I won’t be able to attend any of the hearings of the Cranston school board as they try to decide whether or not to appeal their loss in the recent lawsuit. Here are some thoughts from a distance.
I’ve read the comments both in the Providence Journal and in other forums. Discounting the disgusting attacks and the barely disguised bigotry, there is still a clear and vocal population who object to the outcome itself. Their objections, from what I can tell, do not center on the facts of the case. The facts are simple and undisputed. The objections also do not center on the technical matters of the ruling. The law itself, as well as the legal precedent all the way up to the Supreme Court are abundantly clear. There was little space for opinion in the judge’s ruling. He identified the relavent facts, applied existing legal precedent, and turned the crank.
An appeal is a complete waste of time. This outcome is a result of current law applied to actual facts. Nobody is claiming that the facts are different, or that the law was incorrectly applied.
I think that the community objects to the law itself. There seems to be a vocal minority who think that public schools should be allowed to have a school prayer on the wall. They say that, far from being a historical artifact, that prayer should be respected as a symbol of the school. Part of the community yearns for a return to an imagined time when civic life in Cranston was explicitly Christian. I read the commentary as saying that public schools, and government at large, should acknowledge and endorse the majority religion. Minority groups, including atheists, should certainly be tolerated, but we should know our place and accept that place with gratitude. Gratitude and, more importantly, silence.
I disagree with this perspective rather strongly, but it’s good to clarify what they’re saying. I encourage them to skip the appeal, leave the school board out of it, and pursue a constitutional amendment to change the law.
I think that the school board should vote to not appeal the decision. Their role as elected public servants is to run the school district as best they can in accordance with existing law. It took a Federal judge to clarify that law, but that’s done now. The school board is not the correct body to advocate for changes in the law. Besides the obvious conflict of interest, much time and effort has been wasted on what is really a comparatively small matter. The school board should turn their attention to more pressing matters with a direct impact on many more students.
The Atheist community should also support the school board in their mission by bringing this matter to a dignified and swift conclusion. We do ourselves no favors by rabble rousing and distracting a government agency from their core mission.
Some members of the community are looking for a fairly substantial change in the law. I suspect that what they want would require a constitutional amendment at the federal level. If this is important to them, I honestly encourage them to pursue that route. Democracy works best when all options are on the table, debate is open and honest, and all perspectives are represented.
The community should take on that task. Let’s hear them state their proposal clearly. Then we can find out what the majority actually has to say about their supposed majority religion and it’s supposedly wonderful effects on government. That’s a bet I’m ready to take.