, Baptist, Methodist, Islamic, Jewish, African Methodist Episcopalian, etc.”

                 I agree that learning about various religions definitely has a place in everyone's life, but allowing a clergyperson to speak for the college at an official event confuses their private beliefs with what the college endorses.  This is particularly distressing given that, as a publicly funded institution, the college is an extension of the government.

                 I tried to contact Rev. Hawkins for his side, but while he did return one phone call, I was unable to get an interview with him in time for publication.

                 It is clear that having a member of the clergy speak publicly at our school, especially giving anything like a prayer, raises issues requiring great foresight and sensitivity, not to mention the aid of legal counsel, so as to avoid the potential to exclude, marginalize and needlessly offend the faculty and student body.

                 Any speaker we invite would have to agree to comply with our needs as a public educational institution.  It may be that we can manage to have an Invocation that fits within the bounds of legality and inclusiveness.  But if all we can come up is what we had on August 28, then perhaps we should give up on the practice of having Invocations in our events entirely.

Copyright 2003

Not the original picture.

Date: 10/16/03

By Amanda Evans