bingham@unmvax.UUCP (03/07/84)
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How many of you caught Nightline Monday, March 5th? It had a segment
on school prayer and the guests they brought in were Lowell Weicker and
your favorite singer/Christian and mine, Pat Boone. Needless to say, PB
was pro-school prayer. What I noticed about him was that he didn't answer
Koppel's question about why the proposed amendment was needed directly --
he instead quoted Ben Franklin(the man whose writings about older women were
banned by the Postal Service in the 19th Century) talking about God to Congress
and said later something to the effect of:
If you're for school prayer you are on the side of 80% of America
God, and the Founding Fathers. If you are not you are on the side
of <heavy contempt> Madilyn Murray O'Hare, Hugh Hefner, and
<very very heavy contempt> Larry Flynt.
Lowell then said PB was using guilt by association as a rhetorical tactic
but PB brushed that off. In all, I found PB very offensive and if I were
one of the 3 "baddies" mentioned (he also was able to get a remark about
the Soviet Constitution -- a very interesting document mostly ignored by
the USSR) I would contact my lawyer about a lawsuit for defamation
or something. His hate for those with different beliefs than his own
came through very clearly on the tube, he was in a relatively tight close up
and you could see his eyes widen and facial muscles tense up as he got
angrier through the interview. LW was calm and collected and answered his
questions with no ad hominim attacks.
The MacNeil/Leherer Report also had a couple of speakers about the
same subject, a Luthern clergyman and Jerry Falwell. This was even more
instructive. Whenever one was speaking the other would assume an expression
of patient "holier than thou" suffering, with the small smile and perhaps just
a tiny shake of the head when the other cast down some point or made a statment
that didn't agree with him. Falwell made the claim that America was founded
on Judeo-Christian principles ( Could anyone please give me an example of
a Judeo-Christian democracy founded before 1781? Remember England was a
monarchy.) and that after prayer and God were removed from schools the
country has slipped into a moral decline and several other equally false
or at the very best debatable statements. The Lutheran was against school
prayer, noting that children can pray now in school, and that Jesus said
to pray alone, not in public.
There doesn't seem to be much debate on this issue here in netland.
One point I like to make is that amending the Constitution is very serious
and amendments that are designed to force citizens to accept some
groups' idea of a good social convention aren't really good ones. Prohibition
is the prime example. Amendments that expand and clarify the Constitution
such as the amendments pertaining to race and voting are good ones. The ERA
as another good one from my point of view.
Another point is that ever since the '62 Supreme Court ruling every attempt
to restore prayer in an organized setting to public school has been shot
down, and rightly so in my opinion. There doesn't seem to me to be any
question that the government should not attempt to promote or discourage
religion. Any type of organized prayer in school, even a moment of silence,
is obviously a threat to my <hypothetical> children's right to their own
belief system. Would you sitting there reading this like it if your employer
instituted "workplace prayer" for you? I am truly interested in your answer.
Bryan Bingham {ucbvax,lanl-a}!unmvax!bingham University of New Mexico
ps. To avoid at least some burning letters, I state now that I did not
write down what PB and JF said verbatim, and that my analysis of the shows
is opinion, not fact.seifert@ihuxl.UUCP (D.A. Seifert) (03/07/84)
Speak for yourself, Pat Boone is *not* my favorite Christian
singer. Try Randy Stonehill or Larry Norman.
"Only Visiting this Planet",
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