The Defiant Ones

The Supreme Court's second important decision on religious observances in the public schools, its June 17 ruling forbidding prescribed Bible reading and recitation of the Lord's prayer, was received at the time with comparatively little protest. But as the beginning of the academic year approaches, it is becoming clear that the real battle has hardly begun.

In at least nine states, and probably more, the Court's decision will be defied in one way or another. The most outspoken defiance is contemplated by the Board of Education of the state of Alabama, which announced this week that Bible reading will be compulsory in Alabama schools. The board's resolution denounced the Court for making a "calculated effort to take God out of the affairs of this nation." And Governor Wallace, who seems to have an instinct for the unconstitutional, has pledged that if "the courts rule that we cannot read the Bible in some school, I'm going to that school and read the Bible myself." One Alabama official has gone so far as to say that students whose consciences are offended by Bible reading may protect their religious freedom by "not listening."

So far, Alabama is the only state which has takes the path of outright lawlessness. In many other states, educational authorities have chosen cowardly irresponsibility instead. The Court's decision was not a popular one, and these authorities are aware of the public outery which would follow an order to cease religious practices in the schools. So they have decided to pass the buck back to the courts by declaring that the Supreme Court has not banned "voluntary" observances and waiting for the lawsuits.

Those who plan to flout the Supreme Court's ruling are wrong for at least three reasons. The first is that the Constitution, as interpreted by the Court, is the law of the land; to disobey the Court is to disobey the law. This reason is legally convincing but morally empty; the Dred Scott decision was the law, too, yet those who disobeyed it were right.

The second reason is that defiance of the Supreme Court undermines the basis of our liberal democracy. That democracy rests on consent, and part of that consent is the willingness to fight out issues of this type in a constitutional framework. If the rulings of the Court are to be held in contempt, the whole concept of a government of checks and balances is threatened.

But the most important reason that the Court should be obeyed in his case is that its decision was morally right. Religious freedom in his country is too often defined as "the right to worship God in one's own way." The state cannot favor all religions (in this case all Judeo-Christian religions) over none any more than one religion over another; the conscience of one unbeliever carries as much weight as the consciences of a million believers. The ultimate meaning of the universe and of human life is not a matter which can be settled by majority vote, and even "voluntary" religious observances imply that it is.