Praying for guidance

Editorial

The state Senate has overwhelmingly passed a bill that allows school boards to allow students to give inspirational messages, which is to say pray, at student functions held in public schools. The House is taking up a similar measure.

The bill is carefully worded, and we believe it will be found constitutional. If students exercise maturity and restraint, which may be too much to expect, it will cause few problems where implemented.

More likely, it will bring a storm of debate and costly legal challenges. The old issue of where to separate church and state will have to be fought anew. School boards that don't debate the new policy will have to explain why.

In many places where the new policy is adopted, teachers and principals will again find themselves caught between uncompromising Christian conservatives and the anti-faith activists ever alert for opportunities to be offended.

The bill was written by Sen. Gary Siplin, an Orlando Democrat, and co-introduced by, among others, Republican Sen. Ronda Storms of Hillsborough County.

It is a short but potent bill. It empowers school boards to create a policy that would allow teachers and other school officials to appoint student program leaders, who could then select other students to deliver "inspirational" messages. Neither teachers nor coaches nor principals could censor or even monitor the messages, so there is no unconstitutional promotion of one religion over another.

That's not to say teachers will be insulated from fallout. The religious speeches could easily be monopolized by a single set of beliefs.

The stated purpose is "to provide students with the opportunity for formal or ceremonious observance of an occasion or event." Translated, that seems to open the door for things like a Christmas program that celebrates the birth of Christ.

The difficult part for teachers will be to decide which students to put in charge of choosing the inspirational speakers. Minorities should be given a turn. However the balance of power works out, teachers will be lobbied by parents and criticized.

The total lack of adult oversight is also worrisome. Will any speech be prohibited, and if so, by whom? How long can the speech last? If there is a line that cannot be crossed, who will set the limits? What would a school do about messages containing blasphemy, worship of mythology, or witchcraft? Religious rivalry is as old as religion itself, and public schools are no place to unleash it.

Still, it is wrong to enforce at school a secular sterility found nowhere else in everyday life. Every possible opinion is expressed in popular music, on the Internet, and in all sorts of entertainment venues. Students hear it all.

Elected government boards frequently have chaplains. So does the U.S. military. Faith is a big part of the lives of many Americans, young and old, and the country is better for it. Schools should find ways to accommodate the heart while instructing the mind, all the while protecting minority rights.

This bill cleverly gets the Legislature off the hook and is probably worth a try, but it's no magic solution. It will not stop the pointless hostility to religion in school, nor will it solve the hurtful harassment of the nonreligious or those who hold beliefs out of the local mainstream.

We can almost hear school board members across the state saying, "Heaven help us figure out what to do."