Monday, May 12, 2008

www.whiteville.com

By JEFFERSON WEAVER
Staff writer

I’ve never been very fond of the American Civil Liberties Union, but one of their latest actions has me more than a little grumbled. And another has me downright angry.

The ACLU – also known as Always Complicating Life for the U.S., and other things less printable – is suing the Forsythe County government because the elected officials there open their meetings with prayers.

Now, to be fair, the ACLU says it wants to ensure all prayers are non-sectarian, i.e., generic. They say they don’t want to see public prayer stopped in toto. If you buy that line, I hope the Great Cosmic Muffin blesses you daily with great rainbows of happy thoughts.

Even if I were not a Christian, I would want my elected officials to open the meetings with prayer. And I want those prayers to appeal to the Almighty God, not to the aforementioned Muffin.

Of course, some – but by no means all – public boards have perfunctory invocations, then try to see how many sins they can commit against their taxpayers.

In the quarter-century or so I’ve been writing news, I’ve covered hundreds of town and county meetings, as well as twice that many gatherings of private and semi-private organizations. Very, very few were opened without an invocation of some sort. I’ve been the only Christian in a meeting room filled with Jews, and the only Christian in a similar room full of Muslims. When they prayed, I was not offended, but I was respectful. In each case, I simply prayed my own, silent prayer. I also covered a pagan event one time (not Satan-worshippers, but earth-huggers) where a guy in a spangly robe opened the festivities. I wasn’t even offended when those folks prayed – I was too busy being scared.

The point is, I never wanted to sue anybody over the fact I didn’t agree with someone else’s faith, or lack thereof. I don’t understand why anyone would want to file such a suit over prayer. I sure as heck didn’t go to their homes and try to exert my will over something which wasn’t my business, in a place I didn’t and wouldn’t ever live.

Then there’s the issue of Bible classes in schools.

Just by asking a question last year, the ACLU made Pender County officials turn cartwheels in fear. The ACLU didn’t like the way Bible classes were taught in the schools of New Hanover County, and since both counties share a lawyer, the possibility of a lawsuit was reared.

Hence, there was uproar, argument, political fallout, and hurt feelings. Funny, out of all the officials, teachers, preachers, students and parents who spoke at those meetings, there was never an ACLU person in Burgaw to explain a question that cost the county so much time, heartache, and money.

In other counties, the ACLU has frightened school boards into forbidding the Gideons’ annual Bible and Testament distribution. Through the years, I’ve never heard a Gideon try to force a child to take a copy of the Bible. I do know some who shared more about the Bible with some children, but only those who asked.

If a parent doesn’t think a child should have the chance to pick up a free New Testament in the hallway of a public school, the parent should make sure their children know to ignore the Gideons – or any other group – that offers the child something the parent considers inappropriate.

Yes, school officials have a responsibility to prevent offensive material and groups that may cause dangerous distractions from disrupting classes. But I hardly see the Gideons as that kind of group. And I hate to see the Bible classes – the voluntary Bible classes – which were enjoyed by so many Pender County school children turned into politically correct lawsuit fodder.

No private organization should be so strong that we live in fear of being sued out of business by said organization. Avoiding a lawsuit isn’t necessarily a wise use of tax dollars – it’s often social extortion.

We live in a free society, but our representative republic is supposed to be ruled by the majority. The shrieking, suing minority all too often drowns out the silent majority, and since we live in a society where people just want to get along, we let the whiners have their way (especially when they threaten to sue somebody).

Every meeting of the rebels who signed the Declaration of Independence began with a prayer. The daily gatherings that resulted in both the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were started with prayers. Would the ACLU have sued over that? It’s an amusing thought.

I hope the ACLU loses their fight in Forsythe; few local governments nowadays have the guts to stand up to even the threat of a lawsuit, even when they can win. Forsythe is standing up for what their democratically elected leaders consider right. If the voters in Forsythe County are offended by their leaders starting their meetings with a word of prayer, they should vote’em out.

A simple prayer, a nativity scene, a menorah, or a gospel hymn is not government-endorsement of religion. Suing someone for praying, however, is court-ordered subjugation of a basic constitutional right, the right to worship as you so choose.

That portion of the first amendment – “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...” has been upheld in several court cases, and stomped on in others. The ACLU seems determined to rewrite the First Amendment to make sure that the government not only avoids establishing a religion, but oppresses religion in the name of equality. We’ll have to wait and see if the ACLU can succeed at removing yet another basic American right from anyone who doesn’t agree with them.

I hope Forsythe County leads the way in local governments fighting back at the liberal bullies.
What’s more important, I hope they win.

I’ll pray that they do – even if it gets me sued.

– Weaver is a staff writer at The News Reporter. Contact him by email at jeffweaver@newsreporter.biz, or via telephone at 642-4104, ext. 227.