Illegal
Praying
Reported by Bill
Kelly, STATEWIDE Correspondent
This week the Christian Coalition announced that one of its three highest goals
for the United States Congress is to allow prayer in public schools. This weekend
seniors from Kearney High School will say a prayer as they receive their diplomas
at graduation. Prayer in school remains a prickly issue.
Kearney High School once again let a vote of the senior class
decide if they should pray at their graduation. The school district felt it
was a reasonable compromise. The legality of that choice is still murky, since
the Supreme Court has been unwavering in its separation of church and state
including tax-supported public schools. The students at Kearney and elsewhere
in Nebraska this year have decided that their prayer should override the Supreme
Court's mandate.
Through all the
excitement and anticipation that comes with graduation from high school, Robyn
Ramey finds time for prayer. Her Christianity is the central force in her life.
[Robyn Ramey:] "Well, I hope my lifestyle has shown that
I love God and that Jesus is my Savior."
Robyn will also pray out loud and in public at the Kearney
High School graduation ceremony. Thousands of other high school graduates around
the country will not pray, because the U.S. Constitution says there should be
a separation between church and state. Kearney High School has been here before.
In fact, graduation time rekindles this debate at almost every high school in
the country. In brief, taxpayer-financed education was established for everyone,
regardless of religion, so public schools are what the constitution refers to
as "the state." Because the state doesn't get involved in religion,
the United States Supreme Court has said again and again, prayer is not appropriate
in classes or at graduation. Law professor Sam Walker represents the American
Civil Liberties Union in Nebraska.
[Sam Walker, ACLU:] "There are many protestants who wouldn't
appreciate having, you know, a very specific Catholic prayer or exercise and
vice versa. Catholics would not want a Protestant prayer. Between Christians
and Jews there are many very, very important religious differences so you're
asking for trouble the minute you say one group can subject everybody in the
room using the authority of the state to that prayer."
The courts' rulings wouldn't seem to give very much leeway
to school superintendents like Kearney's Gary Hammak. He still sees the issue
as rather unclear.
[Gary Hammak:] "Well, we'd like to get a clear and final
definitive decision. We realize that's not available to us yet but until that
time comes, we'll have to take the best information we have and try and act
legally and constitutionally."
Last year as the graduation for the class of 1993 approached,
the Kearney School Board decided there could be no prayer for the first time.
The law wouldn't allow it. Some parents and students, especially Fundamentalist
Christians, tired of the philosophical and legal arguments. Then, at the ceremony,
one young man committed a small act of civil disobedience, surprising principal
Bill Kenagy.
[Kenagy:] "It occurred as we were giving out diplomas
and when the boy that did the prayer was walking across the stage, he just stopped
at the podium..."
Robyn Ramey's boyfriend Grant was the young man about to pray.
[Robyn:] "He came up to the mic before he got his diploma
and said that he felt like there was something missing and he prayed and then
we finished with the Lord's Prayer and then there was a standing ovation."
[Kenagy:] "It was well accepted and it certainly did
not cause any harm I don't think from my point of view or didn't cause harm
from the point of view of the people that were there, I'll say it that way."
[Robyn:] "For me it was the best thing of the graduation.
It kind of made it -- it just kind of was the icing on the cake. It made it
more beautiful for the students."
[Dionne Canfield:]
"And, of course, the seniors can't help because they are in it in cap and
gown. So it will be the underclassmen that are helping me a little bit with
the program."
The strong feelings aroused from that small act carried over
into Kearney's church and state debate this year. The school board voted to
allow prayer this time if the senior class wanted it. The class officers, lead
by Dionne Canfield, organized the vote.
[Dionne:] "After the school board granted us permission
to pray at our graduation, we wanted to make sure -- the class officers and
myself, Alicia Ulman, Holly Crocker and myself -- wanted to make sure that it
was a total class decision and that every senior had the opportunity to voice
their opinion about the language of the prayer and also which students would
be giving a prayer because it's their graduation too. And we don't want just
a central, you know, little community over here and then the rest of the class
over here. So we wanted a total class decision."
The issue was very clear in Dionne's mind.
[Dionne:] "I don't necessarily call it guts. I call it
doing my duty to uphold a religious heritage as an American and I feel very,
very strongly about that and millions of people who sacrificed a lot so that
we could have the freedom to choose to do what we want and the freedom to practice
the religion that we want to practice and seek the god that we want to seek."
[Sara Richardson:] "It seems to me like when the Supreme
Court makes a decision, we shouldn't be able to vote and go against it."
Not everyone agreed. Sara Richardson may not be a senior at
Kearney High but she is a Christian.
[Sara:] "In the situation of public schools, they come
to public school and everybody's supposed to be equal and I don't understand
how they can put -- start putting other peoples' beliefs in their head."
There was no formal discussion of the constitutional questions
or legal fine points organized for the students. Once the balloting was over,
about half of the senior class actually cast ballots. Of those, close to 95%
voted to have a member of their class lead the graduates in prayer.
"Kearney High is incredible. We have a group of students,
you know, that have expressed, you know a desire for God to be part of their
graduation ceremony and I think that that, you know, exemplifies a characteristic
trait that is rare amongst schools in our state and across our nation."
"It's going to leave the impression to most kids that
the Supreme Court may make a judgment or make a law, but if we vote against
it, then we can just break it? It's kind of -- I think it's going to confuse
a lot of kids."
School officials believe that because it was a student mandate
that it separates the church from the state in this instance.
"The school district is totally out of the decision making
process as far as who's going to do it, what will be said, when it's going to
be said. That's totally been put into the students' hands. And there is a disclaimer
in our program about -- something to the effect that anything that a student
says is not necessarily endorsed by the school district."
[Walker, ACLU:] "They try to dodge us by having a student
-- a nondenominational student-composed prayer. Well, the problem there is that
really makes a mockery of sincere religious belief because there's really no
religious content."
Objections or not, a committee of senior class members went
to work on preparing a prayer that would not specify any one religion. The group
selected robyn to give the benediction.
"I feel honored, I guess, to be chosen to do that. And
I'm excited about it."
Which brings us back to graduation day. Everyone wanted a
nice normal ceremony. No controversies. No protests.
[Superintendent Hammak:] "It is a drain on the school
system and the students and the staff. They feel that a prayer at the beginning
and the end adds to that celebration, that's fine, but I think we have to keep
in mind that we want this ceremony to be as nice for all students as we possibly
can have."
There was fear of last minute legal action to stop the prayer
almost up to the last minute. But without a plaintiff, no lawsuit to block the
prayer could be filed and the ceremony went on without any protest.
[Senior Jeremy Brooke:] "Dear Lord, we acknowledge your
sovereignty and thank you for guiding us to this point, this commencement...
Graduate Jeremy Brooke opened the ceremony with the senior class approved prayer
followed by a moment of silence."
[Announcement of graduates:] "Lucinda Dionne Canfield."
Then the graduates received their diplomas. Parents got their
pictures, and Robyn Ramey took her opportunity to share her faith in God before
the Kearney High School class of 1994.
[Robyn:] "Let's pray. Dear lord, as we take the next
step in our journey through life, keep us close to your heart. Though we go
our separate ways, the memories of our high school years bind us together as
one. When trials come to test our will..."
And that was it. It was a graduation identical to any in Nebraska,
except this one chose to challenge, even if ever so slightly, the word of the
highest court of law in the United States.
"I think what we did today was very appropriate. It was
very proper and very fitting with the type of ceremony that we were having so
I'm very happy."
Captioning by Nebraska
Captioning Center, Lincoln, Nebraska.
