A Washington D.C.-based group called Americans United for Separation of Church and State (AUSCS) recently sent a letter to U President David Pershing identifying a pernicious peril threatening to shred the very fabric of our secular society. This menace has manifested itself, according to the letter, in the form of weekly, voluntary LDS classes being offered to U football players. The group demanded President Pershing put an immediate end to these optional religious classes, claiming they are in direct violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
As I read the admonishing letter, which cites a slew of legal cases in support of the group’s claim, I couldn’t help but chuckle at the image of these authors in my mind’s eye. I pictured a trio of spectacled, toupée-wearing lawyers with angry, beet-red faces, vomiting incoherent legalese as they rained furious, fat-fingered blows down on trembling keyboards. I imagine these acrimonious attorneys fancy themselves to be courageous keepers of the Constitution and heroic social justice warriors who are valiantly defending the U’s poor, helplessly marginalized, non-LDS football players. The tone of their letter, which oscillates between condescension and indignation before concluding with a triumphant insistence that President Pershing extinguish the class, seems to reflect this attitude of dutiful smugness.
I’m no lawyer, but I am familiar with the Establishment Clause, which states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” and frankly, I think it’s a bit of a stretch to try and apply it to this situation. AUSCS’s argument is that the clause “bars public-university employees from teaching religious classes to university students” and thus the optional LDS classes offered to football players, which are presided over by the team’s graduate assistant, Sione Po’uha, and special teams/safeties coach, Morgan Scalley, are unconstitutional. To a layman like me, this claim seems ridiculous because there’s no Congressional or university-established mandate requiring players to participate in the class. However, the indignant little attorneys who constructed this criticism strung together a whopping 22 federal cases that they cite in support of their argument.
While scouring through the web of citations, I realized that the glut of cases referred to in the letter address the abolition of involuntary religious programs and practices officially adopted and enforced by a state government or public school. No one is forcing U football players to attend these LDS classes, nor is there any evidence that players have been punished for not attending, so it would seem the cases cited do not apply in this instance. Yet the authors of the letter argue that because the class is taught by members of the coaching staff, non-LDS student athletes are implicitly pressured to participate out of their reliance on coaches for “playing time, scholarships and the potential opportunity to become a professional athlete.” The problem with this argument, to my mind, is two-fold.
First of all, the class is technically taught by an instructor at the LDS institute — not the coaches. Po’uha and Scalley often lead lectures and discussions in the class, but they are not registered as its instructors. Secondly, the class was willed into existence by the student-athletes themselves. A few years back, a group of LDS football players asked for a weekly class that better catered to their hectic schedules, as most official LDS institute courses are only offered during practice time. So, contrary to the insinuations of the AUSCS, the class was not designed to be, nor does it function as, a mechanism for coercively converting non-LDS players to Mormonism, or as a promotional tool for the church. It is simply a reflection of a group of students who have chosen to exercise their constitutional right to freely practice their religion and, as stated by the U’s Office of General Counsel, “it would be illegal for the University to interfere with that activity.”
I can’t help but ponder the tragic irony of this whole thing. Think about it: A group of D.C. lawyers is apparently combing the country in search of instances that appear to violate the sanctimonious separation of church and state. From the comforts of their D.C. stronghold and with the preachy air of self-assumed Enforcers of Justice, these litigators are penning off letters and drawing up lawsuits condemning complete strangers for exercising their constitutional right to practice religion freely. In their single-minded obsession with the Establishment Clause, these guys have evidently disregarded the rest of the First Amendment and have apparently abandoned the very spirit of the Constitution, which was created to promote individual freedom and encourage the toleration of religious differences — not to stifle them.
The authors of this letter seem to believe that the writers of our Constitution intended America to be an amorphous amalgamation of atheistic or agnostic institutions and individuals. They have made it their mission to stomp out the spark of religion anytime it drifts anywhere near the public domain. Unfortunately, they are not alone in their crusade against religious expression. I’m an unabashed liberal hippie, but even I recognize that the political left has gone too far in denouncing the exhibition of religion. I understand creationism shouldn’t be taught in schools and that teachers shouldn’t read Biblical verses to captive, non-consenting student audiences, but trying to tell a group of grown-up student athletes that they cannot participate in weekly meetings centered around their faith is taking it too far. After all, if self-righteous D.C. attorneys get to pretend that telling total strangers how, when and where to practice religion makes them virtuous champions of the Constitution, then why shouldn’t student athletes be allowed to believe that a 19th century adolescent translated “magical” gold plates and ancient Egyptian scrolls, which revealed the path by which mere mortal Mormons can ascend to God-hood? Live and let live, man.