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American Atheists, Inc.

is a nonprofit, nonpolitical,educational
organization dedicated to the complete and absolute separation of
state and church. We accept the
explanation of Thomas Jefferson
that the "First Amendment" to the
Constitution of the United States
was meant to create a "wall of separation" between state and church.
American Atheists, Inc. is organized to stimulate and promote
freedom of thought and inquiry concerning religious beliefs, creeds,
dogmas, tenets, rituals, and practices;
to collect and disseminate information, data, and literature on all
religions and promote a more thorough understanding of them, their
origins, and their histories;
to advocate, labor for,and promote
in all lawful ways the complete and
absolute separation of state and
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and maintenance of a thoroughly
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philosophy in which man is the cen- that man - finding his resources
tral figure, who alone must be the within himself - can and must cresource of strength, progress, and ate his own destiny. Materialism reidealsfor the well-beingand happiness stores to man his dignity and his inof humanity;
tellectual integrity. It teaches that we
to promote the study of the arts must prize our life on earth and
and sciences and of all problems af- strive always to improve it. It holds
fecting the maintenance, perpetua- that man is capable of creating a
tion, and enrichment of human (and social system based on reason and
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American Atheist

A Journal of Atheist News and Thought

Cover art and design by

Greg Anderson.

Vol. 33, NO.3

Editor's Desk
R. Murray-O'Hair

The Battle Is Joined

Madalyn O'Hair

What are a citizen's rights to be religious or nonreligious? What is government establishment of religion?
For five decades the Supreme Court
has struggled over both practical and
theoretic answers to these questions.
A review of landmark cases in this
area ranges from disputes over Sabbath laws to arguments over school
prayer.

Masters of Atheism
Matilda Joslyn Gage

36

A contemporary and cohort of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B.

Anthony fearlessly explores the relationship of "Woman, Church and
State."

Talking Back

44

A classic question that theists pose to

Atheists is "What is the purpose of
our existence if there is no god?" But
now the Atheists are asking back,
"Who Needs a God, Anyway?"

Ask A.A.

18

Church wealth - how much is there?

And is it ever taxed?'

Director's Briefcase
Jon G. Murray

46

American Atheist Radio Series

Madalyn O'Hair

47

How did Christianity win the Western

world? Was it, as often claimed, because of its truth and goodness? The
cause of its success can be found in
the "Christian Suppression of Opin. "
Ion.

21
Under the Covers

Differing interpretations of the First

Amendment and of American society
come to a head in "Tradition versus
Separation: the Weisman Case." The
Supreme Court's determination coming up this fall on Lee v. Weisman, a
graduation prayer case, could reshape state/church relations.
Austin, Texas

Poetry

Vol. 33, No.3

50

The Roman Catholic church's hatred

of human sexuality is the focus of
"Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven,"
a new book by a German theologian.

Letters to the Editor

54

Classified Ads

56
Page 1

ADlerican Atheist

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but are invited to subscribe to the American Atheist magazine.) Both dues and
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Vol. 33, No.3

American Atheist

Editor's Desk

An even playing field

hristians
often boast that the
truth of their creed is found in the
numbers who espouse it. After
all, they brag, it has won the hearts and
minds of billions and has lasted nearly
two thousand years. As it continues to
flourish, they ask, is that not proof of
Christianity's truth? And if Atheism
were correct, would not its adherents
outnumber those of Christianity?
A partial reply to that gasconade is
found in this month's reprint from the
"American Atheist Radio Series." Titled
"The Christian Suppression of Opinion," it concerns the methods Christianity employed to win the hearts and
minds of the English people. As the article demonstrates, conformity of religion
in England was not won by charity and
goodness. Rather it was induced through
murder and torture.
The article deals with a small part of
the history of a small country in which
Christianity had the power of the state
and the sword to impose its will. Hundreds of thousands were killed in England, and more were maimed or imprisoned as the sect of Christianity' in
power sought out all who disagreed with
it and imposed bloody methods of persuasion. With over a thousand years of
such fatal marketing tactics behind it, it
is no wonder that Christianity has found
acceptance. When one's choice is obedience to church dogma or death, the
intellectual decision becomes quite
easy. Even I would rather bow my head
than lose it, and I come from a family of
obstinate dissenters.
The sword and the stake, the rack
and the thumbscrew - these are no
longer common tactics for a religion
wishing to stay in power. The prison cell
is still an option in countries (Germany,
for instance) in which blasphemy is a
crime. But even that is becoming more
difficult to impose and increasingly less
efficient. Other methods are clearly
called for.

R. Murray-O'Hair
Austin, Texas

And so it is that readers will find further replies to that Christian boast of
numbers in what would at first seem two
unlikely places, articles describing First
Amendment and state/church separation issues.
The first, "The Battle Is Joined," by
Madalyn O'Hair is a quick overview of
Supreme Court rulings concerning the
First Amendment. It is an excellent refresher (or beginner's) course for anyone wishing to become involved in the
attempt to separate state and church in
the United States. It familiarizes the
reader not only with the landmark cases
in this area, but with the logic behind
them and the terminology they have
created.
The second article will provide the
reader with the background to what will
no doubt be a landmark Supreme Court
case after the decision is handed down
this fall. "Tradition versus Separation:
the Weisman Case" by Jon G. Murray
reviews the differing judicial evaluations
of the constitutionality of prayers at
public school graduations. In this particular circumstance, lower courts have
struggled over when and how to apply
two different sets of criteria developed
by the Supreme Court to evaluate
whether government policies are in violation of the First Amendment. The case
under discussion, Lee v. Weisman, will
provide the Supreme Court an opportunity to rule which criteria will guide the
courts in the future.
However much modern religionists
would like to pretend that the populace
has always had an unfettered ability to
choose between faith and Atheism and thus has always willinglyopted for
the church - that simply is not true. To
flourish, Atheism would have indeed
needed an even playing field, an equal
opportunity to reach the minds of the
masses. This religion will not, and cannot, allow.It is far easier to win when one
does not allow one's opponent onto the
field.
Thus separation of state and church
has always remained an aspiration in
Vol. 33, No.3

American society - an aspiration, not

a reality. The government gifts JudeoChristianity with its symbols of power,
from the national motto to the Pledge of
Allegiance. It discourages dissent from
religion with its oaths of office, its public
prayers. It invigorates religious institutions with both money and land. It envelops religious leaders with recognition, acclaim, and approval, including
them in all government functions. Is it
any wonder that Christianity has captured the hearts of the American people
when the government has done so
much to entrap them for it?
Atheists have often turned to the judiciary to even the ground that the executive and legislative branches of government have worked so hard to tilt in the
favor of religion. Sometimes it has
seemed as though we have won. But
more often than not when a decision is
given which seems to be in favor of
Atheists, a careful reading demonstrates that it is not so much for our benefit as that of the majority religion. Atheism, and dissent in general, is merely the
unintended ancillary beneficiary of an
action designed to "free" religion from
the constraints the state may have
placed upon it.
First Amendment issues have much
to do with what is so aptly called "Christian suppression of opinion" in the
"American Atheist Radio Series." The
marriage of state and church has always
worked to eradicate the option of Atheism. The difference today is the fruits of
that union are not so deadly to the dissenter. But they are just as deadly to dissent itself. Christians may crow that so
many have chosen their creed. But we
Atheists have only to investigate that
cult's history to determine the degree of
voluntarism there has been and what
choices were given to the allegedly willing adherents.
The simple fact is that one does not
buy what is not for sale. And Christianity knows that as long as its opponents
are not allowed into the marketplace of
ideas it will remain a best -seller. ~
Page 3

The battle is joined

IiJ

On a practical basis,
what does the
First Amendment
mean? Case by case
U.S. courts have forged
an interpretation of the
Constitution to guide
state practices in
situations from
textbook purchases to
school prayer.

Born on April 13, 1919,Dr. O'Hair

initiated the United States Supreme
Court case Murray v. Curlett, which
removed reverential Bible reading and
prayer recitation from the public
schools of our nation in June 1963. She
founded American Atheists in the
same year. Together with GORA she
founded the United World Atheists,
sponsor of the triennial World Atheist
Meet. A champion of freedom of
speech, freedom of assemblage, freedom of conscience, and the right to be
free from religion, she is known nationally and internationally as an Atheist
spokesperson.

Madalyn O'Hair
Page 4

uring the last quarter century

there have been more Supreme
Court and federal legal cases,
more state lawsuits, and more legislation passed on both the federal and the
state level - all regarding religion and
state/church separation - than there
had been in the first 175 years of the
nation. The litigation beginning in the
early 1960shas picked up in both volume
and viciousness until during the last five
years the major decisions issued by the
Supreme Court have involved primarily
religious or state/church separation issues. There is a certain anomaly here,
for consistently government has stood
side by side with religion against an array of individuals, who have been bravely
storming the courts, attempting to coerce the government to come into compliance with or to enforce the provisions
of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
Think of that: citizens suing the government to force it into conformity with
the Constitution.
The battle has been inherently uneven. Government, in defense of religion, has necessarily had unlimited
money, the best legal services which
could be bought, the media, and its subservient courts. As many personnel as
needed, in whatever layer of government, could be brought to the task. Telephone service has been free. Allprinting
has been free. Filing fees and court
costs have been waived. Politicians and
government officials have endorsed the
religious positions, attempting to sway
the populace to an acceptance of the
constitutional breach. Tax money has
paid for it all. The most sophisticated
theoretics have been brought to bear to
rationalize fallacious arguments.
Actually, in these twenty-five years a
finely tuned war has proceeded, with
government doing whatever was necessary and more to delay, obfuscate, and
pile up as many costs for the challenging litigants as possible. Every stumbling
block has been laid in their paths. A first
line of defense, apparently, has been to
Vol. 33, No.3

weary the citizen challengers with delays

and money costs so that they abandon
their efforts. Indeed, that has often happened: a lawsuit has stopped in a state
court of appeals or at the federal appellate level for lack of funds, after spending years in court. Or it has failed from
frustration in the attempt to have the
issue joined.
Additionally, the courts - particularly the federal courts - have promulgated rules which immediately knock
out the would-be litigants: One cannot
sue the sovereign. Mere taxpayer status
does not give the right to sue. One must
show personal injury. One must first exhaust all administrative and other remedies before coming to court.
In order to pursue the cases, lawyers
with a particular specialty (constitutionallaw, particularly with emphasis on the
religious clauses of the First Amendment) must be found, and there are few
if any such attorneys. If in 175 years
there were one hundred cases, and in
the last twenty-five years even 250 such
cases, that is a minuscule percentage of
the legal (albeit significantly important)
cases of the nation. There simply are
really no "specialists" in this area of law.
For several generations Leo Pfeffer, a
lawyer for the American Jewish Congress, was held out to be an expert on
this genre of litigation. He took an old
state/church separation study, Church
and State in the United States, three volumes, by Anson Phelps Stokes,' put out
by Harper & Brothers Publishing, and
edited it to one volume issued by Harper
in 1950 and later by Greenwood Press,
Inc. in 1964under the authorship of Anson Stokes and Leo Pfeffer. Later editions carried only Pfeffer's name. Hereedited, updated, reissued, and rewrote
the book again, using only his own
name, this time under the title God,
Caesar and the Constitution: The Court
as Referee of Church-State Confronta-

ISecretary of Yale University and canon of

Washington Cathedral, Stokes died in 1958.
American Atheist

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tion, published by Beacon Press. But he

was a religious man of a particular minority sect (Judaism), attempting to
gain respectability and acceptance for
Judaism in the United States. The
American Jewish Congress is a powerful arm of Judaism in our nation, and
Pfeffer came to be accepted as the authority on state/church separation. He
was, in fact, often one of the lawyers
making an appearance on certain of the
Supreme Court cases. The Supreme
Court for decades depended on the
work originally written by Stokes and
cited the book in its cases. In later years,
the Court also quoted Pfeffer's revisions.
All of this makes for difficulties in
such litigation. Imagine ifthere was only
one book ever written on criminal law or
on real estate law. Additionally no law
schools have any courses on state/
church separation alone - it is usually
handled in a cursory way in a three-hour
course on "Constitutional Law."
Austin, Texas

.'

.
~_.?-.

~~-----

'--~; -:~~

Any lawyer approaching the subject

is really on his own.
Additionally, these cases are timeconsuming as well as time intensive during certain periods of litigation, and vietory has not historically brought a money award either to the challenger or the
attorney who litigates for him. On the
other hand, who among the legal profession really wants to fight for a principle
instead of monetary damages? Who
indeed? Every attorney must minimally
pay rent, utilities, telephone, and secretarial help for his office. Often he may
still be paying for his college/university
tuition. He cannot devote hours of time
free when he needs rather to sell his services to paying clients in order to maintain himself and his family.

Help for separation advocates

Individual challengers never have the
monetary wherewithal to carry the burden of such suits and most frequently
attempt to rally support or supporters,
Vol. 33, No.3

~~~

or seek help from organizations such as

the American Civil Liberties Union. The
ACLU is not a wealthy organization. It,
too, must seek to raise funding for the
lawsuits which it does undertake, the
highest percentage of which have to do
with criminal cases. If the would-be litigants are themselves religious and see a
state/church violation in respect to a religion other than their own, they have
sought aid from Americans United. This
basically Baptist and Seventh-day Adventist organization is not heavily funded either, although it apparently has
more money than ACLU, being, as it is,
supported by religious institutions. It
does, however, take on cases challenging governmental favoritism to the
Roman Catholic church. When a case
arises which would challenge religions
generally, Americans United quickly
joins ranks with other religious entities,
including the Roman Catholic church,
or that of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon.
Additionally it has appeared in opposiPageS

Meanwhile, everyone case which gets to a legal review is accompanied by

one thousand which fail to get that far.
"Exhausting administrative remedies" can also exhaust the person
attempting to correct the unconstitutional situation.

tion to American Atheists in cases filed

by that organization, in such instances
therefore supporting government and
religion.
Currently, ifthe would-be litigants are
Atheists, they now most often seek aid
from American Atheists ..In the last year
alone scores of such persons have contacted the American Atheist General
Headquarters seeking legal aid. This organization is not sufficiently subsidized
to be able to handle the litigation of all
comers. Most of the proposed lawsuits
have much merit, and remedies for the
reported governmental violations of the
nation's Constitution should have been
sought. Over the years, in about ten in-

sity, are either eroded or ignored, out of

a sense of injustice cannot tolerate the
situation and turn to fight it.
The particular litigants are usually
never heard from again. They become
lost in history. Although the name of the
case in which they were involved may
ring down the corridors of time for a
while (such as the now famous case
name of Roe v. Wade),2 the person
(Norma McCorvey) or the attorney who
finally handled the case (Sarah Weddington) becomes basically unknown.
The type of legal fight which culminates
in a change in the laws of the land is
usually not an exercise that can be repeated again by the individual when

Who are these two persons? One individual's plight may result in a Supreme Court
decision defining the rights of millions, but often that person fades into obscurity.
Left: Adell Sherbert, who sued for the right not to work on her Sabbath. Right: Elliot
Welsh, whose case concerned the rights of nonreligious conscientious objectors.

stances, American Atheists has tried to

assist such litigants. Such efforts have
come to grief since American Atheists'
attorney tried to work long arm out of
the National Office in Texas. One cannot
have a client in Miami, Florida, and have
the close rapport necessary if one's office is in Austin, Texas.
It follows from all of this that to embark upon such challenges ordinary citizens must be seized with follyas well as
righteous indignation. Basically, it is a
formidable, ifnot a "no-win," task to undertake to fight government. And yet
we persist. Those citizens who see that
individual and civil rights, won over the
course of history with so much adverPage 6

another state/church separation violation

appears.
In all these cases monetary cases are
great. In a case which will be discussed
later in this article, that of Lee v. Weisman,3 the cost of taking the case from
the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
to the Supreme Court is estimated at
$50,000. This is after the case has
already been in litigation for over three
years.

2Roe u. Wade, 410 U.S. 113; 935 S.Ct. 705; 35

L.Ed.2d 147 (1973).

3Weisman u. Lee, 728 Fed!. Supp. 68; 908

Fed. Rep. 2d 1090 (1990).
Vol. 33, No.3

The concerned individuals are usually

not assisted in any way by any of the heroes, authors, spokesmen, columnists,
politicians, or "personalities" of the culture of the day. The "respectable" persons of all classes are anxious to stay
more than an arm's length away. Although there is abroad in the land that
certain persons in the public eye are indeed Atheists, they (im}politelydisassociate themselves from the state/church
separation issue being confronted.

State use of religion

Since the time of ancient Egypt, the
rulers of all nations have recognized the
importance of religion as a bulwark for
social order. The prevailing religion in
any state, in fact, became a test of political orthodoxy. The leaders of those nations were to all intents and purposes
practical if not theoretical Atheists. But
they supported the religion of their
nation and day. Informed interest in religion itself has always been remote from
the thinking of the educated and upper
classes, which watched the religious
fervor on the part of the masses with detached amusement. That situation appertains today. Unfortunately they watch
the individual attempting to correct a
wrong with some apprehension, since
the activity of that individual could well
force a change in the culture.
Who in the hell really cared for Rosie
Parks or "Jane Roe"? Even when the
cultural heroes are finally uncovered in
a shocking way, they refuse to assist
their fellows bound up in the fight. What
did Rock Hudson or Liberace, for example, ever do for the gays?
There is probably not one dean of one
law school in the nation who does not
know that the state/church separation
cases recently before the Supreme
Court should have been quickly settled
in favor of the separation. None - not
a one - has made a public statement to
that effect. Most of the judges in the federal courts also know that decisions
now given cater to the idiocy of religion
in return for religion's aid in keeping the
American Atheist

Though their religion seems outrageous

to many Christians and certainly all
Atheists, the struggle of the Jehovah's
Witnesses to secure their rights to proselytize greatly expanded the First Amend. men! rights of other Americans. The
Witnesses are well known for their publication The Watchtower.

culture stagnant and themCourt under the freedom

of speech and freedom of
selves in a position of powpress guarantees of the
er and prestige. Governors
First Amendment. Cantknow this, mayors, legislawell was pursued under
tors, university professors
the Free Exercise Clause
- and the silence coming r=;;;;~~=
of the First Amendment
from them is deafening.
Meanwhile, everyone case which to the Constitution. Jesse Cantwell, the
gets to a legal review is accompanied by subject of the case, had stopped two peone thousand which fail to get that far. . destrians on the streets of New Haven,
Connecticut, and with their permission
"Exhausting administrative remedies"
played a record on a portable phonocan also exhaust the person attempting
to correct the unconstitutional situa- graph which he carried. The message
was an attack on the Roman Catholic
tion.
church; he was arrested and convicted
The Supreme Court's
of a breach of the peace. The Supreme
Court reversed his conviction as an unseventy-two-year oversight
In true fact, the Supreme Court of the constitutional violation of his right to the
United States did not know how to deal free exercise of his religion. But in the
with state/church separation cases until decision the Court held:
after 1940.Prior to that time, the Court
The First Amendment declares
had held that the First Amendment to
that Congress shall make no law
the Constitution of the United States
respecting an establishment of
was not applicable to the states. Each
religion or prohibiting the free
state was, therefore, the supreme auexercise thereof. The Fourteenth
thority on religious matters within its
Amendment has rendered the legboundaries, to be acted upon according
islatures of the states as incompeto the state constitutions. The case that
tent as Congress to enact such
changed it all was Cantwell v. Connectlaws.
icut." But during that period of time
from 1789to 1940,when the state courts
had sole power over the subject of reliThe Fourteenth Amendment had, of
gion, which was left exclusively to state course, been ratified on July 9, 1868,but
governments, the number of such cases this was the first ruling of the Supreme
was relatively small. The Supreme
Court which made the amendments to
Court heard and decided only eighteen the Constitution (as well as the Constiin the ISO-yearperiod. In the next twen- tution itself) binding upon the several
states under the Fourteenth Amendty-four years it handled thirty cases and then the explosion of cases began. ment - an oversight of a mere seventyThere was simply never any hope that a two years.
number of attorneys could become proThe right not to speak
ficient in this area of law which touched
Jehovah's Witnesses continued its
99.9 percent of them not at all.
legal campaign through the 19S0s. One
Cantwell was the third Jehovah's
of the most famous cases was West
Witnesses case to reach the Supreme
Court as that church fought for the right V.irginia State Board of Education v.
to proselytize on the streets of the na- Barnette This held that the guarantee
tion. The first two were brought to the

4Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296; 6

S.Ct. 900; 84 L.Ed. 1213(1940).
Austin, Texas

5West Virginia State Board of Education v.

Barnette, 319 U.S. 624; 63 S.Ct. 1178; 87
L.Ed. 1628 (1943).
Vol. 33, No.3

of freedom of speech forbade state or

public school authorities from compelling children to salute the flag or pledge
allegiance to it under penalty of expulsion from the public school. The guarantee of freedom of speech, the Court
held, encompassed freedom not to
speak and not to make any other symbolic expression, such as saluting.
When confronted with the argument
that law should be overturned by legislative action rather than by the Court,
the justices responded with the now
famous:
One's right to life, liberty, and
property, to free speech, a free
press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental
rights may not be submitted to
vote; they depend on the outcome
of no elections.
As the Supreme Court accepted
state/ church separation cases for re-

One's right to life,

liberty, and property,
to free speech, a free
press, freedom of
worship and assembly,
and other fundamental
rights may not be
submitted to vote; they
depend on the outcome
of no elections.
- West Virginia State

Board 0/ Education
v. Barnette
Page 7

Between the years 1953 and 1969, the

Supreme Court of the United States was
dubbed the "Warren Court," for Chief
Justice Earl Warren. The Warren Court
frequently came under attack in those
years for what was considered its antiChristian bias, particularly in the schoolprayer rulings.

view, it slowly began to make rules for

the game. The legal system of the United States has developed around adversarial case law. In such a system prior
(precedent) decisions are heavily relied
upon and the doctrine of "leading case"
law is accepted: that is, what the highest
court of the state, circuit, or land says,
stands until altered by a higher or the
highest court. On federal issues, the
Supreme Court of the United States has
the last word and sets the ultimate precedents and case law rules. On state issues, the court of last resort in the state
(the superior court, supreme court, or
court of appeals) has the last word.

The fashioning of
the "Lemon test"

for religion were fostered. The issue of

local authorities providing free public
transportation for children attending
religious schools was handled in such a
way as to be supportive of religion. The
Court held that state legislation passed
Benefiting the child,
to aid religious schools fell into the category of "public welfare legislation"
not the church
After the Jehovah's Witnesses cases, which was simply being extended by the
there began a series of lawsuits having state "to all its citizens without regard to
to do with the public and the private their religious belief."
Out of the Everson case came, then,
parochial (read "religious" - usually
the "child benefit" theory. TransportaRoman Catholic) schools.
Justice Rutledge= wrote in a 1947 tion benefited the child, just as did police
protection at crossings, fire protection,
case:?
connections for sewage disposal, public
highways, and sidewalks.
Two great drives are constantly
Next up, state "loans" of textbooks to
in motion to abridge, in the name
parochial (read Roman Catholic) schools
of education, the complete diviwere sustained on the "child benefit"
sion of religion and civil authority
theory." The Court held:
which our forefathers made. One
is to introduce religious education
Books are furnished at the reand observances into the public
quest of the pupil and ownership
schools. The other, to obtain pubremains, at least technically, in the
lic funds for the aid and support of
State. Thus no funds or books are
various private religiousschools....
furnished to parochial schools,
In my opinion both avenues were
and the financial benefit is to parclosed by the Constitution.
ents and children, not to schools.
And among the first which finally
Only the fools of the nation accepted
came to the Supreme Court of the United States were cases of these kinds. such logic, but nonetheless it became
Our culture and government being sym- the law of the land and religious schools
were provided with bus transportation,
pathetic to religion, accommodations
school lunches, public health services,
and textbooks, since they were supplied
6Wiley Blount Rutledge, Jr. (1894-1949), in common to "all students."

Because of the criticism engendered

by such decisions, the Supreme Court
was forced to fashion some more sophisticated guidelines to more adequately fool critics of the school cases.
A working set of standards was finally
articulated in the "Lemon" test? in 1971.
Certain elements of the test were developed in other cases, to be reviewed below, but they were brought together
specifically in Lemon. Involved in that
case were two state statutes. One authorized the "purchase" of secular educational services by the government
from "nonpublic" (read Roman Catholic)
elementary and secondary schools.
Actually this was a form of reimbursement for the cost to these religious
schools of teaching mathematics, modern foreign languages, and physical sciences in the religious schools. The second authorized salary supplements to
religious-school teachers who taught
courses similar to those taught in public
schools, used textbooks approved for
use in public schools, and agreed not to
teach any classes in religion. The schools
which benefited from these two state
statutes were religious, under the control of the Roman Catholic church hierarchy, and the primary purpose of the
Roman Catholic schools was propagation of the church's faith.
The Supreme Court held that the
state supervision necessary to ensure

associate justice, U.S. Supreme Court

(1943-49).
"Euerson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1;
67 S.Ct. 504; 91 L.Ed. 711.

9Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602; 91 S.Ct.

2105;29 L.Ed.2d 745 (1971).

Page 8

8Board of Education v. Allen, 392 U.S. 236;

88 S.Ct. 1923;20 L.Ed.2d 1060 (1%8).
Vol. 33, No.3

American Atheist

Only the fools of the nation accepted such logic, but nonetheless it became
the law of the land and religious schools were provided with
bus transportation, school lunches, public health services, and textbooks,
since they were supplied in common to "all students."

that the secular purpose and the secular effect of the statutes would be fulfilledwould occasion too much of an involvement between state religious authorities and the religious affairs of the
institutions aided.
The Lemon test was then given:

were tested in diverse states of the

Union - tuition grants, a voucher system, and tax credits - and one or the
other was adopted in certain states.

From school doors

to church doors

But more than money has been involved. Religion has always desired to
intrude itself into the public school system. The more modern version first
tried was "released time." These programs established a period during which
pupils in public schools were to be
allowed, "upon parental request," to receive religious instruction. The first case
dealt with religious classes conducted
during regular school hours in the pub- The willingness of the courts to allow religious teachings to seep into the public
lic school building by outside teachers
furnished by a religious group (usually a school system has brought many Athecouncil representing various faiths) .12 ists to the picket lines.
But here, in the dissent, was reared the to right the wrong of government support
In the third prong, there were two as- ugly head of "religious accommodaof religion:
pects. First a state statute (or program) tion." Justice Reed,13the lone dissenter,
might involve the state impermissibly in held that the released-time program was
We are a religious people whose
monitoring and overseeing religious
merely one of the close state-church
institutions presuppose a Supreme
affairs,or second, there might
associations which are "traBeing.... When the state encourbe "divisive political potenditional" in United States
ages religious instruction or cotial" in the state statute (or
history and culture.
operates with religious authorities
program) which could lead
Four years later, another
by adjusting the schedule of pubto a threat to the normal poreleased-time case came belic events to sectarian [i.e., relilitical process.l?
fore the Supreme Court.
gious] needs, it follows the best of
However, on the same day
Here the school released the
our traditions. For it then respects
the same Court sustained a
pupils during school hours
the religious nature of our people
federal program which proso that they might leave the
and accommodates the public servided construction grants to
school building and go to revice to their spiritual needs. To
"church-related"
colleges
ligiouscenters for instruction
hold that it may not would be to
and universities, holding that Attorney Leo Pfeffer or devotional exercises.!"
find in the Constitution a requirethe buildings on such cam- exerted a profound in- The Court sustained the
ment that the government show a
puses were "nonideological fluenc~onFirst~endprogram. It was unfortucallous indifference to religious
in character,"!'
ment interpretation.
nately in this case that Jusgroups. That would be preferring
At the same time, Roman Catholic au- tice Douglas wrote the decision which
those who believe in no religion
thorities were attempting to find theo- has come to haunt all Atheist attempts
over those who do believe.
retics under which its schools could be
funded by the state. Three avenues
School prayer
Next up was governmental encour12Illinoisex reI. McCollum v. Board of Eduagement
of religion in public schools cation, 333 U.S. 203; 68 S.Ct. 461; 92 L.Ed.
specifically prayers and Bible reading. In
lOlncidentally, excerpts from the Stokes
649 (1948).
(and Pfeffer) books are quoted in both the
13Stanley Forman Reed (1884-1980), associ- New York, the governing state school
board had written a twenty-two-word
majority and the minority opinions.
ate justice, U.S. Supreme Court (1938-57).
prayer and caused it to be read aloud by
IlTilton v. Richardson, 403 U.S. 672;91 S.Ct.
14Zorach v. Clauson, 343 U.S. 306; 72 S.Ct.
2091;29 L.Ed. 790 (1971).
679; 96 L.Ed. 954 (1952).
students in the presence of a teacher at
Every analysis in this area must
begin with consideration of the cumulative criteria developed by the
Court over many years. Three
such tests may be gleaned from
our cases. First, the statute [at issue] must have a secular legislative purpose; second, its principal
or primary effect must be one that
neither advances nor inhibits religion; finally, the statute must not
foster "an excessive government
entanglement with religion."

Austin, Texas

Vol. 33, No.3

Page 9

The Lord's Prayer recited each morning

at Woodbourne Jr. High School in Baltimore would become the focus of the
Supreme Court's most controversial
First Amendment decision.

the beginning of each school day. This

was the so-called "Regents' Prayer":
Almighty God, we acknowledge
our dependence upon Thee, and we
beg Thy blessings upon us, our
parents, our teachers and our
Country.
This the Supreme Court found to be
unconstitutional," noting that
Neither the fact that the prayer
may be nondenominationally neutral nor the fact that its observance
on the part of the students is voluntary can serve to free it from the
limitations of the Establishment
Clause [of the First Amendment
of the Constitution of the United
States]. The Establishment Clause
. . . does not depend upon any
showing of direct governmental
compulsion and is violated by the
enactment of laws which establish
an official religion whether those
laws operate directly to coerce
nonobserving individuals or not.
The following year two cases came
before the Supreme Court, one from
Pennsylvania (Abington School District
v. Schempp), one from Maryland (Murray v. Curlett).16 Pennsylvania required
the selection and reading at the opening

15Engelu. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421;82 S.Ct. l261;

8 L.Ed.2d 601 (1962).
16Abington School Dist. u. Schempp and
Murray u. Curlett, 374 U.S. 203; 83 S.Ct.
1560; 2 L.Ed.2d. 844 (1963). The two cases
were joined (heard together) by the Supreme
Court.
Page 10

of the school day of verses from the

Holy Bible. Maryland required the same
plus the unison recitation of the Lord's
Prayer. Both exercises were held to be
unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
Next, of course, was curriculum restriction by the states in favor of religion.
In Arkansas a statute was passed which
made it unlawful for any teacher in any
state-supported educational institution
"to teach the theory or doctrine that
mankind ascended or descended from a
lower order of animals," or "to adopt or
use in any such institution a textbook
that teaches" this theory, i.e., evolution.
The Supreme Court found that the
motivation of the statute was to foster a
fundamentalist belief in the literal reading of the Book of Genesis.'? From this
case developed one of the so-called
prongs of the Lemon test: that the government may not encourage religion.
17Epperson u. Arkansas, 393 U.S. CJ7; 89
S.Ct. 226; 21 L.Ed.2d 228 (1968).

Never give an Atheist

an even break
It is interesting to note the hostility
of the Supreme Court of the United
States to Atheism. In 1%3, two school
prayer cases were appealed to the
Supreme Court. The Maryland case,
having both elements - Bible reading and unison prayer recitation was filed first and numbered 119by
the court. The Pennsylvania case featured only Bible reading and was filed
later, being numbered 142.In the former the Atheist Murray family was
the plaintiff;in the latter, the Schempp
familywith pretensions of being "Unitarian" was the plaintiff. Instead of
following the usual routine and naming the case Murray v. Curlett for
posterity, the Supreme Court assigned
the name of School DistrictofAbington
Township v. Schempp (374 U.S. 203;
83 S.Ct. 1560, 10 L.Ed.2d 844 [1%3]).
Vol. 33, No.3

Excluding Atheists
from public office
Other issues than those of the school
also arose.
In Maryland, an applicant for the office of notary public refused to swear
that he believed in the existence of a
god. In Torcaso v. Watkins,18 the Supreme Court held that such a requirement violated not alone the Establishment Clause but also the Free Exercise
Clause, noting, the majority said, "We
follow the McCollum case." Religious
test oaths were thought then to be
barred.
American Atheists, as it formed Chapters throughout the United States, soon
discovered that seven states had state
constitutional provisions which excluded any Atheist from either an elected or
appointed office or position of public
trust. The provisions were actively enforced. In an entire series of cases,
American Atheists was able to strike
down these provisions in over eight
years of litigation.

Tax exemption for religion

Every state and the District of Columbia afforded provision for tax exemptions for religious institutions, and the
history of such exemptions goes back to
the time of the establishment of the nation as a polity. Already Justice Brennan
had made a side remark in Murray
which was to be picked up and utilized
as a rationale for religious benefits from
government:
If religious institutions benefit, it
is in spite of rather than because of
their religious character. For religious institutions simply share
benefits which government makes
generally available to educational,
charitable, and eleemosynary
groups.

18Torcasou. Watkins, 367 U.S. 488; 81 S.Ct.

1680;6 L.Ed.2d 982 (1961).
American Atheist

Justice Douglas, the only dissenter to the opinion,

held that the designation of Sunday,
the traditional religious day of Christians, as an enforced day of rest
for everyone undoubtedly established religion.
The state of New York was challenged rooted in the theory of Christian Sabbath ditional religious day of Christians, as an
as a day of rest. Although a number of enforced day of rest for everyone unfor exempting from real or personal
property taxation any property "used cases tested this concept, particularly doubtedly established religion.
And then developed the fight of the
exclusively for religious, educational, or Jewish firms desiring to stay open on
charitable purposes."19 Justice William Sunday because Saturday was the Jew- Seventh-day Adventists, who also accept
Saturday as their Sabbath.
Brennan fashioned in this
Their cases generally were
case the next two prongs of
against employers who dewhat came to be the Lemon
sired them to work on Saturtest. The first of these was
day, or with state unemploythat the law had a secular
ment boards who refused
purpose and effect. It did not
compensation when employ"single out" churches for
ees were discharged for respecial favor, but rather desfusing to work on their Satignated a broad category of
urday Sabbaths. A new theassociations dedicated to
ory was introduced in these
social betterment as deservcases. If the state enacted a
ing and worthy of special
general law, the purpose and
treatment because they funceffect of which was to adtion to serve "a public need."
vance the state's secular
The primary effect of the exgoals, the statute would be
emption was not to aid religion; the primary effect was Reagan, in his eight years of office in the presidency, consis- valid despite its indirect bursecular and any assistance
tendy advocated a constitutional amendment to return prayer
den on religious observance.
to religion was "merely inci- to the. schools. Many of these prono.uncements were made, as This purpose and effect was
dental." This "merely inci- here, In the Rose Garden of the White House.
generally designated as a
dental" assistance amounts to enough ish day of rest, the case to come before "compelling state interest" which a relimoney to payoff the national debt each the Supreme Court was McGowan u. gious group could not overcome. The
year, so much land do the churches and Maryland.20 The Supreme Court ac- lead case was Sherbert u. Verner.21
religious institutions own, an estimated
knowledged that the laws historically
25 percent of all privately held land. The had a religious motivation and were de- Religious
second prong was a test to establish en- signed to effectuate concepts of Chris- conscientious objectors
In another area, the struggle of inditanglement. Incredibly, the argument
tian theology. To save them, it therefore
was put forth that the state would need decreed that the laws spoke to the see- viduals against the state's support of reto evaluate the properties for tax pur- ular state interest in the promotion of ligionalso proceeded: conscientious obposes, collect taxes, develop tax liens the health, safety, recreation, and gener- jection to war. First, U.S. federal statand foreclosures which might require al well-being of citizens when they re- utes provided that no clergyman or stulitigation. This, the Supreme Court
quired "a day of rest." That the state dent of theology could be drafted. Secavowed, would entangle government
had chosen Sunday, a dominant Chris- ondly, no ordinary person could refuse
with the internal affairs of religious tian Sabbath day, to force everyone in to be drafted except those who had "rebodies! The Court at least was disingen- business to a required "day of rest" only ligious scruples" against either combat
uous, at most, openly dishonest in order fulfilled the state's concern for the activities or general military activities.
to accommodate religion.
general welfare of its people. The "tradi- The Supreme Court simply avoided the
tional day" could be chosen. The deci- issue by a disingenuous interpretation
sion was transparent. Religion was to be of the statute," construing the exempHonoring the Sabbath
While all of this was going on, reli- accommodated at the expense of warped tion limited to those with "religious traingion's impact on the culture was being logicand state coercion. Justice Douglas, ing and belief' - that is, those who bechallenged in another area: Sunday- the only dissenter to the opinion, held
closing laws. The basis of such laws is that the designation of Sunday, the tra19Walz v. Tax Commission, sn U.S. 664; 90
S.Ct. 1409; 25 L.Ed. 6CJ7 (1CJ70).
Austin, Texas

20McGowan v. Maryland, 366 U.S. 420; 81

S.Ct. 1101; 6 L.Ed.2d 393 (1961).
Vol. 33, No.3

21Sherbert v. Verner, 374 U.S. 398; 83 S.Ct.

1790; 10 L.Ed. 2d 965 (1963).
22United States v. Seeger, 380 U.S. 163; 85
S.Ct. 850; 13 L.Ed. 2d 733 (1965).
Page 11

.'

'~.#
,,'

..".,:

" .

;>,:.~ .->f:.::

"We ~
to"orpniu-~aSunday,,'
Rat ~ue 1IIf'II,
to eJ.:.tt a JirilI6t~11l -,I;
rhe Uottid Sla~
in vie.., pt whkh ever)'
poHt~
wirr~tt.iUJeracr
lba.tht is,
destined to political-beheadal
if he
does .noc kive sus 1M' ~tion
we
denwtdP-Ke .. W. F..lreland; of Los
'Angdes.
CaliJornla.
~ted
itl die.
SlIm qI the Times, No"e~1"
XI, 190'1.

lieved in a "Supreme Being" - to mean

that a person must have some .belief
which occupies in his life the place or
role which the traditional concept of god
occupies in the orthodox believer. This
left the Atheist out in the cold. But in the
first conscientious objection case involving a nonbeliever, the Court divined
that since Daniel Seeger, the litigant,
had been reared in a religion, he still had
the (religious) values which that rearing
had instilled in him. In Welsh,23 the religious requirement was construed as including moral, ethical, and religious
grounds so long as there was a traditional religious foundation for the beliefs.

Religion has been most adamant that "the Lord's day" cause
the cessation of all human activity. Not alone were politicians
cowed by the churches, but in the face of Sunday-closing
laws, the Supreme Court of the United States buckled under
to church and god also - and ruled that such laws were a
part of the nation's culture.

all.Consequently women unwittinglybecome

pregnant and seek the
last resort: abortion.
The religious are astute enough to play
the end game of "stop
abortions," and those
who support abortion
are too dumb to realize that they should
be focusing on the prevention of pregnancy
through sex education and birth control.
It is easy to predict
which side is going to
win this war in legislatures and in the
courts. The interveningRU486and the Norplant treatments are the only hope of
the pro-abortionists - something which,
apparently, they don't really realize. The
convoluted abortion issue will be addressed in another issue of the American Atheist at a later date.

Challenging the government's

endorsement of religion

Once established, American Atheists

began in 1963a course of action which
challenged every endorsement of religion by government: the exemption of
religion's income from income tax; the
Pledge of Allegiance to the flag recited
by schoolchildren, particularly the addition of the words "under God" to the
The abortion battle
pledge; the statement "In God We
The abortion cases, of course, are in Trust" printed on coins and currency of
a class of their own. They all are predi- the nation; the issuance of the Susan B.
cated on a religious issue, which the liti- Anthony dollar with the words "In God
gants and the courts both refuse to face. We Trust" under her nose; the reading
The issue is really dissemination of sex of the Bible by astronauts on Apollo
education and birth control informa- VII's loop around the moon; the pope's
tion, medication, and devices. The Ro- holding a full mass on the Washington
man Catholic, the Mormon, and the fun- Mall; the U.S. Postal Service's fancy
damentalist churches are opposed to cancellation of stamps with the papal
insignia; Christmas caroling in Texas'
capitol rotunda; prayers at city councils,
23Welsh v. United States, 398 U.S. 333; 90 state legislatures, and in the United
S.Ct. 1792(1970).
States Senate; the nativity scene in
Page 12

Vol. 33, No.3

Texas' capitol rotunda; teaching religious courses at the University of Texas

and in Texas public schools; forcing attendance of deaf students at religious
services; discharge of teachers from
employment when their Atheism was
discovered; requirement that adoptive
parents rear children in a religion; radio
stations' refusals to broadcast Atheism;
teachers in public schools wearing religious garb (nun's habits); blasphemy
laws; the "Pray for Peace" cancellation
used by most of the U.S. post offices
during the war in Vietnam; the "So help
me God" oaths to take public office, to
become a juror, to authenticate applications for state or federal employment;
the exclusion of Atheist publications
from public libraries.
In order to force government acknowledgment of Atheism as a part of
American culture, American Atheists
fought for and won recognition as corporations and then tax exemptions for
those corporations as educational institutions. Over a period of fifteen years, it
fought, in and out of state and federal
courts, to gain income tax exemption
for Atheist organizations; to gain sales
tax exemption for Atheist organizations;
to obtain ad valorem (real property) tax
exemption for Atheist organizations.

Atheist concerns as "frivolous"

Courts have been severe in their
opinions on the Atheist state/church
separation cases and have undertaken
two courses of action: the cases are
marked "Do not print" by the judges involved, which means that they are never
put into the reporter systems of published cases and history willnever know
that the cases were even brought. More
recently, the federal courts have been
defining the cases as "frivolous" and
attempting to sanction American Atheists with litigation costs and attorneys'
fees to be awarded to the government
entities against which the cases were
brought. This action continues, although
in most instances of current cases,
Atheists were in the legal battle for deAmerican Atheist

What is a dissenting opinion today

can be a majority opinion tomorrow
as our judicial system staggers unevenly
down the Yellow Brick Road to Oz.

cades on the subject matter of the very

cases now being brought and won by
the ACLU and other civil rights organizations.
The fights have been sons-of-bitches;
but the government knew that Atheists
were in the trenches battling it out.

Types and kinds

Now, if you have been following all of
this, you see a clear pattern developing.
There are Establishment Clause cases
where the passing of the law itself is offensive, unconstitutional, and coercive
against the litigant. There are Free Exercise Clause cases in which the litigant
must show that there was a compulsion

port religion's claims upon the culture.

These include the "child benefit" theory.
Going up the appellate ladder, after
one is past a one-judge court, there can
be more than one decision in a lawsuit.
In a three-judge panel, there is the official majority decision, and possibly a
minority decision. There is the court's
opinion which rules, and there can be
concurring opinions in which one or the
other judge may wish to emphasize certain points. There can be one or more
dissenting opinions, or concurrences in
the dissenting opinion. At the federal
level cases can be heard "en banc" by a
number of judges in various appellate
districts across the nation. There are

tum - the plural is dicta - and it comes

from the Latin obiter dictum. It is simply
an opinion expressed by the court, but
which, not necessarily being involved in
the case, lacks the force of an adjudication. These statements are treated with
respect. The Supreme Court has the
general rule, broadly stated.> that to
make an opinion a decision,
there must have been an application of the judicial mind to the precise question necessary to be determined to fix the rights of the
parties, . . . and, therefore, this
court has never held itself bound
by any part of an opinion which
was not needful to the ascertainment of the questions between the
parties.
In dissenting opinions and in dicta in
more recent cases, the idea that government protection of our cultural history
includes the right of government to
approve of religion, sponsor religion, or
aid religion appears more and more
often and more and more emphatically.

History as a reason

Eight inches of snow could not deter the members of the Denver, Colorado, Chapter
of American Atheists who came out to picket the very large nativity scene which
was displayed on the steps of the city/county building. But, once again, the federal
appellate court brushed aside the legal challenge and the nativity scene stayed.

upon them to act (or not to act). There

is a group of cases which holds that incidental harm to religions is trivial and
not to be recognized if the legislation
works to the benefit of society in general. And there is a group of cases which
hold goes to great lengths to throw the
litigants' case out of court on any pretext. The last group of cases consists of
those wherein the court fabricates an irrational theory under which it can supAustin, Texas

nine justices on the Supreme Court of

the United States, and it is not infrequent that four or five of them write independent decisions in addition to the
Court's opinion. All of these are fodder
to add to the fuels of controversy. What
is a dissenting opinion today can be a
majority opinion tomorrow as our judicial system staggers unevenly down the
Yellow Brick Road to Oz. In legal decisions there is also something called dicVol. 33, No.3

When this is coupled with the reasoning in Marsh v. Chamberw> the result is
somewhat frightening. Briefly, in that
case, a Black Atheist state legislator in
the Nebraska unicameral legislature
challenged the opening of each session
with a prayer by a Presbyterian chaplain
who was paid with public funds. The
District Court for the District of Nebraska enjoined the payment of funds. The
Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
enjoined the whole chaplaincy practice.
It was obviously unconstitutional. The
Supreme Court delivered a 6-3 deci-

24Curtis, J., in Carroll v. Lessee of Carroll,

57 How 275, at p. 287 (1853). Benjamin
Robbins Curtis (l809-1874), associate justice,
U.S. Supreme Court (1851-57).
25Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U.S. 781; 103
S.Ct. 3330; 77 L.Ed.2d 1019 (1983).
Page 13

When the pope first visited the United States, puffed figures
spread in the media reported a million people turning out to
attend his masses. Pictures later released belied those exaggerations. Right: the Mass on the mall in Washington, D.C.
which American Atheists tried to enjoin but which federal
courts permitted.

sion, with Justice Brennan filing a dissenting opinion in which Justice Marshall joined. Justice Stevens filed a separate dissenting opinion. Chief Justice
Burger delivered the opinion of the
Court.
The Presbyterian minister had been
at the job for sixteen years and was paid
$319.75a month for each month the legislature was in session.
The Supreme Court held that the
practice was constitutional since the
United States Congress has opened
with prayer for two hundred years, the
legislature of Nebraska has done so for
one hundred years, the Supreme Court
opens with the cry, "Oyez, Oyez. God
save the United States and this honorable
court," and prayer of legislative bodies
has become part of the fabric of our
society. To invoke divine guidance on a
public body entrusted with making the

1~~t.~
'( '(\~G
~

A close-up of American Atheist members

picketing the pope in Detroit, Michigan.

laws is simply a tolerable acknowledgment of beliefs widely held among the

people of this country. The Court made
no attempt to apply the Lemon test in
Marsh at all, relying solely on a lengthy
claim that the practice was historical.
Now, if you willplease flip back a few
pages, you willsee that the same kind of
nonsensical argument was used in the
Walz case, which gave tax exemption to
all the land owned by churches and reliPage 14

gious organizations
in the United States.

Graduation
prayers
During the last ten
years the issue of
prayers at junior and
senior high school
convocations
has
been brought to the
attention of state and
federal courts all
over the United
States. Once again,
a member of American Atheists was
among the first in
such a lawsuit. 26 But
again this issue is afresh in California,
Utah, and Rhode Island. Allthree are on
appeal to the Supreme Court, but
something ominous has come up in the
Rhode Island case. The facts are short
and sweet and were reported in the February issue of the American Atheist
Newsletter.
Daniel Weisman's two daughters attended the Nathan Bishop MiddleSchool
in Providence, with about six hundred
other students in grades five through
eight. When his first daughter, Merith,
graduated in 1986, the Weismans complained that they did not appreciate
prayers in which Jesus was praised for
watching over the students. They felt
such a prayer had no place in the public
schools. Daniel Weisman is a Jew. When
another daughter, Deborah, was scheduled to graduate in 1989,the Weismans
repeated their concerns and the school
officials told them "not to worry," since
the school was calling in a rabbi for her
graduation.
The parents became angry: that was
not the point. If prayers to J.C. were
wrong for them, prayers to Yahweh
would now be wrong for other parents.

26Collins v. Chandler Unified School District,

644 E2d 759 (9th cir. 1981).

Vol. 33, No.3

The Weismans were insistent: "That's

no solution. The public sector ought not
to be sponsoring religion."
They sought a restraining order but it
was denied.
They went to graduation and sure
enough a rabbi was there, praying:

God, we are grateful to You

for having endowed us with the
capacity for learning which we
have celebrated on this joyous
commencement. We give thanks
to You, Lord, for keeping us alive,
sustaining us and allowing us to
reach this special, happy occasion.
The parents sued. On January 9,
1990, the U.S. District Court ruled for
the Weismans:
... [O]n every other school
day, at every other school function,
if the students cannot be led in
prayer on all of those other days,
prayer on graduation day is also
inappropriate under the doctrine
currently embraced by the Supreme Court.
The school board appealed, but on
July 23, 1990, the First Circuit Court of
Appeals in Boston upheld the lower
American

Atheist

Utah Chapter of American Atheists

Chris Allen, codirector of the Salt Lake

City Chapter of American Atheists,
announces his Chapter's involvement in
the Lee v. Weisman case as American
Atheists try to save the Lemon test.

court ruling. But it was not until October

1990 that the counsel for the school
board advised school officials to stop
prayers at graduation ceremonies. At
that time, the school board voted to set
aside $20,000 to take the case to the
Supreme Court of the United States.
The school board chairman then announced that the board would find it
necessary to "look around the state and
the rest of the country" for an estimated
$30,000 extra which would be needed
for the appeal.

Enter American Atheists

The state of Utah meantime has two
school districts embroiled in a similar
fight. The state itself asked the two
brawling factions to suspend their legal
action until the Rhode Island case is
determined, but that would be past the
date of June graduation this year and
they refused. In the midst of it, the legislature of Utah voted $10,000 toward
filingan amicus curiae brief on behalf of
the Rhode Island school district.
It was at this point that the Utah
Chapter of American Atheists filed suit
to stop that $10,000 check. Art. 1, Sec.
4 of the Utah Constitution provides:
. . . No public money or property
shall be appropriated for or applied
to any religious worship, exercise
Or instruction, or for the support
of any ecclesiastical establishment.
Back in Rhode Island the school
board has come up with a new wrinkle.
They claim to want to offer a "generic
form" ofprayer, excluding all mention of
the deity to whom the prayer is addressed. But when the school invites a
minister, priest, or rabbi, it claims it
cannot take the role of censor and tell
that religious representative, "You can
say this, this, and not that."
And about that time - enter Uncle
Sam.
In February the Department of Justice of the United States entered a brief
for "the United States" as amicus
Austin, Texas

P.o. Box 11622

Salt Uke air. IJU4I4Hl622
OIal-An-_ (sot)364-4939
GaIeI3I
(512)458-1244

Headquarters,

REPRINTED
WITH PERf'lISSION
The Salt Lab Trtbunt, Tuesday. Ftbrulr] %5, 1"1

Group Vows
New Battle
Over Prayer
,

By Dan Harrie
Trlhune Staff Writer
A non- profit organization whose
goal is pruervlng the separaucn of
church and state iI threatening new
legal action In Utah', battle over
graduation prayer in puhlicschools
In lelten Itnt Monday to Utah At
tcrney General Paul Van Dam and
Jay Taggart, .tate superintendent of
public Instruction, the Society of
Separationlllu Inc. said will sue unless the state halts tbe expenditure
'If public monies to advance a U.S
Jupreme Court appeal of a Rhode
Isl,~ndKhool.prayer, ca~e.

pmne Court is "by far the cheapest

.'yto,o,"
Mr. Allen eeueters that differiDC
details In the two caSI!:$ mean. rulin,
In the Rhooe blind appeal mtlhl
have UtUt be,riD, 011Utah', diSpute.
"It wtluldn't lave us Dickel.
That'. baliall)'. pretext for ,olni In
and protecting a rell,ioul exercise."
hewd.
Stateorfit'lalsdiaagree.
"If the Supreme Court will dectde
[the Rhode bi.ndClsel.1 think It will
settle the questten here," Mr. Bates
said.
And Mr. CI.rk said tbe eentral 1.5.
sue of grldu.tion prayer means
blab court ruling in the pending appeal ",lmost definitely will hive In
impltton the Utah issue."
"Be<:luu the Rhode Island ease
willo(ne<:essityrequire the ccurt to
face the grldultion-prayerilSue,
we
believe It will address most il not all
the facu In the Utah cue," he said.
The high court bas extended a
comment period on the Rhode Island

curiae, asking the Supreme Court to

grant certiorari (review). The solicitor
general couched his request for review
as: "Whether government accommodation of religion in civic lifeviolates the Establishment Clause, absent some form
of government coercion."
Unhappily for the solicitor general,
the Supreme Court has held, in many
cases since Engel v. Vitale (1%2), that:
The Establishment Clause does
not depend upon any showing of
direct governmental compulsion
and is violated by the enactment of
laws which establish an officialreligion whether those laws operate
directly to coerce nonobserving
individuals or not.
Ah! but the United States is adamant;
it would have the criterion changed.
First the brief relates that the United
States operates primary and secondary
schools for military and foreign service
dependents and for Native Americans
and therefore has an interest in the
case. In addition, the United States
conducts numerous public ceremonies
such as presidential inaugurations which
"date back to the founding of the Republic," and religion is acknowledged in
these in some manner.
The United States does not want the
Lemon test used; it prefers the precedent
of Marsh v. Chambers and Lynch v.
Donneliy.t? Lynch was a frightening

27Lynch v. Donnelly, 456 U.S. 668; 104S.Ct.

1355; 79 L.Ed.2d 604 (1984).
. Vol. 33, No.3

forwithholdi
~bout Dunn.
Wh.n ReI( L
pr-Rsi dent
of
Lynn
Packer ,
thing
Wi16
t
gi ven ~ y.~r-'
which did no
Journ.d iSIll
budget.
About
BYU fi red
sold hi ~l
Dunn
t
Republic.
Those
Mor-lIIon Ct'
that the'
are what enau.~~
to
milk.
61
900d
11 vr n",
_
forgeriefi,
and th .t
Harmon
'leader's
attRmpts
to censor-

case, for it was in it that Chief Justice

Burger held that:
The Constitution does not require complete separation
of
church and state; it affirmatively .
mandates accommodation, not
merely tolerance, of all religions,
and forbids hostility to any. . . .
Our history is pervaded by official acknowledgment of the role of
religion in American life,and equally pervasive is evidence of accommodation of all faiths and all forms
of religious expression and hostility toward none.
". . . total separation is not possible in an absolute sense. Some
relationship between government
and religious organizations is inevitable." ...
Our history is replete with official references to the value and invocation of Divine guidance in deliberations and pronouncement of
the Founding Fathers and contemporary leaders.
A long analysis of the Lynch decision
appeared in the December 1988issue of
the American Atheist magazine because
of its importance and consequential
considerable erosion of the constitutional
principle of state/church separation.
Now, in the case of Lee, the United
States government wants to look at the
history of included invocations and
benedictions in public school graduation ceremonies as simply another
accommodation to religion, based on
history. The tradition at the school in
Page 15

American Atheists has from its inception

battered at these symbolic references,
and it is just at those points that government has held fast,
be it at city, county, state, or federal level.

question is first, in fact, alleged to be 160

neither establish any religion
years old. Jon Murray, in the "Director's
nor coerce nonadherents to participate in any religion or religious
Briefcase" in this issue of the American
exercise against their will, ... the
Atheist, explores Lee in some depth.
practice under assault [being] a
The United States attorneys argue
non-coercive, ceremonial acknowlthat there has been a "traditional acknowledgement of religion"in the Court's
edgement of the heritage of a
deeply religious people.
decisions and that the historical tradition of religious references at civic cerThey point out that "a majority of the
emonies - a tradition that reaches
back to the time of the founding - per- Members of the Court has written to
mits the continuation of such recogni- express dissatisfaction with different
tion in contemporary settings.
aspects of the Lemon test" and want to
go back to the "original intent" of the
framers of the Constitution. Interpretation of the Establishment Clause must
"comport with what history reveals was
the contemporaneous understanding of
its guarantees." It appears to the solicitor
general that in Lynch the Court cited
many examples which were "ceremonial invocations of the deity by public figures, both historic and contemporary."
The United States would relegate the
Lemon test to divine the intended meaning and scope of the Establishment
Clause in the setting of government financial aid to plainly religious institutions, since the Lemon case itself was
concerned with such financing. For
American Atheists has repeatedly chalother aspects of state/church separalenged city council prayers.
tion cases, the courts should rely on hisCalling on a prior decision from the tory.
Sixth Circuit, Stein v. Plainwell CommuThe government must face the truth
nity Schools,28 the government cites of former decisions, particularly of the
from that decision that "annual graduation lower courts:
exercises ... are analogous to the legislative and judicial sessions" referred to
in order to assert that such
in Marsh. The United States urges that:
practices do not advance religion,
the lower courts are tempted to
The case would afford the Court
deny the obvious religious signifian appropriate opportunity to recance of traditional religious referconsider the application of the
ence .... [I]t places judges in the
Lemon test to the attempts to acunfortunate position of denigratcommodate the Nation's religious
ing religious meanings in order to
heritage in our public life.
stave off a Lemon-inspired assault
on traditional practices.
Such public acknowledgments, the
attorneys for the United States say,
In the case at bar, the solicitor general notes, the same invocation and benediction at issue could have been delivered
28822 E2d 1406 (1987).
at the opening of Congress or during a
Page 16

Vol. 33, No.3

presidential inauguration ceremony.

Even the Supreme Court has been
forced into the anomalous position that
it has held that a creche in Pittsburgh
violated the Establishment Clause while
a display of a menorah in the same city
in the same place did not.
The government wants, at least, accommodation of the nation's religious
heritage in civic life. It feels that it can
prove, if the Supreme Court gives the
Lee case plenary consideration, that the
Founding Fathers and framers of the
Constitution
fully assented to the appearance of non-coercive religious
practices in civic life. . . . [P]ublic
ceremonial acknowledgements of
religion were welcomed by the
Framers and are deeply rooted in
the Nation's heritage.
The amicus curiae brief ends with the
conclusion:
[T]he practice here clearly does
not violate the Establishment
Clause, because it does not coerce
religious exercise or bring to bear
other forms of compulsion to conform. Indeed, Rabbi Gutterman's
invocation and benediction, with
their reference to God, do not directly or indirectly compel nonadherents to change their beliefs, but
merely respect the religious heritage of the community. [Emphasis
added].
In the Lee case is the full potential for
the end of Atheism and the recognition
of Christianity as the civic religion of the
United States.

So help me God
This brings full circle the question of
why the Founding Fathers built into the
First Amendment to the Constitution
the single most important part of the Bill
of Rights, the mechanics for separation
of state and church. If civic religion
American

Atheist

identialcampaign of 1988,every
should be promoted, if relimember of the United States
gion is good for mankind, why
Congress is required to recite
bother to separate it from
the pledge every morning when
government? Why not satuCongress opens - in addition
rate government with relito the daily opening prayer.
gion? And, indeed, this is what
American Atheists has from
has been going on in.the Unitits inception battered at these
ed States since the beginning
symbolic references, and it is
of this century. Clauses against
just at those points that governAtheists' holding either elected
ment has held fast, be it at city,
or appointed offices in state
county, state, or federal level.
government were easily put
Now, of course, the issue is
into the constitutions of seven
joined, and the Justice Deof the United States. The
Pledge of Allegiance to the
partment of the United States
in the Lee case is asking the
flag was polluted with the
Supreme Court to recognize
phrase "under God" to make
it read, "one nation, under President Johnson delivers his 1965 State of the Union message the civic religion of JudeoGod, indivisible."The national in the House of Representatives under the wall carving that Christianity.
motto has been changed from insults the nation.
E pluribus unum to "In God We Trust," First Amendment to the Constitution of Atheists, beware
For we are back again to: why was
and all currency and coins sport the the United States. The same stated conmotto "In God We Trust."
stitutional restrictions were declared to state/church separation built into the
Every civil servant in government,
be unconstitutional in Mississippi, North Constitution of the United States if
every person in the armed forces of the Carolina, and Tennessee, all in cases religion is a "good" for all people? Renation, is required to enter into his du- filed by American Atheists. But, alas, ligion, then, should be part and parcel of
ties with an oath to uphold and defend the victories were brought to naught in the government. The First Amendment
the Constitution "So help me God." The usage. The state of Texas still continues
need not ever have been written. The
same religious oath is required of jurors, to print and distribute its constitution
answer which has come to be hackneyed
witnesses in courtrooms, even to attain without notation that the requirement
is "so that one denomination does not
the lowly office of notary public, and of "a belief in a Supreme Being" for come to dominate; that no national reattorney applicants must accede to it for those who aspire to public office or trust ligion is proclaimed." What really hapadmission to practice in the court sys- has been eliminated. The attorney gen- pened is that the people in positions of
tern. All persons requesting citizenship eral is so recalcitrant that not even a power in that era found religion to be an
advantageous way to control the commust ask for the help of god; until re- footnote gives the information.
cently applicants for passports had to
mon people. As always, probably being
privately Atheistic, they were publicly
do the same. Oh, there have been legal The aftermath
cases which have permitted an escape
This brings up another aspect of the supportive of the religion of the day, and
from the god oath - one was handed judicial system. Supreme Court cases now two hundred years after the ratifidown from the Supreme Court, Torcaso are often ignored for years. Bible reading cation of the First Amendment we are
v. Watkins, and one from the Fifth U.S. and prayer recitation continued for at fullyconfronted with the implanting of a
Circuit Court of Appeals, O'Hair v. least two decades in various parts of the civic religion.
Hill.29 The former held that a notary nation after the Murray v. Curlett deciAnd after the new Dark Ages have
need not take such an oath; the latter sion. A 100 percent compliance still has come and are almost gone, two hundred
years from now, more Atheists hoping
not been attained now almost three
held that the Texas state constitutional
provision of the requirement of a "belief decades later. Children are stillrequired, to be free from religion will find that in
in a Supreme Being" to attain public by state law, to recite the Pledge of Alle- our time the leaders of the day, the peooffice was unconstitutional vis-a-vis the giance to the flag every morning as ple in positions of power in 1991, were
also privately Atheistic, but publicly reschool starts, despite the 1943Supreme
Court restrictions against the exercise ligious and that civic religion was estabin West Virginia v. Barnette. Since Bush lished to stay.
29Q'Hair v. Hill, 675 E2d 680, 5th Cir. (1982)
Atheists, beware. ~
en banco
made an issue of the pledge in his presAustin, Texas

Vol. 33, No.3

Page 17

Ask A.A.

The churches and tax

A real estate economics instructor in
California told his class that churches
pay taxes on everything they own except
for the actual church and the land it
occupies.
Are the churches in our country tax
exempt on all their real property holdings or only on the religious establishment itself? It was mentioned at an
American Atheist convention that if the
churches paid their fair share of tax, our
taxes would go down about 20 percent.
The general public should be made
aware.
Can you shed any light on this subject
and publish it in the American Atheist
journal?
Bette Paris-Mohr
California

In "Letters to the Editor," readers give

their opinions, ideas, and information.
But in "Ask A.A.," American Atheists
answers questions regarding its
policies, positions, and customs, as
weDas queries of factual and historical
situations. Please address your
questions to "Ask A.A.," P. O. Box
140195, Austin, TX 78714-0195.

Page 18

First - when members tell us that

"The general public should be made
aware" of any situation, this is much
easier said than done. The churches
and religious institutions are monetarily,
politically, and numerically powerful.
Only once in recent history has any
media even attempted to disclose anything about religious ownership of land.
When Madalyn O'Hair filed a suit in
Baltimore, Maryland, attempting to
have church land and business incomes
taxed (Murray v. Goldstein, 1963), a
number of newspapers (that's all, no
magazines, no journals, no radio, and
no television) attempted to find out just
how much property was owned. The
newspapers inPittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
did a very good job; but elsewhere the
"disclosures" were halfhearted and presented in insipid reporting.
The argument concerned with real
estate owned by the churches has been
going on for a little over two hundred
years. And the California "real estate
economics instructor" was 100 percent
wrong in his statement, as applied to
any state.
First - however - it is that the
church itself is tax exempt that is the
Vol. 33, No.3

unconstitutional element. That is where

the voodoo practices are. The position
of American Atheists is that if real estate is taxed at all, then it should all be
taxed - that is, the tax should run with
the land regardless of its use. There
should not be exemptions from that tax
because the use of the land is religious.
Supporting this is the famous "Establishment Clause" of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United
States: "Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion ... " which would give a church or
religious institution an advantage over
any other taxpayer or citizen.
Some studies have been done on
church wealth, but since the gathering
of information is such an enormous
task only the federal government has
either the money, the outreach facilities, or the staff to undertake such an
effort.
However, to give you an idea, Ulysses
S. Grant, president of the United States,
published an estimate of land held by
churches on December 7, 1875, in addressing the U.S. Congress. The last figure he had which he could report was
$83 million. The next figure given was
by James F. Morton, Jr., in his "Exempting the Churches," published by
the Truth Seeker Company in 1916. He
estimated churches owned $165 million
in real estate. The U.S. Census Bureau
then reported that in 1870 the property
owned was $354,483,587. Figures were
not available for 1880, but Morton estimated the 1890figures as $679,694,439.
The U.S. Census Bureau in its Special
Reports, Religious Bodies began to report each year as below so that the following creeping figures are available:
1850
$ 83,000,000
1860
.. .. .. .. .. 165,000,000
1870 .. .. .. .. .. . .. 354,483,587
1880
.
1890 .. .. . .. .. .. .. 679,694,439
1906
1,257,575,867
1916
1,676,600,580
1926
3,839,500,610
American Atheist

Morton was particularly interested in

New York, and he issued the following
figures for that state alone:
1890
1906
1936

$140,123,008
255,166,284
564,078,000

The Bureau of Census broke down

its figures according to denominations
as follows:
1906
Roman Catholics .. $292,638,502
Protestants.......
935,942,578
All others. . . . . . . . . 28,994,502
1916
Roman Catholics .. $374,206,895
Methodist Episcopal 214,102,014
Episcopal.........
154,990,150
Presbyterian......
150,239,123
Baptists
94,644,133
1926
Roman Catholics .. $837,271,053
Methodist Episcopal 406,165,659
Presbyterian......
338,152,743
Episcopal.........
314,596,738
When the Bureau of Census was precluded, at the insistence of the churches
and religious institutions, from taking
any more statistics, several estimates
were made by independent organizations. Robert J. Regan of United Press
International made an estimate of $100
billion, in August 1967, based on information gathered by the Wall Street
Journal. The Columbia Broadcasting
System (CBS) broadcast a report over
its network on June 18,1968, estimating
$80 billion worth of property owned by
churches and religious institutions.
Martin A. Larson, in an independent
study, Church Wealth and Business
Income, published by a vanity press,
Philosophical Library, New York, in
1965 estimated $79.5 billion. Not being
modest, American Atheists is happy to
report that it was the original Murray
case (above) which brought church
ownership to media attention.
So that a comparison can be made,
Austin, Texas

the report of total assets of cash, real

estate, and inventories of the five largest
corporations in the United States was,
in 1965:
(billions)

Standard Oil of New Jersey

........................
$12.0
General Motors..........
10.8
Ford Motor Co.
5.9
United States Steel
5.1
Socony Mobil Oil
4.7
$38.5
Please note how this compares to the
real estate holdings only of the churches.
The figure is 61.5percent of the church's
realty.
The distribution of this religious real
estate holding was, in 1965, approximately as follows:
(billions)

Roman Catholic
$44.5
Protestant. . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 28.0
Jewish..................
7.0
$79.5
Of course, this all pales with the situation as it is today, when Texas Business magazine reported in 1987 that
real estate holdings of the churches and
religious institutions in Texas alone
equaled $80 billion.
The various state constitutions differ
greatly as to how the churches should
be treated. For example, in respect to
churches and religious institutions,
some states exempt them from taxation
(Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Caliiornia, Colorado, Delaware, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana - you get the idea);
some permit exemption from taxation;
some empower the state legislature to
exempt them from taxation; some
require the state legislature to exempt
them from taxation; some authorize the
state legislature to exempt them from
taxation.
In addition, what is exempt? Sometimes it is property (Arizona, Florida,
Illinois, etc.); all property (Georgia,
Vol. 33, No.3

NEARf~ MY LORD
Th WEt ...
Kansas, South Dakota, etc.); all, or any
portion of, property (Alaska); real and
personal property (New Jersey); all
church property (New Mexico); all
churches, church property, and houses
of worship (Minnesota) - again, you
get the idea.
Under what conditions is the property exempt? If used for (Delaware,
Tennessee, Indiana, etc.); used only for
Page 19

Soon the parking lots were exempt,

(Georgia); used exclusively for (Ala- Every state has different specifications.
But more important, forty-nine of our then the schools. Then administration
bama, New York, Nebraska, etc.);
used solely for (South Dakota); used states make a respectful reference to buildings. Then church-related social
agencies holdings.
god although the federal Constitution
solely and exclusively for (Colorado) The situation is, also, that this changes
does not. Forty-nine see dependence
again you get the idea.
But what is that use as indicated in upon Almighty God, the Creator, God, with time. For example, when American
Atheists first sought to find out how
the state constitutions? Public worship the Supreme Ruler of the Universe,
Supreme Being, Great Creator and much land was tax exempt in Austin,
(Ohio); religious worship (Alabama,
Texas, for religious purposes, we found
Colorado, Kentucky, Missouri, etc.); Preserver of the Universe, the Supreme
actual religious worship (Montana); re- Being, the Great Legislator of the Uni- that the city simply had three-by-fiveverse, the Deity. One state, West Vir- inch cards, with inadequate descripligious purposes (California, Nebraska,
Oklahoma, Tennessee, West Virginia, ginia, has no such reference at all - in tions of the properties on the cards. No
etc.); churches used as such (Arkan- any terms. Two states specifically state one had ever checked if a church was
that religion is essential to good govern- really on the property or not. Somesas).
And what entities may own or use ment (Arkansas, Nebraska); four claim times the card only had a name on it,
sometimes only a property description,
that it is a duty to worship (Connecticut,
such real estate? A church (Texas);
sometimes only an address. Often the
churches (Virginia); religious denomi- Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts);
nations (Louisiana); religious groups one state notes that citizens ought to cards had been on file for scores of
(Arizona, California, Georgia). And in worship god (Vermont); and so it goes. years. That has changed. Currently,
Currently thirty-three states have everything is on computer and the readeach case the property exempted can
only be exempted if used by (Connect- constitutional provisions which give outs are available for stiff fees. Still,
icut, Iowa, Maine); actually used by . twenty-two types of exemptions, and sometimes there is an appraised value .
(Connecticut); used solely by (Wiscon- eleven empower legislatures to give ex- Sometimes there is not. If the churches
emptions to churches and religious in- want land and improvements undersin); occupied by (New Hampshire);
valued on that land, incorrect figures
stitutions. In addition, forty-nine states'
belonging to (Idaho, North Dakota)
statutes, codes, general laws, or tax are given. Since the land is not going to
that entity.
be taxed in any event, it doesn't matter
The definitions go on and on, and laws (rather than their constitutions)
what the appraised value is. Actual
each one must be interpreted - usual- exempt from taxation (Arizona, Arkanvalues are most often unrealistic or
ly in court cases as challenges are sas, California, eic.); others exempt
from assessment (Maryland), from ad have not been revised for a century.
brought.
There is always the possibility that
When members, or readers, write valorem tax (Alabama), from real propand say, "What is the situation regard- erty tax (Hawaii, North Carolina), from American Atheists can really challenge
ing taxation?" the only answer that may state, county, and city taxation (Mary- the situation. However, the probability
be given is "How powerful is the church land), from all county and other local is that Atheists will not financially support such a court challenge. This is a
involved?" In the instance described in taxes (Pennsylvania).
If all that were not enough, there are situation which completely baffles the
this letter - what is tax exempt may be
a lot (New Jersey); lots (Utah, Wyo- four basic categories under which orga- executive staff at the American Atheist
ming); and lots on which they (diverse nizations can be made tax exempt, or GHQ. For homeowners - ifad valorem
religious institutions, as above) are sit- given tax exemptions by political divi- (real estate) taxes on your land are
uated (Florida, Oregon, South Caro- sions or subdivisions. These are health, double what they should be because of
lina); the lots or ground on which they education, welfare, and religion. A reli- the tax exemptions given to churches
and religious institutions; for renters gious organization seeks, and most
stand used therewith and necessary
thereunto (Nevada); any church grounds often obtains, exemptions under the if your rent is double what it should be
(Hawaii); with the grounds thereto an- first three categories as well as the last. for the same reason (your landlord has
There are literally hundreds of legal to pay property tax and that is included
nexed necessary for the use and enjoyment of the same (Pennsylvania); and cases wherein states, counties, or cities in your rent), why, oh why, oh why
won't you help American Atheists to
the grounds attached to such buildings tried to tax land owned by the churches
and religious organizations. At first only challenge the situation? We are willing
necessary for the proper occupancy
(Ohio); and the lands thereto apper- the church was exempt. Then the land to fight for more money in your pockets
taining (New Hampshire); with land on adjoining it, as that was first used for a for years to come if you will financially
which they stand (Connecticut, Michi- cemetery. Then more land where the support a short-term lawsuit (three to
five years) to make it so. ~
gan); and their land (North Carolina). congregation gathered sometimes.
Page 20

Vol. 33, No.3

American Atheist

Director's Briefcase

Tradition versus separation:

the Weisman case
s has been previously reported in
this journal, during the administration of President Reagan (1981
to 1989),the offices of both the attorney
general and the solicitor general of the
United States were utilized to interject
into civil federal litigation the opinion of
the president on a variety of state/
church separation issues. This was principally done on the Supreme Court level
through amicus curine! briefs. This
practice was rare at best in prior presidential administrations- and was both
initiated and amplified by this very religiously opinionated occupant of the
White House. President, Reagan had a
well-documented "social agenda" which
he pushed throughout his incumbency.
His devotion to the return of "prayer" to
public schools and the overthrow of the
Roe v. Wade3 decision of the Supreme
Court on abortion rights are legendary.
President Bush, with eight years of tutelage under Reagan, is continuing the use
of the attorney and solicitor generals'
offices to push a proreligion line with the
federal courts. This bodes ill,as Reagan
had already placed his neoconservative
stamp on the federal judiciary through
the appointment process.
In February of this year the current
solicitor general filed an amicus curiae
brief in the case of Lee v. Weisman, 4
asking for a grant of certiorari by the
Supreme Court from the First Circuit. 5
I willdiscuss the solicitor general's brief

In 1971 the Warren

Court decided two
religious cases, one
thwarting the Roman
Catholic church's
desire to outlaw
abortion and the other
setting standards to
safeguard the
separation of state and
church. Both decisions
are now under attack
by the government.

A graduate of the University of Texas

at Austin and a second-generation
Atheist, Mr. Murray is a proponent of
"aggressive Atheism." He is an
anchorman on the" American Atheist
Forum" and the president of American
Atheists.
.

Jon G. Murray
Austin, Texas

l"[L(atin}: a friend of the court] a person not

a party to the litigation who volunteers or is
invited by the court to give advice to the
court upon some matter pending before it"
(The American College Dictionary, [Harper:
1950]).
2The Carter, Ford, and Nixon administrations did not engage in this practice through
the offices of the Justice Department.
3Roe v. Wade, 410U.S. 113;93 S.Ct. 705; 35
L.Ed. 2d 7 (1971).
4Robert E. Lee, Individually and as Principal
of Nathan Bishop Middle School, Et AI.,
Petitioners v. Daniel Weisman, Etc., case
No. 90-1014.
Vol. 33, No.3

and importance of the issues raised

thereon later, but for now it suffices to
point out that its mere filing is a continuation of a pattern established during
the Reagan years.

Waiting for a chance to strike

The Supreme Court justices have
harbored underlying opinions, eddies in
their thought currents, on various issues, awaiting only the proper fact situation to come before them to permit
judgments to be made. A basic legal
principle dictates that the Supreme
Court may only review, and in a narrow
sense, the question of law at issue in any
particular case. The Court may not
"wander" far afield from that issue on
appeal. 6 Despite this internal rule of the

SThe Supreme Court granted certiorari to

Weisman v. Lee from the First Circuit on
March 18, 1991.
6"And Mr. Chief Justice Marshall said, 'It is
a maxim not to be disregarded that general
expressions in every opinion are to be taken
in connection with the case in which those
expressions are used. If they go beyond the
case they may be respected, but ought not
to control the judgment in a subsequent suit,
when the very point is presented. The reason of this maxim is obvious. The question
actually before the court is investigated with
care, and considered in its full extent; other
principles which may serve to illustrate it are
considered in their relation to the case decided, but their possible bearing on all other
cases is seldom completely investigated.'
The cases of Ex parte Christy, 3 How. 292,
and Jenness et al. v. Peck, 7 How. 6l2, are an
illustration of the rule that any opinion given
here or elsewhere cannot be relied on as a
binding authority, unless the case called for
its expression. Its weight of reason must
depend on what it contains" (Carroll v.
Lessee of Carroll et al., 53 How. 275 [1853],
at 287, often obiter dictum).
"Statements and comments in an opinion
concerning some rule of law or legal proposition not necessarily involved nor essential
to determination of the case in hand are
obiter dicta, and lack the force of an adjudication" (Black's Law Dictionary, [St. Paul,
MN: West Publishing Co., 1979.]
Page 21

How to teU one clause

from another
In Legal discussions of state/church
separation, two phrases are constantly
tted about: the "Establishment Clause"
the "F
~ercise Clause." Both
are d
.omthe
ifution of
nited
. The First
endment
to that document reads in whole:
Court, it is ofttimes evident in reading
opinions what the justices desire to and
would rule ifpermitted to go beyond the
narrow review expected on a particular
case. Usually these are single-sentence
indicators, but they can be found in
either the text or the footnotes of the decisions. Linked reinforcements in subtle
or obscure remarks from concurring or
dissenting justices add to the intrigue of
interpretation. That is, an astute analyst
can divine from a reading of related
cases that a certain justice or group of
justices are harboring an opinion as to a
particular issue and are just waiting for
a fact situation to come their way
through which they can express themselves on that issue. This has been evident in civilrights cases, abortion cases,
and capital punishment cases in particular, but most especially in state/church
cases. Supreme Court case law is replete with hypothetical remarks and
oblique references, especially in footnotes, which indicate the desire of this
or that justice to voice an opinion in a

particular area, and he only need

wait for the proper fact situation to
come along.

The development of
the Marsh test

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,

or prohibiting the free exercise
thereof; or abridging the freedom of
speech, or of the press, or the right
of the peopiepeaceably to assemble,
and to petif
the Government for a
edresso.
nces'?'

One important example of this

is how Chief Justice Rehnquist
evidenced his unwillingness to
support the application of the
...What is cofufuonly refen~d to as the
famous "Lemon test" to every
"Establishment Clause" is in italics above,
analysis of potential Establishand what is referred to as the "Free Exerment Clause violations in his opincise Clause" is in bold. The passage, which
ions. In Marsh v. Chambers,' he
begins the Bill of Rights, was ratified Dejoined with then Chief Justice Burcember 15, 1791.
ger to set the precedent of a major
deviation from that Lemon test. In '-......J
Marsh, which was a challenge to the based primarily on looking to the intent
opening of state legislative sessions in of the framers of the Constitution and
Nebraska with prayer by a state-paid historical practices since 1789 rather
chaplain, Chief Justice Rehnquist and than the three prongs of the Lemon test.
colleagues outlined a historical analysis This new and singular analysis was
based on the unique and specific historical argument that the framers did not
7Marsh u, Chambers, 463 U.S. 783; 103 find legislative prayers offensive to the
S.Ct. 3330; 77 L.Ed.2d 1019(1983).
Constitution. The evidence offered was
that the first Congress approved of such
prayers.
The "Lemon test":
Although (then) Chief Justice Burger
delivered the opinion of the court in
i
which Rehnquist agreed, it is now RehnQuist who leads the way in promoting
Elmantesta
phrase
tossed a06ut in discus ris~f Fi
such a historical analysis for all estabAmendment issues.wet very rarely spelled out. Developed by the Supreme
lishment cases. As long as the substance
Court In a 1971 case involving government subsidies to religious schools, the
of the principle of equal liberty of con"Lemon test" is meant to help courts evaluate when government policies are
science is preserved (free exercise of rein violation of the First Amendment. The exact words of the Supreme Court
ligion), he baldly asserts the rights of a
were:
"civil religion."

e it

e..prd~re ';lis

The departure from the Lemon test,

which the majority of the Court had
used since 1971, in this single case was
of profound historical significance. Federal district and circuit court judges began to apply the historical analysis of
Marsh to a variety of state/church issues, even dubbing it the "Marsh test."

The complete legal citation for this passage is Lemon v. Kurtzman, 403 U.S.
602,612-13, 91 S. Ct. 2105, 2111, 29 L.Ed. 2d 745 (1971).

Page 22

Vol. 33, No.3

Differing decisions,
differing logic
Now comes Weisman v. Lee up on
appeal from Rhode Island on the issue of
whether benedictions or invocations deAmerican Atheist

Should the Supreme Court ratify the application of the Marsh test to a
broader range of cases,
and in particular those involving the public schools,
the Lemon test would be neutralized.

livered by clergy at an annual public

school graduation ceremony violate the
Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. Weisman v. Lee is a United States
Court of Appeals, First Circuit, case in
which it was decided on the basis of the
Lemon test that the benedictions and invocations did violate the Establishment
Clause. In 1987,however, in the case of
Stein v. Plainwell Community Schools,8
the United States Court of Appeals for
the Sixth Circuit concluded that the
First Amendment did not preclude use
of ceremonial invocations and benedictions at public high school commencement ceremonies. That court had used
the "Marsh test." Here we have two federal circuits rendering opposite decisions based on similar fact situations,
three years apart, but utilizing very different criteria. This now places the issue
squarely in front of the Supreme Court
as to whether the Lemon test or the
Marsh test is the one which should
properly be applied to the issue of religious ceremonies at public school commencement exercises.

The motivation
of Bush administration
The Bush administration wishes to
become involved in Weisman v. Lee because its review by the Supreme Court
willdecide the scope of both the Marsh
and the Lemon analyses of "establishment of religion" lawsuits. Should the
Supreme Court ratify the application of
the Marsh test to a broader range of
cases, and in particular those involving
the public schools, the Lemon test
would be neutralized. This is exactly
what the Bush administration has in
mind, taking into account its inherited

8Bruce Stein and Martha Dahlinger u. Plainwell Community sChooifils,Dauid L. Jones,

Superintendent,
Plain
11 Community
Schools, Portage Public cools, and George
L. Conri, Superintendent, Portage Public
Schools, 822 E2d 1406 (6th Cir. 1987), argued
February

17, 1987, decided July 6, 1987.

Austin, Texas

zeal for formal presence of religious ceremonies in public schools, since it has
been the Lemon test which has been
applied by both the Supreme Court and
all of the lower courts in their decisions
having to do with the public schools
since 1971.

The Michigan precedent

We need now to take a look at these
two cases more closely, beginning with
the earlier one. In Stein v. Plainwell
Community Schools, the case involved
the Plainwell Community Schools and
the Portage Public Schools, both being
public school districts in western Michigan, near Kalamazoo. Invocations and
benedictions are regularly included at
their annual commencements. The ceremonies are held off campus at outdoor
athletic facilities. In Plainwell, the invocation and benediction are delivered by
two student volunteers chosen from a
group of honor students. The content of
those remarks is up to the students. In
Portage, the commencement ceremony
is organized by graduating seniors.
They have for some fifteen years elected
to include an invocation and benediction in the ceremony. These are given by
local ministers and clergy, selected by
senior class representatives, of various
Christian denominations.
A digression is required here to clarify what the difference is between an invocation and a benediction. A complete
explanation in given in the accompanying sidebar "Invocations and Benedictions: There Is a Difference." In layman's terms, the difference boils down
that, on one hand, an "invocation" is the
act of requesting your god (he, she, it, or
them) to pay attention to some particular goings-on. A "benediction," on the
other hand, is a blessing - naturally
also in the name of a god - which is asking said god (he, she, it, or them) to
"bless" someone or something. The important point here is that neither activity can be said, by any rational interpretation, to be in any wise "secular" or
without reference to religion.
Vol. 33, No.3

Prayer only "partly religious"

The district, or lower, court in May of
1985applied the Lemon test to the religious ceremonies at issue in these two
schools. That court
concluded that the inclusion of an
invocation and benediction in a
high school ceremony advanced a
secular purpose, did not have the
primary effect of advancing religion, and did not foster excessive
governmental entanglement with
religion."

The district court also found that inclusion of prayer in the commencement
had a purpose which was "partly religious and partly ceremonial."lO
On appeal to the Sixth Circuit, the
school boards argued principally that
the entire line of Supreme Court decisions on "school prayer" (begun by
Engel v. Vitalell in 1962)did not apply to
graduation exercises because they were
held but once a year, are festive and
celebratory in nature, are held in an
auditorium or sports complex with parents and friends in attendance and not
in a traditional classroom setting, and
that attendance and participation by
students is voluntary. On the basis of
the same line of "school prayer" cases,
the plaintiffs argued that all religious
ceremonies in the school context which
invoke "God" or the image of a "Supreme Being" violate the First Amendment. They also pointed out that graduation ceremonies are "exercises," as
are school classes, and are directed at
public school children.
The court of appeals made two holdings. First, ceremonial invocations and
benedictions could be delivered at high
school commencement
ceremonies

9Stein u. Plainwell Community Schools, 610

ESupp. 43 (WD. Mich. 1985), at 50.
lOId.at 47.
llEngel u. Vitale, 370 U.S. 421; 82 S.Ct. 1261;
8 L.Ed.2d 601 (1962).
Page 23

without violating the First Amendment,

provided they preserved the substance
of the principle of equal liberty and conscience. Second, the particular invocations and benedictions in question violated the First Amendment in that they
symbolically placed the government's
seal of approval on the Christian view of
religion.
Prayers without peer pressure

The Sixth Circuit based its holdings

on application of Marsh v. Chambers to
the facts of the Plainwell and Portage
schools' commencement ceremonies.
The court said that the exercises at
those two schools were
analogous to the legislative and
judicial sessions referred to in
Marsh and should be governed by
the same principles. The invocaPage 24

tion and benediction at a graduation ceremony serves the 'solemnizing' function described by Justice O'Connor in her concurrence
in Lynch v. Donneliv.

ular purpose of solemnizing public

occasions, expressing confidence
in the future, and encouraging the
recognition of what is worthy of
appreciation in society."

The O'Connor concurrence to which

the Sixth Circuit referred states:

The Sixth Circuit went on make a

second point, that

[S]uch governmental "acknowledgments" of religion as legislative

prayers of the type approved in
Marsh v. Chambers, government
declaration of Thanksgiving as a
public holiday, printing of "In God
We Trust" on coins, and opening
court sessions with "God save the
United States and this honorable
court" ... serve the legitimate see-

unlike classroom prayer, ceremonial invocations and benedictions

present less opportunity for religious indoctrination or peer pressure."

12Stein, 822 E2d at 1409.

Vol. 33, No.3

The court based this conclusion on the

supposition that because the gradua-

13Lynch v. Donnelly, 46S U.S. 668 at 692-93;

104 S.Ct. 1355 at 1369; 79 L.Ed.2d 604 (1984).
14Stein, 822 E2d at 1409.
American Atheist

Finally the Sixth Circuit opinion stated that while religious ceremonies
could pass constitutional muster under essentially a reworking of the old
"child benefit" theory, those invocations or benedictions might still be
violative of the First Amendment on the basis of their content.

tion ceremonies are held in a public

place and the children are accompanied
by their parents, those factors act as a
"buffer" between the child and any possible indoctrination. The court also
added that in the context of a public
graduation ceremony the special relationship that normally may exist between
teacher and student, a relationship of
transmission of information to the child
by an authority figure, is not present and
therefore the potential for indoctrination is mitigated. This latter justification
for allowing religious ceremonies at a
public school graduation is an important
one because it was used for the first
time, by an appellant court, in this case.
It has been subsequently seized upon by
the Justice Department in its intervention into the Weisman v. Lee appeal to
the Supreme Court.

Prayer as a benefit for children

Finally the Sixth Circuit opinion
stated that while religious ceremonies
could pass constitutional muster under
essentially a reworking of the old "child
benefit"lS theory, those invocations or
benedictions might still be violative of
lSEverson v. Board of Education of Ewing
ti; 330 U.S. 1; 67 S.Ct. 504; 91 L.Ed. 771
(1947),at 13 and 14.
This was a New Jersey case involving the
use of state provided school buses to transport children to both public and parochial
schools. The Supreme Court upheld the use
of that taxpayer-supported transportation
on the theory that it benefited the children
and their parents in a "neutral" way regardless of their faith (or lack thereof) and the
theological content (ifany) of the curriculum
taught at the institutions to which some of
the children were being transported by the
state provided school bus system. That is,
the majority of the Court concurred that the
benefit of the state provided bus ride accrued to the children (and/or their parents)
and not to the religious institutions which
governed the parochial schools. Hence the
subsequent referential usage of the term
"child benefit" as a common denotation of
such a logical construct.
Austin, Texas

the First Amendment on the basis of

their content. The court said:
At the same time, the invocations and benedictions delivered
at these occasions should not be
framed in language that is unacceptable under Marsh, language
that says to some parents and students: we do not recognize your
religious beliefs, our beliefs are
superior to vours.>

In the fact situation peculiar to the

Plainwell Community and Portage Public schools, the court pointed out that
the invocations and benedictions were
framed and phrased so that they
"symbolically place the government's seal of approval on one religious view" - the Christian
view,"
The phrasing of the invocations and
benedictions established that "[t ]hey
are not the 'civil' invocations or benedictions used in public legislative and judicial sessions as described in Marsh. ''18
On the basis of the two sets of conclusions rendered above, the Sixth Circuit reversed the judgment of the district court, dismissing the action of the
plaintiffs on merits, and remanded the
case to that court for further proceedings under the Marsh test rather than
the Lemon test.

The effect of Stein

Stein v. Plainwell Community Schools
was then an important case. It said, in
summary, that religious ceremonies at
public school graduations should be reviewed by the courts along the lines laid
out by the Supreme Court in Marsh,
according to which those ceremonies
could justifiably be compared to open-

16Stein,822 E2d at 1410.

17Ibid.
18Ibid.
Vol. 33, No.3

ing prayers at legislative bodies passing

muster under the First Amendment as
ceremonial, historical, and "solemnizing" practices. On the other hand,
added the Sixth Circuit, the content of
those public school graduation religious
ceremonies should be judicially monitored to insure that they "preserved
[the] substance of principle of equal liberty of conscience."19 In layman's language, the content of the ceremonies
was neutral or, perhaps more correctly,
"nondenominational."

What happened in Rhode Island

Then in 1989 came the case of Daniel
Weisman v. Robert E. Lee20 in Rhode
Island, which culminated in an entirely
different judicial determination.
We should begin with a look at the
facts. In Providence, Rhode Island, the
school committee and superintendent
of schools for the city have sponsored
graduation and promotion ceremonies
in the city's public middle and high
schools for some 160 years (1829 to
1989). The high school graduations are
usually held off school grounds, while
the middle school promotions are usually held on school property. The principals of each school, on both levels, are
allowed by the committee and superintendent to include invocations and
benedictions, delivered by clergy, at
these ceremonies. The principals used a
pamphlet entitled "Guidelines for Civic
Occasions," published by the National
Conference of Christians and Jews, as
a guideline for the permissible content
of the performances rendered by the
clergy.21
Daniel Weisman's daughter Deborah
was eligible for graduation from Nathan

19Id.,at 1409.
20728ESupp. 68 (D.R.I. 1990).
21This author has obtained a copy of that
pamphlet from the conference. It consists of
one letter-size (eight and one-half by eleveninch) sheet trifolded. The exact contents are
given in a sidebar to this article.
Page 25

n
. se
'Rfl

Bishop Middle School in Providence in 'Iy

June of 1989. The graduation program II
included an invocation and benediction
by a rabbi from a Providence temple.
Days before the ceremony was to take
place, Weisman filed for a temporary restraining order with the. district court
"seeking to prevent the inclusion of
prayer to a deity in the form of an invocation and benediction in the Providence public schools' graduation ceremonies."22 That motion was denied.
On June 20,1989, Deborah Weisman
and her family attended the graduation.
The rabbi's presentations appealed to a
deity. But under advice from school
principal Robert E. Lee, he had endeavored to make the prayers nonsectarian.
Deborah Weisman, who now attends
Classical High School in Providence,
and her father sought a permanent injunction from the district court against
invocations and benedictions.

PUBLIC PRAYER IN A
PLURALISTIC SOCIEn'

Guidelines
for
Civic Occasions

"God has been ruled out"

The district court in Providence
granted that injunction for the Weismans under the Establishment Clause
employing the rationale of the Lemon
test. 23 The district court pointed out
that:
God has been ruled out of public education as an instrument of
inspiration and consolation. This
vigilance is based upon the perceived sensitive nature of the
school environment and the apprehended effect of state-led religious
activity on young, impressionable
minds.P

22Weisman, 728 ESupp. at 69.

23"Anevaluation of the authorized practice
of the Providence School Committee under
the Lemon test is necessary, 'mindful of the
particular concerns that arise in the context
of public elementary and secondary schools'
Edwards, 482 U.S. at 585; 107 S.Ct. at 2578"
(Weisman, 728 ESupp. at 71).
24Weisman, 728 ESupp. at 70.
Page 26

Vol. 33, No.3

American Atheist

"What must follow is gradual judicial development of what is acceptable

public prayer. This result is as contrary to the requirements of the Establishment Clause as is legislative composition of an official state prayer."
- Rhode Island District Court

In its evaluation, the district court

zeroed in on the second prong25 of the
Lemon test. It set out to determine
whether the action in question, the
benediction and invocation, created an
"identification of the state with a religion, or with religion in general."26To do
so the court said that it was necessary
to examine the circumstances particular to the Providence schools. Upon undertaking that examination, the court
found that:
... the benediction and invocation advance religion by creating
an identification of school with a
deity, and therefore religion. The
invocation and benediction present a "symbolic union" of the
state and schools with religion and
religious practices. While the fact
that graduation is a special occasion distinguishes this school day
from all others, the uniqueness of
the day could highlight the particular effect that the benediction
and invocation may have on the
students. The presence of clerics
is not by itself determinative. It is
the union of prayer, school, and
important occasion that creates
an identification of religion with
the school function. The special
nature of the graduation ceremonies underscores the identification that Providence public school
students can rnake.s?
The district court went on to make a
series of other important points about
the religious ceremonies incident to the

25"[S]econd, its [the statute's] principal or

primary effect must be one that neither
advances nor inhibits religion," Board of
Education u. Allen, 392 U.S. 236 at 243, 88
S.Ct. 1923at 1926,20 L.Ed.2d 1060 (1968)in
Lemon u. Kurtzman, 403 U.S. 602, 91 S.Ct.
2105 at 2111,29 L.Ed.2d 745 (1971).
26Weisman, 728 F.Supp. at 7l.
27Id.at 72.
Austin, Texas

graduation exercises in the Providence

schools:
1. "In this case, the Providence
School Committee has in effect
endorsed religion in general by
authorizing an appeal to a deity
in public school graduation ceremonies."28
2. "It is of no significance that the
invocation and benediction are
supposed to be nondenominational, or that participation or
even recognition of the prayers
is voluntary."29
3. "[T]he practice of including
prayer may have the effect of
either endorsing one religion
over others, or of endorsing religion in general. "30

Legislative prayer not the same

as school prayer
The defendants in this case, according to the district court, had relied on
Marsh v. Chambers and its application
to public school graduations through
Stein v. Plainwell Community Schools.
The district court reacted to that reliance thusly:
Stein's extension of the Marsh
rationale is not persuasive. The
Marsh holding was narrowly limited to the unique situation of legislative prayer. The clearest indication of this fact is that the Marsh
decision did not use the Lemon
test in its review of legislative
benedictions. Since the Lemon
test was first developed in 1971,
every case involving the issue of
prayer in school has used its analysis. Marsh's unique exception to
the Lemon test would most likely
.not be applied to school prayer
cases, which on the basis of exist-

28Ibid.
29Id.at 73.
30Ibid.

ing precedent requires use of the

Lemon analysis."

Keeping prayer "kosher"

The court also made an extremely
cogent point about the Marsh analysis
with regard to the fact situation in the
Providence schools.
Extending the Marsh analysis
to school benedictions is arguably
unworkable because it results in
courts reviewing the content of
prayers to judicially approve what
are acceptable invocations to a
deity. What must follow is gradual
judicial development of what is
acceptable public prayer. This result is as contrary to the requirements of the Establishment Clause
as is legislative composition of an
official state prayer.32
Think about that for a moment. In
Stein, as I have pointed out earlier,
Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
determined that school benedictions
and invocations were equivalent to
those before legislatures as in Marsh
and therefore constitutional, except if
their content revealed them to be "nondenominational."
According to the
Sixth Circuit's application of the Marsh
departure from Lemon to public schools,
federal courts throughout the land
would need to examine the content of
invocations and benedictions, wherever
held, to determine if they advanced the
dictates of a particular denomination or
otherwise preserved the so-called liberty of conscience. Such an examination
of public prayer would sooner or later
require a kind of "prayer test," perhaps
not unlike the Lemon test, to determine
if a particular attempt to communicate
with a deity was "kosher" under the
Constitution. It is not the province of the
federal court system to determine what

31Id.at 74.
32Ibid.
Vol. 33, No.3

Page 27

"Here, it is not the particular nature or wording of the prayers

which implicates the first amendment - it is prayer at the ceremony
which transgresses the Establishment Clause."
- Rhode Island District Court
is or is not an "acceptable" form of publie prayer.

Any prayer unconstitutional

The district court made another telling point when it opined further that
Here, it is not the particular nature
or wording of the prayers which
implicates the first amendment it is prayer at the ceremony which
transgresses the Establishment
Clause.P
This point is one which Society of Separationists, Inc. (litigation arm of the
American Atheist General Headquarters Inc.) has emphasized for years in all
of its state/church litigation. Prayer, in
and of itself, at a governmental function
is an establishment of religion by government regardless of the content of the
prayer.
Well,naturally the school department
appealed the district court decision to
the United States Court of Appeals for
the First Circuit. That court rendered a
very succinct affirmation of the district
court's opinion (two to one from a threejudge panel) on July 23, 1990. It said
simply, "We are in agreement with the
sound and pellucid opinion of the district
court and see no reason to elaborate
further. "34

A circuit court judge stands firm

for the First Amendment
The senior circuit judge, Judge Hugh
H. Bownes, did elaborate with a concurring opinion. In that opinion Judge
Bownes made some rather enlightening
points. He began by saying that in order
to determine ifthe Establishment Clause
prohibits public prayer at graduations
one must examine the text of the Constitution itself. In doing so he pointed out
that the Constitution contains no men-

tion of "God," and that in the First

Amendment the use of the word respecting is an indication that "establishment"
should be interpreted broadly rather
than more narrowly. He reasons that respecting means not only "concerning"
but also "with respect," causing the latter meaning to imply that the Establishment Clause should ban laws which pay
homage (respect) to religion as well as
those which merely "concern" it. As to
the overall original "intent" of the authors of the Constitution, he concludes
that:
Because of the tangled and
often conflicting historical record,
it is unlikely that, as an empirical
matter, we can ever know the original intention of the authors of the
Constitution. Even if we could reconstruct the framers' intent, that
would not necessarily be determinative in this case, given our two
hundred years of experience with
the Constitution and changing circumstances. . . . An additional
facet of the problem of framers' intent is what was the framers' intention about their intent. Scholars
have argued that the original intention of the framers was that
their intentions were irrelevant to
interpreting the Constitution."
In view of the appellant's (Providence
School Department) arguments that
Weisman should not be controlled by
the extensive line of Supreme Court
school prayer cases," Judge Bownes
35Id.at 1093.
36Wallace v. Jaffree, 472U.S. 38; 105S.Ct.

2479;86 L.Ed.2d29 (1985)[dailymoment of

silence expressly for prayer]; Stone v.
Graham, 449 U.S. 39; 101 S.Ct. 192; 66
L.Ed.2d 199 (1980)[posting of Ten Commandments in classrooms]; Murray v.
Curlett, 374 U.S. 203; 83 S.Ct. 1560; 10
33Ibid.
L.Ed.2d844(1963)[Biblereadingand prayer
34Weisman v. Lee, No. 901151,908E2d 1090 recitation]; Engel v. Vitale, supra [daily
prayer].
(1st Cir. 1990).
Page 28

Vol.33, No.3

refers us to what the Supreme Court itself had to say on the subject in Edwards
v. Aguillard (which concerned the teaching of "creationism" wherever evolution
was taught in Louisiana schools):

.~

[The Court] has been particularly vigilant in monitoring compliance with the Establishment Clause
in elementary and secondary
schools. Families entrust public
schools with the education of their
children, but condition that trust
on the understanding that the
classroom will not purposely be
used to advance religious views
that may conflict with the private
beliefs of the student or his or her
family.37

Government-sponsored
"voluntary" prayer
In particular the appellants also emphasized to the First Circuit that attendance at graduation was voluntary.
Judge Bownes also rejected that argument based on the precedent of Murray
v. Curlett in which the Supreme Court
said "[T]he fact that individual students
may absent themselves ... furnishes no
defense to a claim of unconstitutionality
under the Establishment Clause."38 He
also relied on Engel v. Vitale:
[T]he fact that the [prayer] on the
part of students is voluntary can[not] serve to free it from the limit at ions of the Establishment
Clause.P
Judge Bownes then launched into an
examination of the graduation prayers
at Providence public schools from the
standpoint of all three prongs of the

37Edwards v. Aguillard, 482U.S. 578at 585;

107S.Ct. 2573at 2578;96L.Ed.2d510(1987).

38Murray v. Curlett, 374U.S. at 224-25;83

S.Ct. at 1572-73.
39Engelv. Vitale, 370U.S. at 430;82S.Ct. at

1266.
American Atheist

:i

"Although reciting a prayer before a graduation ceremony might, .

have the residual sectarian effects of solemnizing the occasion,
the primary purpose is religious."
- Judge Hugh H. Bownes
Lemon test, which test he states was
"properly and carefully applied"40by the
district court.

Graduation solemn enough

without prayer
With regard to the "secular purpose"
prong of the Lemon test, Judge Bownes
opined:
Although reciting a prayer before
a graduation ceremony might, as
appellants argue, have the residual sectarian effects of solemnizing the occasion, the primary purpose is religious. Specifically invoking the name and the blessing
of "God" on the graduation ceremony is a supplication and thanks
to "God" for the academic achievement represented by the graduation and a hope for the continuation of such good fortune. It does
not serve a purely or predominantly solemnizing function. A
graduation ceremony does not
need a prayer to solemnize it.41
In a footnote at the word occasion in
the above quote, Judge Bownes added
something so shocking that I could not
believe my eyes. Society of Separationists, Inc. has been making this exact
point for more than twenty years in its
state/church litigation, and I have never
seen or heard of any federal judge agreeing with our position until now. Judge
Bownes' footnote, at the word occasion,
was:
It is ironic that many groups that
advocate prayer (or "religious liberty"), argue that prayer has no
religious intent or effect. They emphasize the "solemnizing function" of an invocation or benediction at graduation and other ceremonies. Inevitably, they analogize

4oWeisman, 908 E2d at 1094.

41Id.at 1095.
Austin, Texas

prayer to public situations where

religion is a dead letter, such as the
use of "God" on coins or the "under God" language in the Pledge of
Allegiance, to support their position. I am surprised that religious
groups would support an argument that explicitly relegates the
value of religion in our society to
the merely ceremonial. 42
Thank you, indeed, Judge Bownes.
American Atheists agrees wholeheartedly except for your reference to "dead letter." We don't think that "God" on the
coins or "under God" in the pledge is
religion in a "dead letter" situation for
the many who fought to place it there,
for those who defend it, for the majority
of those who recite it, or for those who
want the phrase eliminated.
Getting back to the Lemon test and
the case at hand, with regard to the
"secular effect" prong, Judge Bownes
said that
[a]s the district court held, it is selfevident that a prayer given by a religious person chosen by public
school teachers communicates a
message of government endorsement of reliqion."

Prayer sanitized by government

Finally, with regard to the "excessive
entanglement" prong of the Lemon test,
Judge Bownes points out:
Although neither party strongly
advances arguments on this prong,
I am struck by the instances of entanglement in this case. In Jager
[Jager u. Douglas County School
District 862 F.2d 824 (11th Cir.
1989)],44the court found no entan42Ibid.,footnote 13.
43Id.at 1095.
44Prohibitingprayer before high school football games and rejecting the use of Marsh
(certiorari before the Supreme Court denied,
109 S.Ct. 2431; 104 L.Ed.2d 988 [1989]).
Vol. 33, No.3

glement problem because the

school did not monitor the content
of the prayers or choose the speaker [862 E2d at 831]. Here school
officials did both. Appellants make
much of the fact that the school
has chosen to give a suitably nondenominational prayer because
school officials distributed a pamphlet entitled "Guidelines for Civic
Occasions." These guidelines suggest what kind of prayers should
be written. This supervision of the
content of the prayers by school
officials implicates the entanglement prong. The school is impermissibly involved in regulating the
content of the prayer. In addition,
unlike both Stein and Jager, school
teachers chose the speaker who
gave the prayer at graduation.
This has the effect of involving
those teachers in choosing among
various religious groups, an activity that is surely prohibited by the
Establishment Clause."

Legislators
are not school children
Then Judge Bownes took on the appellant's notion that the First Circuit
follow Marsh u. Chambers rather than
the Lemon test at all. He points out that
Marsh was based
on the "unique" and specific historical argument that the framers
did not find legislative prayer offensive to the Constitution because
the first Congress approved of legislative prayers."
That argument cannot be applied to
public school situations, he opines,
since, as the Supreme Court found in
Edwards v. Aguillard,"free public schools
were virtually non-existent at the time

45Weisman, 908 E2d at 1095.

46Id. at 1096. [Marsh, 463 U.S. at 791; 103
S.Ct. at 3335.]
Page 29

the Constitution was adopted."47

He goes on to point out two more key
differences with Marsh in this case.
Middle school students are at a
very different stage in their development and relationship to prayers
than state legislators. The legislators are able to debate and vote on
whether and where to have prayers;
students have the prayers imposed
upon them. Appellants argue that
because this is only a once-a-year
occurrence it does not implicate
the Establishment Clause the way
daily prayers do. I disagree. Because graduation represents the
culmination of years of schooling
and is the school's final word to
the students, the prayer is highlighted and takes on special significance at graduation.48

What of prayer without god?

Finally, Judge Bownes made another
important and startling point. Startling
because, once again, it is a point which
Society of Separationists, Inc. has been
making, over and over again, in many of
its briefs in state/church separation
cases.
The district court made some
statements in the course of its
opinion that were in the same vein
as the Stein court's discussion of
non-denominational prayer. Relying on the fact that the invocation
and benediction referred to a
deity, the court stated that if"God"
"had been left out of the benediction ... the Establishment Clause
would not be implicated." [Weisman v. Lee, 728 ESupp. 68, 74
(D.R.I. 1990)]. This, in my opinion,
is too literal and narrow an interpretation of prayer and of what is

47Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 U.S. at 583 n. 4;

107 S.Ct. 2577 n. 4.
48Weisman, 908 F.2d at 1096.
Page 30

acceptable under the Constitution. The Constitution prohibits

prayer in public schools and not
merely references to a deity. An invocation (literally invoking the
name of God over the proceedings) and a benediction (blessing
the proceedings) are by their very
terms prayers and religious. A
benediction or invocation offends
the First Amendment even if the
words of the invocation or benediction are somehow manipulated
so that a deity is not mentioned."
Although I think it probably impossible to pray without invoking
a deity directly or indirectlyj? the
direct reference to a deity should
not be the constitutional touchstone for our analysis.v'
American Atheists could not agree
with this reasoning more. We have been
saying this, entirely to no avail, for more
than twenty years before one federal
judge after another.

The issue
before the Supreme Court
What we have here, then, is the issue
of whether the inclusion of invocations
and benedictions at public school commencement exercises constitutes a violation of the Establishment Clause provisions of the First Amendment. I must
recap here. The United States Court of

49"See, e.g., Karen B. v. Treen, 653 F.2d 897

at 901 (5th Cir. 1981),affd., 455 U.S. 913; 102
S.Ct. 1267;71 L.Ed. 2d 455 (1982)("[P]rayer
is perhaps the quintessential religious practice for many of the world's faiths ... [it is]
an address of entreaty, supplication, praise,
or thanksgiving directed toward some
sacred or divine spirit, being or object.")
(Weisman, 908 F.2d at 1097 n. 5).
50"Eventhe 'Guidelines for Civic Occasions'
recognize that public prayer must 'remain
faithful to the purposes of acknowledging
divine presence and seeking blessing' "
(Weisman v. Lee, 908 F.2d at 1907, n. 14).
51Weisman, 908 F.2d at 1097.
Vol. 33, No.3

Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled in the

1987 case from Michigan (Stein v. Plainwell Community Schools) that the inclusion of those exercises did not violate
the Establishment Clause so long as the
content of the benediction or invocation
was "nondenominational." The Sixth
Circuit made its determination on the
basis of the precedent of the decision of
the Supreme Court in Marsh v. Chambers in 1983 which, in simplistic terms,
had upheld the opening of the Nebraska
state legislature with similar exercises
through a course of logic which bypassed the prior precedent of Lemon v.
Kurtzman of 1971 (the famous Lemon
three-prong test) in favor of an analysis
linked to the hoary national tradition of
legislative prayer. Then along comes the
United States Court of Appeals for the
First Circuit, which ruled in a 1989 case
from Rhode Island (Weisman v. Lee)
that the inclusion of invocations and
benedictions at public school commencements violated the Establishment
Clause on the basis of at least one (the
majority view) and possibly all three (the
senior circuit judge's view) prongs of the
Lemon test. That court, in its view,
properly applied the long-standing (nineteen years) Lemon criterion to the issue
of religious ceremonies at public school
commencements based on its understanding that the Supreme Court and
virtually every other federal district and
appellate court in the nation had a tacit
agreement in place to apply Lemon analysis to cases involving the arena of the
public schools.
The fact situations of the Michigan
and Rhode Island cases were not dissimilar.
As is often the case with Supreme
Court law, the high court will choose to
intervene in instances where the decisions of one or more federal circuit
courts are at variance on the same (or
nearly the same) issue. The Supreme
Court has literally thousands of cases
presented to it on appeal from the circuit, district, and state supreme courts
each year, and it can only choose to reAmerican Atheist

If the arguments in this amicus curiae brief prevail,

I can see the end
of organized Atheist activism on the judicial front.

view a tiny minority thereof. For that

reason the high court normally must
have its hand forced to pick up a particular case for review. It has been most
often to "break a tie," as it were, between
the ruling of two lower courts on the
same issue that the Supreme Court has
chosen to act. Such is the case with the
First Circuit decision in Weisman v.
Lee, which has had its petition for writ
of certiorari granted by the Supreme
Court in its October 1990 term.
It will be up to the Supreme Court to
decide more than the fate of invocations
and benedictions at public school commencement exercises. More importantly and more broadly it will determine
which of the two modes of analysis
gleaned by the lower courts from its
prior decisions (the Lemon test or the
Marsh analysis) should be properly
applied to the arena of state/church
litigation involving not only the public
schools but perhaps, depending on the
mood of the current Court, even the entire Establishment Clause area of civil
law.

The Bush administration strikes

This is where the Bush administration
put its nose into the tent. This office was
first made aware of the brief for the
United States as amicus curiae through
an associate of a national law firm out of
the District of Columbia. I have in my
hand from that firm a small gray booklet
of but nineteen pages entitled:
No. 90-1014
In the Supreme Court of the United
States, October Term, 1990, Robert
E. Lee Individually and as Princi-

pal of Nathan Bishop Middle

School, et al., Petitioners v. Daniel
Weisman, etc.; On Petition for a
Writ of Certiorari to the United
States Court of Appeals for the
First Circuit; Brief for the United
States as Amicus Curiae; Kenneth
W Starr, Solicitor General; Department of Justice, Washington,
D.C. 20530.
Austin, Texas

In legal terms this brief is actually a

formal request by the Department
of
Justice for the Supreme Court to grant
certiorari (review) of the Weisman case.
The department desired that granting of
high court review in order to use this
case to further its own "social agenda"
ends. Now that the Court has granted
review, the Department of Justice will
file another brief with arguments on the
merits of the case.
How can it do that?
Well, the government claims the right
to intervene because it operates primary and secondary schools for military
and foreign service dependents on federal property, both domestically
and
abroad, and also for Native Americans.
It also engages in numerous U.S. public
ceremonies which it bills as historical
and traditional activities, such as presidential inaugurations. It claims that the
government would, therefore, have a
vested interest in the outcome of a case
which would decide the future of invocations and benedictions at public educational facilities and which has the potential (given the makeup of the current
Court) of being expanded into a decision
covering public ceremonies in general.
If the arguments in this amicus curiae
brief prevail, I can see the end of organized Atheist activism on the judicial
front.

"The heritage of a
deeply religious people"
But let's look at what the United
States wants from the Supreme Court.
In this brief the Department of Justice
was primarily concerned
with getting
the Supreme Court to grant certiorari,
but it went beyond that to delineate
what it will ask the Court to do when it
submits its amicus brief on the merits of
the Weisman case. The solicitor general began by laying out the facts of the
Weisman case in a general way as I have
already done, so I shall not repeat that
which you have already read. He then
began his attack on the Lemon test. He
claims that it has only confused the
Vol. 33, No.3

judges of the lower courts and caused

deep divisions among their ranks. 52He
also says that the Justice Department
desires to have it ditched in ceremonial
cases, to wit:
The Court, we urge, should do expressly what it did implicitly in
Marsh - jettison the framework
erected by Lemon's tripartite analysis in circumstances
where, as
here, the practice under assault is
a non-coercive,
ceremonial
acknowledgment of the heritage of a
deeply religious people. 53

"Benign'~religion
In place of the Lemon analysis, the
solicitor general desires to go to the historical test, outlined in Marsh and
Lynch v. Donnelly, according to which
the Court should approve practices in
contemporary
settings based on conventions drawn from long-established
traditions, particularly when reviewing
an allegedly benign practice such as
graduation prayers, public acknowledgment of religion, or ceremonial acknowledgment of our religious history.
I must interject here that I, as an Atheist, see nothing "benign" in these practices. According to most dictionaries
"benign" means "of a gentle disposition;
manifesting kindness and gentleness."54
52"Since its creation, the Lemon test has
been the source of widespread confusion
and deep division among the lower courts.
Its rigid doctrinal framework has, time and
again, presented lower federal courts - and
this Court - with enormous difficulty in
squaring the Nation's tradition of acknowledging forthrightly its religious heritage with
the Court's First Amendment doctrine"
(Amicus Curiae Brief, U.S. Department of
Justice, Lee v. Weisman, S.Ct. No. 901014,
October Term, 1990, p. 6).
53Amicus Curiae Brief, U.S. Department of
Justice, Lee v. Weisman, S.Ct. No. 901014,
October Term, 1990, p. 8.
54Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Diciionary (Springfield, MA: G. & C. Merriam
Co., 1967).
Page 31

In the school setting, prayer teaches our young people, through example,
that they are somehow "unworthy," or "sinners,"
and must admit of this inherent defect to allow a deity to guide their lives
for them as they are told they cannot do for themselves.

I see nothing of that nature in prayer,

which is after all what a benediction or
invocation is.
Prayer is an act of degradation and
submission, for it asks one to beg of a
deity its intercession into human affairs
in compensation for one's implied inability to handle life's situations on one's
own through application of one's intelligence. In the school setting, prayer
teaches our young people, through example, that they are somehow "unworthy," or "sinners," and must admit of
this inherent defect to allow a deity to
guide their lives for them as they are told
they cannot do for themselves. It is indeed not a "benign" act, to my mind, for
someone to get up at a podium at the
end of a school year and to tell young
people who are embarking out into the
real world, to families, to careers, that
they must always remember, and carry
with them, the thought that they should
always fall back upon "god" when they
fail to meet life's challenges, large and
small, on their own. This is like insisting
to a graduating class that Santa Claus is
real and that they need but visit him in
the shopping mall of their choice annually as a route to meeting their goals in
life toward which end they have just
completed a prescribed course of education.
The use of benedictions and invocations at public ceremonies only serves
to reenforce a concept best articulated
by the words of the preamble to the
Constitution of New Hampshire:
morality and piety,rightlygrounded
on evangelical principles, willgive
the best and greatest security to
government, and will lay, in the
hearts of men, the strongest obligations to due subjection. 55

the intrusion of benedictions and invocations into public ceremonies.

Official acknowledgment
religion's role

of

The Justice Department's brief goes

on to opine that the Lemon test has
been so bad that even the federal government realizes that the lower courts
are tempted to deny the obvious religious significance of traditional religious
references. The solicitor general sees
this as embarrassing. Lemon creates, he
goes on, anomalies such as when the
Supreme Court declares in one case
that a creche (nativity scene) was not
acceptable on government land but that
a menorah was.56
In the solicitor general's view, the
Lemon test could be kept for cases
where money and schools were involved,
such as in instances involving the purchase of books, payment of teachers, or
the furnishing of transportation
(to
parochial schools). A new test, he
opines, must be had regarding symbols,
such as "In God We Trust" on currency
and coins, "So help me God" in oaths,
a Pledge of Allegiance to one nation "under God," crosses, creches, prayers at
graduations, and in short any ceremonial
invocations of the deity by public figures, because of "an unbroken history
of official acknowledgment by all three
branches of [the] government of the
role of religion."57
This new test must be the historical
test used in Marsh v. Chambers based
on the acknowledgment that the framers
(of the Constitution) fully assented to:
(1) noncoercive religious practices in
civic life;(2) accommodation of religious
heritage in civic life; (3) public ceremonial acknowledgments of religion; and
(4) religious references at civic ceremo-

nies. All of the these enumerated assentations are merely, according to the Justice Department, expressions of civic
tolerance and accommodations to all
people. The brief makes the further
point that the presence of religion in
public life was not generally considered
offensive at the time of the framing of
the Constitution, that it in fact most
often was welcomed. The brief cites
George Washington on point:
For instance, many of the Nation's founders thought that it was
not merely permissible to recognize the role of religion in the
Nation's life but necessary to the
very preservation of the Nation.
George Washington expressly addressed the issue in his farewell
address, itself a ceremonial occasion:
"Let it simply be asked where is
the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths,
which are the instruments of investigation in Courts of Justice?
And let us with caution indulge the
supposition, that morality can be
maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds
of peculiar structure, reason and
experience both forbid us to expect
that National morality can prevail
in exclusion of religious principle."
Fitzpatrick, The Writings of George
Washington from the Original
Manuscript Sources 1745-1799,
Farewell Address, at 214, 229.58
The brief of the Department of Justice then makes a closing point that
requires a little digression to be understood.

This is hardly a "benign" motive for

56County of Allegheny u, American Ciliil
Liberties Union, 109S.Ct. 3086;106L.Ed.2d

55MadalynMurray O'Hair, Freedom Under 472(1989).

58AmicusCuriae Brief,U.S. Department of
Siege (Los Angeles:J.P.Tarcher Inc., 1974), 57Lynch u, Donnelly, 465 U.S. 668 at 674 Justice, Lee li. Weisman,S.Ct. No. 90-1014,
p.59.
(1984).
October Term, 1990,note 19,pp. 16-17.
Page 32

Vol.33, No.3

American Atheist

The issue of coercion

Establishment Clause cases are treated differently by the courts, in general,
than are Free Exercise cases. We all
know that the First Amendment to the
Constitution provides, in relevant part:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibitingthe free exercise
thereof; ...
The Lemon test's three-prong analysis has been applied to the Establishment cases; the Free Exercise cases
generally have but one rule - does the
law,custom, rule, regulation, or practice
interfere with the free exercise of religion?
In all of the Establishment cases, it
has been held by the Supreme Court
that no show of coercion needs to be
shown. The passage of the law, the application of the custom, is violation
enough.
Now a curious theory has developed
in this particular Rhode Island case, for
the concept of "coercion" is being examined. First the premise was advanced
that graduation exercises are not really
for the students. They are for the students and their families. Then the idea
was advanced that the students are not
coerced to listen to the prayers at graduation because they are enveloped in a
warm cocoon of love when surrounded
by their families as they sit in the auditorium. Therefore there is no risk of
coercion as the prayers
are addressed not [emphasis added] to children alone but to families as a whole which are ... a natural bulwark against any coercion-?
In the further words of the Department of Justice's brief:

Indeed, children in the family

setting may hear similar invocations and benedictions at inaugurals and other public ceremonies.
In short, whatever special concerns about subtle coercion may
be present in the classroom setting - where inculcation is the
name of the game - they do not
carryover into the commencement setting, which is more properly understood as a civic ceremony than part of the educational
mission. 60
The solicitor general sums it all up this
way, with regard to the Weisman case.
Viewed in the framework we
would urge this Court to adopt
[that of Marsh], the practice at
issue here clearly does not violate
the Establishment Clause, because
it does not coerce religious exercise or bring to bear other forms of
compulsion to conform. Indeed,
Rabbi Gutterman's
invocation
and benediction, with their reference to God, do not directly or indirectly compel nonadherents to
change their beliefs, but merely respect the religious heritage of the
communitv"
'

Other recent
graduation prayer cases
It is also highly significant and bears
noting here that one state supreme
court and an additional federal circuit
court have also ruled, in split decisions,
on the graduation benediction and invocation issue.
On May 6, 1991, the California Supreme Court, in a lS7-page opinion,
ruled 5 to 2 to prohibit organized prayer
at public high school graduation ceremonies in that state. That court held
that such invocations and benedictions

effectively "convey a message of governmental endorsement of religion, violating the U.S. Constitution."62 Only
three of the seven justice of the California Supreme Court concluded, however, that prayer violates that state's
constitution. The case had originated in
the Morongo Unified School District in
San Bernardino County. Two local taxpayers, backed by the American Civil
Liberties Union of Southern California,
had brought suit in 1986. That school
district had, for some fiftyyears, allowed
students to organize graduation ceremonies that include invocations and
benedictions
from local ministers,
teachers, or other guest speakers. The
San Bernardino Superior Court had
granted an order prohibiting graduation
prayers in the district but was reversed
by a state court of appeals in the fall of
1989. Should the Supreme Court overturn Weisman, this California Supreme
Court ruling will be open to attack. 63

Texas rules for prayer

Additionally, the U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upheld a
federal district ruling in a suit brought by
parents of two students at Clear Lake
High School in Houston, Texas, concerning invocations at graduation ceremonies prior to 1986. New guidelines
were adopted by the school district in
late 1987just three weeks before the suit
was to be heard. The new guidelines left
to the discretion of senior classes and
their principal whether to include an invocation at graduation and specified
that any such invocation should be delivered by a student volunteer and be
nonsectarian and non proselytizing in
content. A district judge in Houston dismissed the suit without a hearing. The
parents appealed to the Fifth Circuit,
which on April 19, 1991,in a 3 to 0 opin-

62LosAngeles Times, 7 May 1991.

59Id. at p. 18.
Austin, Texas

630akland Tribune, 7 May 1991, 11 May 1991;

San Francisco Chronicle, 7 May 1991; TriValley Herald, 7 May 1991.

60Ibid.
61Ibid.
Vol. 33, No.3

Page 33

Almost any transgression of the Establishment Clause

could be seen as merely in keeping with
a traditional sotto voce respect for religion which is more than evident
in civic events throughout the course of American history.

ion, approved the 1987guidelines as not

advancing or endorsing religion.64
With this confusion still during April
and May (public school graduation "season") of this year, two or three months
after the solicitor general had gone to
the Supreme Court in Lee v. Weisman,
the issue has quickly swelled to great
importance. But ifthe solicitor general's
petition is to be the new judicial basis for
reviewing Atheist challenges to breaches
in the "wall of separation" between state
and church, one can clearly see the
handwriting on the wall. Almost any
transgression of the Establishment
Clause could be seen as merely in keeping with a traditional sotto voce respect
for religion which is more than evident
in civic events throughout the course of
American history.
We all know that it has certainly been
a documented part of political life for
officeholders and office seekers alike to
pay homage to matters religious. Almost
no elected official, in positions from the
petty to the most prestigious, has foregone the opportunity to punctuate his
(or her) public remarks with references
to Bible, church, or "god." In the words
of (Supreme Court) Justice Douglas,
"[w]e are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being."65
We cannot, even as Atheists, deny that
in a majoritarian sense.
What succor does it then afford such
as we Atheists if the judicial system
should decide to begin to review instances of government establishment of
religion on the basis of a historical review of the culmination of Americans'
collective religiosity? The answer is
none. On the basis of history, Atheists
would be the most unwelcome of minorities in this country. We only stand a
chance so long as we are able to argue
that the mere presence of religious cere-

monies or religious symbols, sponsored

by government, discriminates against all
nonbelievers or nonadherents regardless of the presence or lack of coercion,
in that such presence places the imprimatur of government squarely on the
side of the theist. We cannot allow
breaches in the principle of the true
value of the maintenance of government
neutrality in matters religious to be
rationalized as merely acknowledgments of the unbroken history of official
toadyism toward religion.

The most despised of minorities

The entire idea of the First Amendment was to protect the minority from
the press of majority sentiment. The Department of Justice is, in its amicus
cunoebrief, asking the Supreme Court
to establish the precedent that the majority belief system in this country must
be taken into account whenever a member of the minority feels as though he
has been ostracized by a public display
of religion. This, in essence, is asking the
Court to abandon more than forty years
of litigation in which it has stood behind
the principle that despite the views of
any majority the government of the
United States, or the several states, may
not ignore the rights of the minority by
embracing religion. As recently as 1989
the Supreme Court said:
Perhaps in the early days of the
republic [the prohibitions of the
Establishment Clause] were understood to protect only the diversity within Christianity, but today
they are recognized as guaranteeing religious liberty and equality to
the infidel, the atheist, or the adherent of a non-Christian faith
such as Islam or Judaism. 66
The Bush administration, through the
Department of Justice, is asking the Su-

64Houston Chronicle, 21April 1991,sec. A, p.

21.
6SZorach v. Clauson, 72S.Ct. 679;96 L.Ed.2d
954; 343 U.S. 306 at 313 (1952).
Page 34

66County of Allegheny v. American

Liberties Union, 109 S.Ct. at 3099.
Vol. 33, No.3

Civil

preme Court to turn its back on that

contemporary recognition and harken
back to the days when the protection of
the First Amendment may have only
applied to denominationalism. It is asking the Court to view contemporary
events in terms of historical patterns
which are no longer fully applicable to
our present-day way of life.
The jettisoning of the Lemon test in
favor of the historical analysis of Marsh,
under which legislative invocations
were upheld, could well mean the end to
the practical ability for Atheists and minority religionists to litigate the many Establishment Clause issues which impinge
on our freedoms daily.

Sola scriptura
I have a final sobering thought on this
matter while we await the outcome of
the Supreme Court's review. It is a biblical parallel which was brought to my
attention by Frank Zindler, director of
the Columbus Ohio Chapter of American Atheists, during my presentation of
an abbreviated version of the facts I
have tendered here to an audience at
the Twenty-first Annual National Convention of American Atheists.
Given the current makeup of the
Supreme Court, with the influence of
two Roman Catholic justices.s? we must
consider a psychological factor to this
whole matter of the Court being asked
to switch Establishment Clause state/
church case review from an analytical
criterion based essentially on "effect" to
one based upon acknowledgment of historical patterns. That factor is the differ-

67Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, Lutheran; Justice Byron R. White, Episcopalian; Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, Roman
Catholic; Justice Antonin Scalia, Roman
Catholic; Justice David H. Souter, Episcopalian; Justice Harry A. Blackmun, United
Methodist; Justice Sandra Day O'Connor,
Episcopalian; Justice Thurgood Marshall,
Episcopalian; and Justice John Paul Stevens,
Baptist (source: Church & State magazine).
American Atheist

ence between the Protestant and Catholic theological mind-sets. For Protestants, "truth" is determined sola scriptura, or "only in the scriptures." In layman's terms, "if it isn't in the book, it
isn't Christian." The Roman Catholic
church has the same .scriptures, essentially,but it also has tradition. The pope
interprets modern church teachings
through this tradition. Applying these
facts to the Department of Justice brief,
could there be an effort afoot to Romanize jurisprudence at the Supreme Court
level? All the parts of the play are at
hand. We have "the book" in the Constitution and we have "the tradition" in
American history, and the Court gets to
play the leading role of "pope."
Well, let us hope that Mr. Zindler's intuition in this matter does not formally
materialize.
I shall keep an eye on the situation for
you, my fellow Atheists, as I have done
through the pages of this journal on
matters judicial for some years now. It
grieves me, in pondering this situation,
to see the likes of Senior First Circuit
Judge Bownes now articulating strident
points, which American Atheists tried
for so many years to make, to the Supreme Court for it to continue some vigilance toward preservation of the Establishment Clause while we Atheists are
excluded from the process. It has always
seemed to me that the best advocate for
separation of state and church is that
party which has the most to lose from
their union, and that has always been
the Atheist. ~

Give Madalyn
O'Heir a buzz!
1-512-458-5731
Dial-THE-Atheist
to hear the
founder of American Atheists
give her views on the news of
the day. She changes her message each week.
Austin, Texas

The Peril Q/ Faith

by Martin L. Bard
"It's all in god's plan."
How many times have you heard that?
Christians use that phrase over and over
again to avoid confronting many of our
world's greatest problems and tragedies.
They even use it to avoid thinking about
the viciousness of the god portrayed in
their bible.
It's that very complacency that Martin L. Bard sees as being at
the heart of the damage religious thought causes. As he states,
religion "dulls the senses," keeping humankind from seeing the
urgency of resolving the problems of pollution and war. To
combat this complacency he reviews some of the basic issues
Atheists face as they confront religion:

the
the
the
the

arguments for religion

terrors religious institutions have inflicted
fallacies of basic Christian doctrines
contradictions and ethical horrors of the Bible

Bard also reviews the positive aspects of Atheism and the

logical arguments for it. He introduces the reader to some of the
heroes of Atheism and to the nonreligious foundation of the
United States.
The Peril qf Faith is an excellent starter book for your doubting
friends, providing the facts they need to begin their own investigations of religion. You can benefit from it also, as it succinctly
reviews the basic issues between religion and Atheism, stating
our positions in an articulate but unaffected manner. Its index will
help you thumb right to the page you need to help you in any discussion of the elemental reasons why religion is harmful to our
species and our planet.
175 pp. Paperback. Index. Stock #5012. $7.00 plus $2.50 postage and
handling. VISA and MasterCard accepted.

Availablefrom:
American Atheist Press
P.O. Box 140195, Austin, TX 78714-0195
Vol. 33,No.3

Page 35

Masters of Atheism

Woman, church and state

What is the relationship

of woman to the
Christian church?
Has it strove for her
freedoms? Has it fought
for her liberty?
A pioneer feminist
answers.

The following essay was originally published under the title "Past,
Present, Future," as chapter 10 (the
final chapter) of Woman, Church
and State: A Historical Account of
the Status of Woman Through the
Christian Ages: With Reminiscences
of the Matriarchate by Matilda Joslyn
Gage. Our reprint isfrom the second
edition of that work, published by
The Truth Seeker Company in New
York in 1893.
Matilda Joslyn Gage (1826-1898)
was a well-known woman's rights
advocate and abolitionist.
Gage
was a member of the revising committee which produced The Woman's
Bible (1898), a feminist criticism of
the Christian Bible, under the editorship of Elizabeth Cady Stanton. She
also worked with Stanton and Susan
B. Anthony on the History of Woman
Suffrage (4 vols., 1887-1902). Though
Gage was an agnostic, she was very
aggressive in her stand against the
Christian church.
he most important struggle in the

history of the church is that of

T woman
for liberty of thought and

Atheism has a long, proud history of

publishing and speechmaking. Unfortunately, however, much of that history
is inaccessible to modern readers, surviving only in rare booklets, books, and
pamphlets housed in scattered libraries and private collections. The American Atheist attempts to make some of
that literature more available to modern Atheists by reprinting essays by
yesterday's "Masters of Atheism."
These reprints are produced courtesy
of the Charles E. Stevens American
Atheist Library and Archives, Inc.

Matilda Joslyn Gage

Page 36

the right to give that thought to the

world. As a spiritual force the church
appealed to barbaric conception when it
declared woman to have been made for
man, first in sin and commanded to be
under obedience. Holding as its chief tenet a belief in the inherent wickedness of
woman, the originator of sin, as its sequence the sacrifice of a God becoming
necessary, the church has treated her as
alone under a "curse" for whose enforcement it declared itself the divine instrument. Woman's degradation under
it dating back to its earliest history, while
the nineteenth century still shows religious despotism to have its stronghold
in the theory of woman's inferiority to
man. The church has ever invoked the
"old covenant" as authority, while it also
asserts this covenant was' done away
with at the advent of the new dispensation. Paul, whose character as persecuVol. 33, No.3

tor was not changed when he veered

from Judaism to Christianity, gave to
the church a lever long enough to reach
down through eighteen centuries in opposition to woman's equality with man.
Through this lengthy period, his teaching has united the christian world in opposition to her right of private judgment
and personal freedom.
Each great division of christianity
alike proclaims the supreme sinfulness
of woman in working for the elevation of
her sex. In this work she has been left
outside of religious sympathy, outside of
political protection, yet in the interest of
justice she claims the right to tear down
the barriers of advancing civilization and
to rend asunder all beliefs that men hold
most sacred. Freedom for woman underlies all the great questions of the age.
She must no longer be the scapegoat of
humanity upon whose devoted head the
sins of all people are made to rest. Woman's increasing freedom within the last
hundred years is not due to the church,
but to the printing-press, to education,
to free-thought and other forms of advancing civilization. The fashions of the
christian world have changed but not its
innermost belief. The power of the pulpit, built up by a claim of divine authority, with the priest as an immediate representative of God, has been reacting
upon the priesthood itself, and now
while vainly struggling for light this order
finds itself bound by chains of its own
creating. To-day the priesthood is hampered by creeds and dogmas centuries
old, yet so fully outside of practical life
that the church has become the great
materialistic force of the century; its
ideas of a God, its teachings of a future
lifeallfallingwithin the realm of the physical senses; the incorporeal and spiritual
are lost in the grossest forms of matter. 1
Although a body professing to inculcate
pure spiritual truths, the church teaches
the grossest form of materialism. It

lAs the resurrection of a material body to

dwell in a spiritual heaven. (Note in original.)
American Atheist

The first International Council of Women,

held in Washington, D.C., in 1888. Top
row, left to right: Rachel Foster, Sophia
Groth, Margaret Dilke, May Wright
Sewall, Alice Scatcherd. Bottom row,
left to right: Laura 0 Chant, Susan B.
Anthony, Isabelle Bogelot, Elizabeth
Cady Stanton, Matilda Joslyn Gage,
Alexandra Gripenberg.

asserts principles contradictory to natural laws; it presents chaos as the normal condition of the infinite; it bids people live under faith outside of evidence,
and in thus doing is guilty of immeasurable evils to mankind. A bark without
compass, it steers upon a sea of night no
star illuminingthe darkness; the control
and guidance by humanity of the psychic part of being, generally spoken of
as "supernatural," although the truest
to nature, has become nearly lost through
the materialization of spiritual truth by
the church, the worst form of idolatry.
Christianity was a stern reality to the
men of the early and middle ages, who
believing themselves to have been created nearer to God than woman also believed themselves to have lost earthly
immortality through her. Permeated
with this idea, it is not strange that men
through many hundred years taught
that woman was especially under control of the EvilOne. The devil was an objective form to the clergy and people
alike. Nor under such belief, is it strange
that priests should warn their flocks
from the pulpit against the wiles of woman, thus degrading her self-respect and
teaching men to hold her in that contempt whose influence is felt to-day. The
result of this teaching has been deplorable to humanity; men equally with
women having sunk under this degradation of one-half of the race.
The most stupendous system of organized robbery known has been that of
the church towards woman, a robbery
that has not only taken her self-respect
but all rights of person; the fruits of her
own industry; her opportunities of eduAustin, Texas

of history has given many glimpses of

her superiority, and the past few decades have shown in every land a new
awakening of woman to a recognition of
her own powers, man as man is still as
obtuse as of yore. He is yet under the
darkness of the Patriarchate, failing to
recognize woman as a component part
of humanity, whose power of development and influence upon civilization are
at least the equal of his own. He yet fails
to see in her a factor of life whose influence for good or for evil has ever been
in direct ratio with her freedom. He does
not yet discern her equal right with himself to impress her own opinions upon

cation; the exercise of her own judgment, her own conscience, her own will.
The unfortunate peculiarity of the history of man, according to Buckle," is
that although its separate parts have
been examined with considerable ability, hardly anyone has attempted to outline them into a whole and ascertain the
way they are connected with each other. Woman's increasing
While this statement is virtually true as
freedom within the last
regards the general history of mankind,
it is most particularly so in reference to
the position of woman in its bearings hundred years is not
upon race development. A thorough in- due to the church, but
vestigation of her connection with our
present form of civilization, or even with to the printing-press,
that of the past, as compared with each
other, or as influencing the whole, has to education,
never yet been authoritatively undertaken. This failure has not been so large- to free-thought
ly due to willfulneglect as to incapacity
upon the part of man to judge truly of and other forms of
this relation. Woman herself must judge
advancing civilization.
of woman. The most remote feminine
personality is not less incomprehensible
to man than the woman of to-day; he
now as little understands the finer qual- the world. He still interprets governities of her soul or her high intuitive rea- ments and religions as requiring from
soning faculties as in the past. Reason is her an unquestioning obedience to laws
divided into two parts, theoretical and she has no share in making, and that
practical; the former appertains to man; place her as an inferior in every relation
the latter, composed of those intuitive of life. Ralph Waldo Emerson with keen
faculties which do not need a long pro- insight into the fallibilityof law-makers,
cess of ratiocination for their work, declared that "good men must not obey
inhere in woman. Although the course the laws too well." Woman is showing
her innate wisdom in daring to question
the infallibilityof man, his laws, and his
2Henry Thomas Buckle (1821-62), English interpretation of her place in creation.
historian. Gage is probably referring to his She is not obeying "too well," and yet
man fails to analyze her motives in this
unfinished History of Civilization in England
(1857-61).
defection. The church and the state
Vol. 33, No.3

Page 37

have long done man's thinking for

him, the ideas of the few, whose aim
is power, have been impressed upon
the many; individualism is still characterized as the essence of evil; selfthought, self-control as heretical.
The state condemns both as a crime
against itself, the church as a sin
against heaven. Both church and
state claiming to be of divine origin
have assumed divine right to the
control of man, also asserting the
divine right of man over woman;
while church and state have thought for
man, man has assumed the right to
think for woman.t
As man under fear of eternal damnation surrendered to the irresponsible
power of church and state, so woman
yielded to that power which closed every external avenue of knowledge to her
under pretext of her sinfulness. Onetenth of the human race, within the period covered by modern civilization, has
compelled the other nine-tenths to think
their thoughts and livelives according to
their commands. This has been the
chief effort of governments and religion.
The most formidable general evil under
which woman has suffered during the
Christian ages has been that of protection; a non-recognition of her ability to
care for herself, rendering watchful
guardianship over her a recognized part
of man's law; not alone to prevent her
sinking into depths of vice but to also

3When a quarter of the human race assume

to tell me what I must do, I may be too much
disheartened by the circumstance to see
clearly the absurdity of this command. This
is the condition of women, for whom I have
the same compassion that I would have for
a prisoner so long cramped in a narrow cage
that he could not use his limbs. While many
women are thinking their own thoughts
there are others without so potent a brain,
who have as yet, failed to see the absurdity
of allowing others to think for them. For this
condition of mental and moral blunders the
church is responsible. - Ralph Waldo
Emerson. (Note in original.)
Page 38

Matilda Joslyn Gage began her involvement in women's rights in 1852, at the
age of twenty-six.

The most stupendous

system of organized
robbery known has
been that of the church
towards woman,
a robbery that has not
only taken her selfrespect but all rights of
person; the fruits of her
own industry; her
opportunities of
education; the exercise
of her own judgment,
her own conscience,
her own will.
prevent her entire subversion of government and religion. Buckle and other
writers have recognized the protective
spirit as the greatest enemy to civilization, its influence causing the few to establish themselves as guardians of the
many in all affairs of life. The American
Revolution in proclaiming the rights of
humanity struck a blow at the protecVol. 33, No.3

tive system. This system has ever

based itself upon a declaration of
the supreme rights of a God, and
certain rights as pertaining to certain classes of men by virtue of authority from that God. The defense
of such authority has ever been the
chief business of church and state,
and thus religions and governments
have neither found time nor inclination to uphold the rights of humanity. Under the christian system,
woman as the most rebellious against
God in having eaten a forbidden fruit,
has found herself condemned through
the centuries to untold oppression in
order that the rights of God might be
maintained. Yet while constantly teaching that woman brought sin into the
world, the church ever forgets its own
corollary; that ifshe brought sin she also
brought a God into the world, thus
throwing ineffable splendor over mankind. The whole theory regarding woman, under christianity, has been based
upon the conception that she had no
right to live for herself alone. Her duty to
others has continuously been placed before her and her training has ever been
that of self-sacrifice. Taught from the
pulpit and legislative halls that she was
created for another, that her position
must always be secondary even to her
children, her right to life, has been admitted only in so far as its reacting effect
upon another could be predicated. That
she was-first created for herself, as an independent being to whom all the opportunities of the world should be open because of herself, has not entered the
thought of the church; has not yet become one of the conceptions of law; is
not yet the foundation of the family.
But woman is learning for herself that
not self-sacrifice, but self-development,
is her first duty in life; and this, not primarily for the sake of others but that she
may become fully herself; a perfectly
rounded being from every point of view;
her duty to others being a secondary
consideration arising from those relations in life where she finds herself
American Atheist

The whole theory regarding woman, under christianity,

has been based upon the conception that she had no right to live for herself
alone. Her duty to others has continuously been placed before her
and her training has ever been that of self-sacrifice.

placed at birth, or those which later she

voluntarily assumes. But these duties
are not different in point of obligation,
no more imperative upon her, than are
similar duties upon man. The political
doctrine of the sovereignty of the individual, although but partially recognized
even in the United States, has been
most efficacious in destroying that protective spirit which has so greatly interfered with the progress of humanity.
This spirit yet retains its greatest influence in the family, where it places a
boundary between husband and wife.
Of all circumstances biasing the judgment and restricting the sympathies,
none have shown themselves more
powerful than physical differences,
whether of race, color or sex. When
those differences are not alone believed
to be a mark of inferiority, but to have
been especially created for the pleasure
and peculiar service of another, the
elements of irresponsible tyranny upon
one side, and irremediable slavery upon
the other, are already organized. If in
addition, that inferior is regarded as under an especial curse for extraordinary
sin, as the church has ever inculcated in
reference to women; and when as in the
case of woman and man an entire separation of interests, hopes, feelings and
passions is impossible, we have reached
the extreme of injustice and misery under the protective system. ConsequentIyno other form of "protection" has possessed so many elements of absolute injustice as that of man over woman. Swedenborg' taught, and experience declares, that morality cannot exist except
under conditions of freedom. Hence we
find much that has been called morality
is the effect of dependence and lessened
self-respect, and has really been immorality and degradation. While in every
age, the virtues of self-sacrifice have
been pointed to as evidence of the highest morality, we find those women in

4Emanuel Swedberg (1688-1772), Swedish

scientist, philosopher, and religious writer.
Austin, Texas

whom it has been most apparent, have

been those doing least justice where justice first belongs - to themselves. Justice as the foundation of the highest law,
is a primal requirement of the individual
to the self. It is none the less a serious
impeachment of the religious-moral
idea, that the doctrine of protection and
the duty of woman's self-sacrifice, were
taught under the theory of divine authority. No faith was more profound,
none could be more logical if resting on
a true foundation, than the church theory regarding woman. Life assumed a
sterner reality to men who believed
themselves in point of purity and priority nearer their Creator than woman.
Thereafter, she was to be protected
from herself, the church and man cheerfully assuming this duty. Under the protective spirit it is not so very long since
men sold themselves and their families
to some other man in power, either lay
or religious, under promise of protection,
binding themselves to obey the mandates of such lord evermore. The church
protected and directed the thought of
the world. To think for one's self is not
even now the tendency of mankind; the
few who dare, do so at great peril. It will
require another hundred years of personal and political freedom for men to
appreciate what liberty really is - for
them to possess confidence in their own
judgment upon religious questions for the man of humble station to fully
believe in himself and in his own opinions when opposed to the authority of
church or state.
Women of the present century whose
struggle for equal opportunity of education with men; for a chance to enter the
liberal professions; for a fair share of the
world of work; for equal pay in that
work; for all demands of equality which
make the present a noted age in the
world's history, have met their greatest
opposition from this protective spirit.
No less than during the darkest period
of its history does the church still maintain the theory that education- and public lifeare not fitting for woman - indelVol. 33, No.3

icate for herself and injurious to the

community. During the Christian ages,
the church has not alone shown cruelty
and contempt for woman, but has exhibited an impious and insolent disregard of her most common rights of
humanity. It has robbed her of responsibility, putting man in place of God. It
has forbidden her the offices of the
church and at times an entrance within
its doors. It has denied her independent
thought, declaring her a secondary creation for man's use to whom alone it has
made her responsible. It has anathematized her sex, teaching her to feel shame
for the very fact of her being. It has not
been content with proclaiming a curse
upon her creative attributes, but has
thrust the sorrows and expiations of
man's "curse" upon her, and in doing
these things the church has wrought her
own ruin. A religious revolution of the
most radical kind, has even now assumed
such proportions as to nearly destroy
the basic creeds of various sects, and
undermine the whole fabric of christendom. It everywhere exists, although
neither the world nor the church seem
to realize the magnitude of its proportions. As a legitimate result of two opposing forces, a crisis in the life of the
church is at hand; nay, even upon it.
While we see it making organized effort
for extension of power and entire control of the state, we also find great increase of radical thought, and development of individual conscience and individual judgment. With thought no longer
bound by fear of everlasting punish-

SWhen reading was first taught women in

America, said Dr. Clemence S. Lozier, it was
opposed on the ground that she would forge
her father's or husband's name should she
learn to read and write. Geography met with
like opposition on the ground of its tendency
to make her dissatisfied with home and desirous to travel, while the records of history
show that the first public examination of
women in Geometry, 1829, raised a cry of
disapproval over the whole country. (Note in
original.)
Page 39

The premises upon which the church is based being radically false,
it is a necessary corollary
that its conclusions must be equally false,
and this, most especially in everything relating to woman.

ment, mankind willcease to believe unproved assertions, simply because

made by a class of men under assumed
authority from God. Reason will be
used, mankind willseek for truth come
whence it may, lead where it will, and
with our own Lucretia Mott.s willaccept
"truth for authority and not authority for
truth."
In knocking at the door of political
rights, woman is severing the last link
between church and state; the church
must lose that power it has wielded with
changing force since the days of Constantine, ever to the injury of freedom
and the world. The immeasurable injustice to woman, and her sufferings under
christianity, her intellectual, moral and
spiritual servitude, will never be understood until life with its sorrows shall be
opened to our vision in a sphere more
refined than the present one. The superstitions of the church, the miseries of
woman, her woes, tortures, burnings,
rackings and all the brutalities she has
endured in the church, the state, the
family,under the sanction of christianity,
would be incredible had we not the most
undeniable evidence of their existence,
not alone in the past but as shown by the
teachings, laws and customs of the present time. 7 "She has suffered under a the6Lucretia Mott (1793-1880), American reformer, was a contemporary of Gage in the
women's rights movement. With Elizabeth
Cady Stanton, she called the women's rights
convention at Seneca Falls, New York, in
1848.She was also active in the antislavery
and freethought movements.
"There are hard and ugly facts in this Christendom of ours, and its history includes the
serfdom and nihilism of Russia, the drudgery
of German women; the wrongs of the Irish
peasant girl; the 20,000 little English girls
sold each year to gratify the lusts of the aristocracy; all the horrors of the Inquisition; all
the burnings of the witches; the slavery and
polygamy of America and the thousand iniquities all around us; all these belong to the
history of Christendom. - The Woman's
Tribune, Clara Colby, editor. (Note in original.)
Page 40

ology which extended its rule not only to

her civiland political relations, but to her
most insignificant domestic and personal concerns, regulating the commerce of husband and wife, of parent
and child, of master and servant, even
prescribing her diet and dress, her
education and her industries." Edmund
Noble speaks in like manner of the ancient Russians under the tyrannical provisions of the Greek church, saying,
"Clearly, such a system of theocratic supervision and direction as this, is compatible only with the lowest possible
spiritual condition of the subject, or the
lowest possible conception of God."
Possessing no proof of its premises, the
church has ever fostered unintelligent
belief. To doubt her "unverified" assertion has ever been declared an unpardonable sin. The supreme effort of
the church, being maintenance of power,
it is but recently that woman has been
allowed to read history for herself, or
having read it, dared to draw her own
conclusions from its premises. Ignorance and falsehood created a sentiment in accord with themselves, crushing all her aspirations. In the family,man
still decides the rights and duties of the
wife, as of old. As legislator and judge,
he still makes and executes class laws.
In the church, he yet arrogates to himself the interpretation of the bible; still
claims to be an exponent of the Divine
will,that grandest lesson of the reformation, the right of private interpretation of
the scriptures, not yet having been conceded to woman. The premises upon
which the church is based being radically false, it is a necessary corollary that its
conclusions must be equally false, and
this, most especially in everything relating to woman. Trained from infancy by
the church to a belief in woman's inferiority, and incapacity for self-government,
men of the highest station have not hesitated to organize societies in opposition
to her just demands. As early as 1875,an
anti-woman's franchise association was
formed in London, under name of "Association for Protecting the Franchise
Vol. 33, No.3

from the Encroachment of Women;"

Hon. Mr. Bouverie, a leading opponent
of Woman Suffrage in the House of
Commons, being its chairman. Among
the promoters of the movement were
Sir Henry James, formerly attorneygeneral (for the Crown), Hon. Mr. Childers, late First Lord of the Admiralty,
Mr. Claflin and Mr. Leathers, correspondent of the New York Tribune.
Since this period, a number of women
distinguished as "the wives of' have petitioned legislative bodies for protection
against freedom for themselves, and all
others of their sex, in asking that legislatures shall not recognize woman's selfgoverning right. The deepest depth of
degradation is reached when the slave
not only declares against his own freedom, but strives to tighten the bonds of
fellow slaves; and the most cruel wrong
resulting from such slavery is the destruction of self-respect in the enslaved,
as shown by the course of these women petitioners. The protective theory
reached its lowest depth for woman by
an attack upon her already vested rights
of the ballot, in the former territory, now
State of Washington, on the Pacific
coast, in case of Nevada M. Bloomer [a
woman] against John Wood and others,
to have the women of that territory deprived of their already existing right of
suffraqe.f In line with the general opposition to the enfranchisement of woman,

8This case decided adversely to woman's

right of suffrage by the territorial Supreme
Court, was appealed to the Supreme Court
of the United States, through the efforts of
Mr. A. S. Austin, a young and energetic
attorney of Olympia, the state capital; the
points raised by Mr. Austin were, First; that
the Bloomer case is a collusive one between
the original plaintiff and defendants, and is a
fraud upon all friends of equal suffrage in the
state. Second; that the decision of the Supreme Court of Washington Territory was
erroneous in two respects, to-wit; that the
statute of the territory conferring suffrage
was constitutional, and that women are citizens. (Note in original.)
American Atheist

Matilda Joslyn Gage collaborated with

Susan B. Anthony (right) and Elizabeth
Cady Stanton (far right) on several
works, including The Woman's Bible
(below, right), an attack on the antifemale positions of the Christian holy
book. Like Stanton, Gage took a more
aggressively antireligious stance than
did Anthony.

men of even the most liberal tendencies

declare that her political freedom willbe
used to sustain the church, apparently
forgetting that man alone has placed the
church in power and that man alone
holds it in power. And proof of man's
complicity is even greater than this. Despite what is said of the larger church
membership of women, the most noted
modern evangelist, Moody." recently
guishable voices, all shouting; screamdeclared that he "found men ten-fold, ing so loud that people for blocks away
THE WOMAN'S BIBLE.
aye, an hundred-fold" more receptive of are roused from slumber!' in affright of
his preaching than women. While speak- a fire, or the approach of an ungoverning in Farwell Hall, Chicago, 1886, he able mob, such objections to woman's
freedom as her "emotions" fall to their
said, "For fifteen years I have preached
to women in the afternoon and very lowest value.
In Church and in State, man has exoften as near as I could, have preached
the same sermon to men at night, and in hibited the wildest passions, the most
ninety-nine cases out of a hundred have ungovernable frenzy - has shown himhad five times more result in preaching self less controlled by reason than posto men than to women." This pseudo- sible for woman under the most adverse
_(' __""'_~.-..~,
.....
~-e-argument, as to woman's susceptibility circumstances. Judaism, and its offto church teaching, brought up by the spring, Christianity, show the results of
enemies of her freedom, possesses no the Patriarchate in some of its most demore real value than the pseudo-political generate forms; industrial servitude, edargument sometimes presented in op- ucational restrictions, legal thraldom,
position to woman's admission into political slavery, false religious teachactive politics; that is, her emotional ings, are but a portion of the evils existtemperament. To one who has been ing under its most enlightened forms, little value in advancing civilization, but
has done a great deal toward retarding
present at four great presidential nom- and equally with the more pronounced
inating conventions and several large polygamy and infanticide they show a it.12 "Civilization, a recognition of the
state conventions, knowledge upon this total perversion of moral ideas. Woman rights of others at every point of conpoint is practical. When one has seen a dearly pays for the rights she has se- tact," has been carried forward by
cordon of police enforced by the mayor cured. Labor opposes, in less pay for means of rebellion against church teachupon the platform, protecting the offi- the same work; literature, at first wel- ing and church authority. The expericers of such convention, while its mem- coming her only through the cook book, ence of science is familiar to all, even
next compelled her to conceal her sex school children quoting Galileo-" and
bers, standing upon seats, stamped,
shouted, gesticulated, threatened with under a male pseudonym, in order that Dr. Faust.14 What are called reformarevolvers, acting more like uncaged wild her writings might be received with the tions in religion, the work of Huss, IS of
beasts than like men," when one has same respect as those of man; art has
witnessed the wildest enthusiasm at the given her similar experiences, and while
mention of a name, the waving of flags, to-day admitting her to the same advan- 12The liberty and civilization of the present
of hats, of handkerchiefs, the shaking of tage of study with man, yet compels her are nothing else than the fragments of rights
umbrellas, chairs, canes, with violent to pay twice the price for the same in- which the scaffold and stake have wrung
from the strong hands of the usurpers. stamping, amid a hubbub of indistin- structions.
The careful student of history willdis- Wendell Phillips. (Note in original.)
13GalileoGalilei (1564-1642), Italian astronocover that christianity has been of very
PART

Comments

on Genesis.

Numbers

'100.....,

__

I.

Exodus,

Leviticus.

and Deuteronomy.

._.,.-..-

. -...-.-

YOI . n
'U ..ISHU.OCO,lt'AWT.

JfEW

El'ltOPEMf

9Dwight Lyman Moody (1837-1899),American evangelist, founded the Chicago (now

Moody) Bible Institute in 1899.
IOAta Democratic State Convention, Syracuse, N. Y. (Note in original.)
Austin, Texas

llThis was the case at the Republican nominating convention, Chicago, 1880. (Note in
original.)
Vol. 33, No.3

mer, mathematician, and physicist persecuted by the Roman Catholic church.

14Johann Faust (c. 14B0-c.I540), German
magician, astrologer, and soothsayer.
ISJanHus (1372or 1373-1415),Czech religious
leader, was critical of the sale of indulgences.

Page 41

The church and civilization are antipodal; one means authority,

the other freedom; one means conservatism, the other progress;
one means the rights of God as interpreted by the priesthood,
the other the rights of humanity as interpreted by humanity.

Luther," of the Waldenses,I7 the Huguenots.P are equally familiar instances

to the youngest student, of rebellion

against the church. These and a myriad
of others known to the historian, have
all been brought about by refusal to
accept the authority of -the church as
final. The Peasant War,19in France, the
struggles of Wat Tyler20and of Hampden21 in England, the French and the
American revolutions looking toward
equality of rights; and a thousand minor
forms of political progress have all been
opposed by the church as rebellions
against its teachings, yet all have been
marked steps in civilization. The church
and civilizationare antipodal; one means
authority, the other freedom; one means
conservatism, the other progress; one
means the rights of God as interpreted
by the priesthood, the other the rights of
humanity as interpreted by humanity.
Civilization advances by free-thought,
free speech, free men. The uprising of
the women of all peoples in assertion of
their common humanity with man, is exemplification of that fact recognized in
the Declaration of Independence, that
while patient endurance of wrongs to
which persons are accustomed, always
long borne rather than by change per-

16MartinLuther (1483-1546),German religious

leader, advocated the idea of salvation
through faith rather than through works.
17The Waldenses were a Christian sect in
France from the twelfth century forward.
Differing with the Roman Catholic church
on several points, they advocated a priesthood selected on the basis of personal merit
rather than ecclesiastical appointment.
18TheHuguenots, a Protestant sect, opposed
royal absolutism.
19The Peasant War, a general revolt of the
peasants in southern Germany between
1522 and 1525, was an attempt to establish
rights necessary to better their economic
conditions.
20WaiterTyler (d. 1381),English leader of the
Peasants' Revolt.
21JohnHampden (1594-1643), English politician, opposed government expropriations.
Page 42

haps to meet evils they know not of, its footsteps. Slavery and prostitution,
shows its absolutely certain ultimate ef- persecutions for heresy, the inquisition
fect, no matter how long delayed, in re- with its six hundred modes of torture,
bellion. A time comes in the history of the destruction of learning, the oppression of science, the systematized betrayal
souls, as of nations, when forbearance
ceases to be a virtue, and self-respecting of confiding innocence, the recognized
life is only to be retained through defi- and unrecognized polygamy of man, the
ance of and rebellion against, existing denial to woman of a right to herself, her
customs. The soul must assert its own thought, her wages, her children, to a
supremacy or die. It is not one woman, share in the government which rules
or the women of one nation that have her; to an equal part in religious instituthus suddenly shown desire to rule tions, all these and a myriad more, are
parts of what is known as christian civthemselves - to act for themselves
alone. A strange identity of thought per- ilization. Nor has the church ever been
vades all parts of the world - India, the leader in great reforms. During the
China, Japan, Russia and all of Europe, anti-slavery conflict, the American
North and South America, the vast con- Church was known as "the bulwark of
tinents of the southern seas and the isles American slavery." Its course continues
thereof, and even barbaric Africa, all the same in every great contest with
evince proof of the wide psychic under- wrong. A memorial history of the Amercurrent which seething through wom- ican Episcopal church, an extensive
en's souls, is overthrowing the civiliza- work in two volumes of seven hundred
tions built upon the force principles of pages each, published within the past
few years, devotes but seven pages to
the patriarchate, and willsoon reinstate
the reign of truth and justice. During "the Attitude of the Church during the
CivilWar," and the general refusal of the
those long ages of priestly intolerance,
of domestic and governmental tyranny, church to take part in the great struggle
in which woman seemed to accept the for national life, is referred to with comauthority of the priest as that of God, placent satisfaction. Penitentiaries and
there still existed a consciousness hard- prisons, asylums and reformatories, all
ly perceptible to herself, that she was an institutions of a repressive character
independent being to whom by virtue of which the church prides herself as havher humanity all opportunities in life be- ing built up, are no less evil than the conlonged. From century to century mothers vents, monasteries and religious orders
transmitted this scarcely developed per- belonging to it. They have all risen
through perversion of nature. Crimes
ception to daughters, until suddenly
within the past fifty years, these domi- and criminals are built up and born benant ideas woke to thought, and the cause of the great wrong first done to
women of all nations began to proclaim mothers; they are the offspring of
their same right to self-control as that church and state. Science now declares
claimed by man.
crime to be a disease, but it has not yet
discovered the primal cause of this disIt is impossible to write of the church
without noticing its connection with the ease. It is an inheritance from centuries
great systems of the world, during its of legalized crime against woman, of
course of life. The history of christen- which the church in its teachings is
dom is the history of the myriad institu- prime factor.
Woman will gain nothing by a comtions which have arisen through its
promising attitude toward the church,
teachings, or that have been sustained
by its approval. The world has not by attempt to excuse its great wrong togrown wise under it, except with a wis- ward her sex, or by palliation of its modom that is leading the purest humani- tives. On the contrary, a stern reference
tarian thought in a direction contrary to to facts, keeping the face of the world
Vol. 33, No.3

American Atheist

turned toward its past teachings, its

present attitude, is her duty. Wrongs of
omission equal in magnitude those of
commission.
Advance for woman is too well established, woman has had too much experience, has borne too much ridicule,
misrepresentation
and abuse to now
hesitate in an attack upon the stronghold of her oppression - the church.
She possesses too full knowledge of its
subtle touch upon civil law to dare leave
it alone; it has become one of woman's
first duties, one of her greatest responsibilities, to call public attention to its
false doctrines and false teachings in regard to the origin, condition and subjection of woman. She has engaged in too
many battles, weathered
too many
storms to longer hesitate in exposure of
its stupendous crimes toward one half
of humanity. Let those who fear, hide
themselves, if they will, until the storm
is past. Let those who dare, defiantly rejoice that they are called upon to bear
still more, in order that woman may be
free. A brighter day is to come for the
world, a day when the intuitions of woman's soul shall be accepted as part of
humanity's spiritual wealth; when force
shall step backward, and love, in reality,
rule the teachings of religion; and may
woman be strong in the ability and courage necessary to bring about this millennial time. The world is full of signs of the
near approach of this period; as never
before is there an arousing sense of
something deeper, holier in religion than
the christian church has given. The
world has seemingly awaited the advent
of heroic souls who once again should
dare all things for the truth. The woman
who possesses love for her sex, for the
world, for truth, justice and right, will
not hesitate to place herself upon record as opposed to falsehood, no matter
under what guise of age or holiness it appears. A generation has passed since
the great struggle began, but not until
within ten years has woman dared
attack upon the veriest stronghold of
her oppression, the Church. The state,
Austin, Texas

agent and slave of the church, has so

long united with it in suppression
of
woman's
intelligence,
has so long
preached of power to man alone, that it
has created an inherited tendency, an
inborn line of thought toward repression. Bent in this line before his birth,
man still unwittingly thinks of woman as
not quite his equal, and it requires a new
creation of mind to change his thought.
A second generation
has arisen, in
whom some slight inherited tendencies
toward recognition of a woman's right
to herself are seen. In the next generation this line of inherited thought will
have become stronger, both Church
and State more fully recognizing woman's inherent right to share in all the opportunities of life; but at what cost to all
who have taken part in the great struggle.
Has woman no wrongs to avenge
upon the church? As I look backward
through history I see the church everywhere stepping upon advancing civilization, hurling woman from the plane of
"natural rights" where the fact of her
humanity had placed her, and through
itself, and its control over the state, in
the doctrine of "revealed rights" everywhere teaching an inferiority of sex; a
created subordination
of woman to
man; making her very existence a sin;
holding her accountable
to a diverse
code of morals from man; declaring her
possessed of fewer rights in church and
in state; her very entrance into heaven
made dependent
upon some man to
come as mediator between her and the
Saviour it has preached, thus crushing
her personal, intellectual and spiritual
freedom. Looking forward, I see evidence of a conflict more severe than any
yet fought by reformation or science; a
conflict that will shake the foundations
of religious belief, tear into fragments
and scatter to the winds the old dogmas
upon which all forms of christianity are
based. It will not be the conflict of man
with man upon rites and systems; it will
not be the conflict of science upon
church theories regarding creation and
Vol. 33, No.3

eternity; it will not be the light of biology

illuminating the hypothesis of the resurrection of the body; but it will be the rebellion of one-half of the church against
those theological dogmas upon which
the very existence
of the church is
based. In no other country has the conflict between natural and revealed rights
been as pronounced
as in the United
States; and in this country where the
conflict first began, we shall see its full
and final development. During the ages,
no rebellion has been of like importance
with that of Woman against the tyranny
of Church and State; none has had its
far reaching effects. We note its beginning; its progress will overthrow every
existing form of these institutions; its
end will be a regenerated world. ~

American Atheist Press

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Page 43

Talking Back

Who needs a god, anyway?

This month's question:

"What is the purpose of
our existence if there is
no god?"

Dawn Peters, a twenty-three-yearold graduate student and Arizona

Atheist activist, explains:
On the contrary, what would be the
purpose of life ifthere is a god? According to Christian doctrine, the purpose of
our existence is clear: to serve as a
writhing, groveling, self-sacrificing ego
stroke for an invisible entity who curiously depends on such embarrassing
behavior for its well-being. Our purpose
would be to reproduce, as machines,
without pleasure (or creativity!), to ignore, and, in fact, expressly denounce
the activity of a major portion of our
.brain - the entire cerebrum. It would
be to eke out an emotionally enslaved
existence upon fearful and guilty homage to a doctrine of hatred and violence
and to endure all this in order to die and
go to "heaven," which, as we well know,
is more of the same, but "hundredfold."
Instead, I am greatly pleased that
there are no gods of any kind, so that I
can determine my own purposes and
am free to choose the values and causes
toward which I will channel my worldly
efforts. (Besides, does anyone really like
harp music, anyway?)
Kenneth J. Schmidt, a New York
musician and teacher, is very succinct in his reply:
There is no god, and since existence,
life,evolution are synonymous and inexorable, the only purpose (meaning) existence has (or needs) is existence. Enjoy.

So you're having a hard time dealing

with the religious zanies who bug you
with what you feel are stupid
questions? Talk back. Send the question you hate most and American
Atheists will provide scholarly, tart, humorous, short, belligerent, or funpoking answers. Get into the verbal
fray; it's time to "talk back" to religion.

Page 44

John N. Maguire Ill, an inventor, investor, and writer, gives his views:
It is for fun and education of our
nature and the life that surrounds us.
We have nothing better to do. Enjoy and
learn. Ultimately we have created ourselves and the universe. We are conscious
life.
Stephen H. Frey, a retired engineer
and born-again Atheist, puts it
simply:
There is no purpose - each person
must "create" his own purpose.
Vol. 33, No.3

Joyce Cassidy, technical writer and

"Canadian Atheist," answers:
What a sad lack of imagination in this
question! Just because we exist solely to
survive and reproduce, so that DNA
can duplicate itself, doesn't mean we
can't derive great pleasure and purpose
from the act of being. There is a tremendously exciting vista of knowledge, concepts, and emotions to explore once the
god assumption is put aside. The amazing complexities of evolution, the challenge of relativity theory, the attempt to
grasp the sheer vastness and age of the
universe - how can we not find purpose in this fascinating pursuit of truth?
It is truly awe-inspiring to think that life
began as a series of crude chemical reactions and has culminated in a thinking, feeling organism capable of discovering its own origins!
Gipson Arnold, national liaison officer of the Houston Chapter of American Atheists, replies:
If there is no god, then life is not an
undecipherable test that must be passed
to avoid eternal torture. A universe
without a god doesn't require that we
grovel and serve and obey. If there is no
god, then there is no mind more important than ours, so we can decide for ourselves what the purpose of our existence will be.
Christine Gervais Royal, a mother,
homemaker,
and volunteer from
Missouri, remarks:
We are simply part of the continuing
process and progression of evolution in
the animal kingdom.
Ralph B. Shirley, a retired attorney
from Washington, D.C., opines:
You must decide for yourself if you
have any goals in life and what they are.
Even if you believe in a god, it is not going to tell you what your purpose is, because the god in your imagination does
not exist.
What is the purpose of a mentally retarded person . . . to take part in the
American Atheist

What can I do to help

educate my community about Atheism?

Special Olympics? What is the purpose

of a rat . . . to be a pest to humans and
be killed in a rattrap? And what is the
purpose of a five-year-old child dying of
cancer ... to help provide an occupation for doctors and nurses?
No human or other animal has any
"ultimate" purpose, because nature is
impersonal,
nonthinking,
nonfeeling,
and nonaware.
Life comes into existence due to natural conditions, and individuals and species live or die depending on existing
conditions. Thousands of species have
become extinct and galaxies have been
destroyed, because there is no "higher"
power giving anything a purpose.

co~in

A lot! Do you have cable television in your area? If so, there

may be a public access channel willing to broadcast the
"American Atheist Forum" to your community.
The "Forum" is a thirty-minute, weekly television program
which provides an in-depth analysis of state/ church separation
issues and current events of interest to the Atheist community.
It is one of the most popular cable access programs in the u.s.
and is currently broadcast on over ninety stations nationwide.
If the "Forum" is not being shown on your local access
channel, the reason is probably because no one has taken the
initiative to request that it be aired. If you think that there
should be an alternative view to religion being broadcast in
your area, here is what you can do:
1. Contact the program manager at your local cable access

station and find out if the station accepts outside programming. (A cable access station is not the same as a PBS
station.) If it does, tell the program manager that you would
like the "American Atheist Forum" to be aired. The program
is available on whatever format (3/4 inch, VHS, Beta) the
station prefers.
2. If the station is interested, and most are, the manager will

probably request a sample tape of the "Forum." At this point,

you should call or write American Atheist GHQand request
that a sample tape be sent to you. Be sure to specify the
correct format.

erica is a
an
.he universe must have a cause
and that cause is god.
.....
Jesus died for you.
What's wrong with prayer in the
schools?
What do you think about reincarnation?
If you reject god; do you worship
the devil?
Prove there isri:~ta god.
What made you. turn from god?
Where will you go when you die?
If evolution is real, how come
monkeys aren't evolving into
human beings?
God bless you. (In reply to your
being an Atheist - not neces. sadly a sneezing Atheist.)
Separation of state and church
doesn't mean separation of religion and government. .
Why are you an Atheist?
Atheism is a dogmatic position;
agnosticism is not.
How would you talk back to
these questions? Send your reply
(limit 200 words) to:
"Talking Back"
p. O. Box 140195
Austin, TX 78714-'0195

Austin, Texas

3.

AAGHQ will promptly send you the "Forum" sample. You

should take the tape to the program manager and request
that the station review it.

4.

Hopefully, the station will recognize its obligation to provide

both sides of this very important subject, and will decide to
begin airing the weekly "Forum" program.

5. We will send the tapes each month to either the station or

you or a local person, to bring the tapes to the station once

each month.
AAGHQ has found that areas where the "Forum" is broadcast
usually enjoy strong,successful Chapters of American Atheists.
This is because the "Forum" is Atheism'S primary outreach. If
you think that you're the only Atheist in town, you're wrong!
There are others just as intelligent as you in your community.
Unfortunately, many are hiding behind closet doors, or perhaps they are simply unaware that a national Atheist organization exists. Having the "Forum" aired on your local access
channel is the best way to educate your community about
Atheism and bring other Atheists out of the closet.
For more information, write or call:
American

Atheist General Headquarters

P.O. Box 140 195
Austin, TX 78714-0195
(512) 458-1244

Vol. 33, No.3

Page 45

Poetry

The Watchtower Couple

Come to Save My Soul
The Watchtower couple
came sliding right through
my spiked-iron gate
with their hopeful pious faces
and a satchel full of redemption,
they were just aching to
ram down my throat.
But since diversion
was one of my specialties,
I parried their saccharine advances
by offering them discounted copies
of my self-published haiku.
And when they refused,
I released my Atheist cockapoo,
who shot out the door at them
like he was the devil himself.
Well, I can tell you
this ham-headed pamphlet thumper
and his mousey little wife went
backing straight into a rose bush.
They howled and waved their Watchtowers
at my nasty-tempered mutt,
who growled and snapped
and leapt up and down
like a demon on a trampoline
as he tore away the pages
with his jagged razor teeth.

Spring Ascension
Held briefly
in golden fingers,
sunrise streaks pink across
the sky and fades darkness
to a gentle exit.
Concealed among tree branches,
birds begin their waking chatter
as sky colors deepen. Breezes move
the tall-stemmed daffodils and lilies.

God of Nothing
there
is
the God of the
Philosophers
and
there
is the
God of Faith
for my own sanity
I choose
the
god of Nothing
because it
is less complicated
and it leaves my
Sundays free
for yard work

Ghost-like, steam wafts from

roofs and dark brown soil . . .
winter lies buried
in earth's sepulcher.
Songs from feathered throats
grow louder, and perfume
of hyacinths is all
that rises.
Angeline Bennett

IanA. Wood

And when I figured they'd run

out of prophecies,
I called the beast off but my zen robe fell open
exposing my devilish toy which sent the witnesses running
straight for the pearly gates.

If This Is Love
Does Jesus love the little children?
All the children of the world?
Red and yellow, black and white,
Dead and dying in the night Does Jesus love the little children of the world?

With my soul still intact,

I bent gently down to pick up
the shredded pieces of the Watchtower
which lay strewn on the sidewalk
like so many Japanese plum blossoms
after a hard spring rain.

"Yes, he loves the little children,"

True believers still insist.
Hurting and not knowing why,
All the little children cry:
"If this is love, Lord, please desist."

Donald McLeod

Emily Newland

Page 46

Vol. 33, No.3

American Atheist

American Atheist Radio Series

Christian suppression
of opinion

Laws to punish differences of

. opinion are as useless as they are
monstrous. Differences of opinion
on politics are denounced and
punished as seditious, on religious
topics as blasphemous, and on social questions as immoral and obscene. Yetthe sedition, blasphemy,
and immorality punished in one
age are often found to be the accepted, and sometimes the admired, political, religious, and social teaching of a more educated
period. Heresies are the evidence
of some attempt on the part of
men to find opinions for themselves.

the days of the early English kings, when

superstition was universal, heresy was
practically an unknown offense. There
were few in those days to speak against
a church whose authority was greater
than that of kings. There were only a few
early cases of medieval heresy in England. The first appears to have been
certain "pravi dogmatis disseminatores"
in 1165 or 1166. They were "Public ani"
and spoke German. They were condemned in a council held at Oxford to
be branded, flogged, and excommunicated, and were proscribed by the
assize of Clarendon. Of necessity, they
quitted England after making one convert. Next an Albigensian- was burned
in London in 1210. In 1222 a deacon who
had apostatized to Judaism was condemned in a council at Oxford and
burned (or hanged). Then there were
alarms about heresy in 1236 and 1240,
and royal writs were issued restraining
the action of unauthorized attempts at
persecution. Following this, there is a
record of one Richard Clapwell, who in
1286-88 was excommunicated by the
archbishop, made his way to Rome, was
silenced there, and died mad.
There were always isolated heretics,
but their daring was punished in the
spiritual courts; the heretic would be
committed to prison by the writ "de
excommunicato capiendo" until he satisfied the demands of the Church. Directly, however, heresy began to spread,
and groups or sects were formed for the
purpose of propaganda. Following the
ferocious example set by the Christian
emperors of Rome, there commenced

Bradlaugh's daughter, Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner, decided to assemble a

group of the records of persons persecuted under the laws of heresy and blasphemy in England, and I propose to give
you a few of these cases on this and
other programs. 1
What is the story of the laws against
heresy, which is to say criticism of religion, in England? When and how did this
persecution of honest opinion begin? In

IHypatia Bradlaugh Bonner, Penalties upon

Opinion: or Some Records of the Laws of
Heresy and Blasphemy (London: Watts &
Co., 1913).
2The Albigenses were an antisacerdotal and
anticlerical sect in opposition to the Roman
church. Centered in southern France during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, they
were exterminated by organized persecutions.

ne of the challenges to Atheism

which I receive over and over
again as I go to colleges and universities to speak is this:

t+J

How did Christianity

win the hearts and
minds of the people?
Not by sweet logic,
but by torture and
murder.

When the first installment of a

regularly scheduled, fifteen-minute,
weekly American Atheist radio series
on KLBJ radio (a station in Austin,
Texas, owned by then-President
Lyndon Baines Johnson) hit the
airwaves on June 3, 1968, the nation
was shocked. The programs had to be
submitted weeks in advance and were
heavily censored. The regular production of the series ended in September
1977, when no further funding was
available.
The following is the text of "American
Atheist Radio Series" program No.
360, first broadcast on September 20,
1975.

Madalyn 0'Hair
Austin, Texas

If Christianity is not good, explain why it has survived for 1,900

years and how it has captured the
hearts and minds of all of civilized
Europe, South America, and North
America in that time. If Atheism is
right, why has it not triumphed?
Well, let me bring you the record as it
is written in England as to why Atheism
has never had a prayer. The simple story
is that Christianity suppressed and
prosecuted anyone who dared to speak
against it. Charles Bradlaugh, a champion of Atheism in England at about the
time of our CivilWar, an attorney, noted
this about the laws of suppression.

Vol. 33, No.3

Page 47

During the establishment of Christianity

in the Western world, that religion's tactics of persuasion were rarely gentle. A
. sixteenth-century
German engraving
(left) depicts the execution of Anabaptists
in Munster in 1536. Though church dissident John Wycliffe (far left) escaped
such a fate himself, many of his foUowers
did not.

lj-~:..:~:~-z'"

in England an era of ruthless persecution which did not close until the early
1900s,a period of seven hundred years.
Well, if the Christians were not permitted to criticize Atheism for seven
hundred years, I wonder how much
freedom of speech would be left to them
after that time.
But let's look at the record. In England
it all began in 1378with the persecution
of Wycliffe and the Lollards," at the instance of Pope Gregory XI. It was complained that there were "divers evil persons" who "expressly despise" the censures of the Church. In order to reach
those persons, the clergy proceeded to
a measure which was without parallel in
the history of England. They forged an
act of Parliament, to which the assent of
the Lords and Commons was never expressed, which enabled the bishops to
order the arrest and imprisonment of
heretics. The Commons repudiated this
act and repealed it in the following parliament. But the bishops ignored the act
of repeal and a brisk series of prosecutions by the Church followed. However,
the power of arrest and imprisonment
which the forged act bestowed on the
ecclesiastical courts was insufficient to
satisfy religious rancor, and in the year

3The Lollards, the English followers of John

Wycliffe (c. 1330-1384), an English theologian, were widespread in that country from
the end of the fourteenth century to the beginning of the fifteenth. Advocating evangelical poverty, they rejected much of the
Roman Catholic church's attributes, such
as a hierarchical structure, special prayers,
and idol worship.
Page 48

1400still wider powers were obtained by

the Church from the new king, Henry

tv

Immediately, Arundel, archbishop of

Canterbury, called together the clergy
on January 26, 1400, with the object of
devising measures to put down the
Lollards. A petition was sent to the king,
and this petition was granted. It took a
final shape in the Statute of Heretics (de
haeretico comburendo). This statute
gave power to the bishops, at their mere
willand pleasure, to arrest and imprison
so long as their heresy should last all
preachers of heresy, all schoolmasters
infected with heresy, and all owners and
writers of heretical books. On a refusal
to abjure or in the case of a relapse after
abjuration, the heretic could be
handed over to the civilofficers, to
be taken to a high place before the
people and there to be burnt, so
that their punishment might strike
fear into the minds of others.
The actual statute, founded upon the
petition of the clergy, was enacted with
the consent of the House of Lords
alone, without any mention of the House
of Commons. The bishops were in so
great a hurry that they could not even
wait for the formal assent of the Lords,
but actually induced the king to issue a
writ for the burning of one William Sawtre .eight days before the passing of the
act. Sawtre was a clerk who had quitted
a Norfolk rectory to preach the new
doctrines of Wycliffe. In April 1399 he
was convicted of heresy by his bishop
and put to penance. On February 12,
1400,he was cited before the archbishop
Vol. 33, No.3

of Canterbury as a relapsed heretic and

convicted. His principal heresy was apparently a refusal to accept the doctrine
of transubstantiation. In fact, when interrogated by the archbishop, he did not
so much deny the transubstantiation of
the bread upon the altar into the very
body of Christ but rather refused to admit it. He was actually burned on March
2, although the act which gave the clergy power to inflict this punishment was
not passed until March 10.
In 1410one John Badby, a tailor of
Worcester, was excommunicated for
heresy by his bishop and refused to abjure. This man was burned in the presence of the Prince of Wales. The groans
of the sufferer were taken for a recantation and the prince ordered the fire to be
plucked away, but the offer of life and a
pension failed to weaken the courage of
the half-burned martyr, so he was thrust
back again into the flames.
The powers of the clergy under the
law were still further extended in 1414
under Henry V.These acts gave the clergy what was defined as "a wild and unbounded jurisdiction" over heretics, inasmuch as they contained no definition
of heresy and permitted the ordinary to
at once deliver over to the sheriff to be
burnt any person whom he found guilty
of heresy. A very large number of men
and women were burned to death under
this statute for their honesty; they suffered because they were honest enough
to avow their opinions. It is estimated
that about twenty-three thousand persons may have lost their lives, thus, before 1677,when the Statute of Heretics
was finally abolished under Charles II.
Local places have some local statistics. Between 1428and 1431,for example, in three years, in Beccles, one small
town in England, one hundred and twenty persons were examined and "sustained great vexation" for their religious
opinions. Several of them were burnt.
Well, now, suppose that in three years,
in your hometown, one hundred and
twenty persons were examined as heretics and several were burnt to death
American Atheist

because they were opposed to Atheism.

How would that sit with you?
Sometimes the offense for which heretics suffered was of the most trifling
nature. A man named Keyser was imprisoned for saying that, although he
had been excommunicated by the archbishop of Canterbury, "he was not excommunicated before God, for his corn
yielded as wellas any of his neighbours."
And another, Warner, was imprisoned
for daring to say "he was not bound to
pay tithes to the curate of the parish
where he dwelt."
The most horrendous heresy was to
deny the miraculous change in the elements at the celebration of mass. Other
points were subjects of furious controversy, but upon this those in power
seemed to hold no difference of opinion.
It was for this dreadful heresy that John
Lambert was tried before Henry VIII in
person in 1538and was burned the day
after his trial.
Henry VIII was a truly Christian king,
and under his reign punishment for heresy became even more common than
before. The fame of his piety is preserved to our day in the title of Defender of the Faith, which was bestowed
upon him by the pope, and which papal
honor has been continuously worn by
the successive kings of England down to
the present Protestant monarch.
In spite, however, of extortionate
fines, in spite of prison and the stake,
heresy - the outward and visible sign of
the strivings of human reason - continued to make its way. And as heresy
spread, so the punishments of heretics
multiplied.
Edward VI made it a misdemeanor to
deprave, despise, or condemn the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. By a later
act it was made an offense to say anything in derogation of the Book of Common Prayer; or to procure anyone to do
so; or to interrupt any minister in any
church in singing or saying common or
open prayer, or in ministering the sacrament. For the first offense the penalty
was a fine of 100 marks, or six months'
Austin, Texas

imprisonment. For the second offense

the fine was 400 marks or twelve months'
imprisonment. For the third offense the
fine was forfeiture of all the delinquent's
goods and chattels and imprisonment
for life. The laws are in force in England
today. They have never been repealed.
They are obsolete - but given the advent of church power again any time futuristically and the laws are on the
books to be used.
Now what was it that the questioners
asked? How did Christianity stay in

power if it did not win the hearts and

minds of the people? It stayed in power
by raw, brute force. It stayed in power
by killing anyone of a different opinion.
It stayed in power by completely subjugating all opinion other than that to
which it officially subscribed.
No Atheist would ever attempt such
abuse of freedom of thought or expres- .
sion. And it is for this reason that religion can have the past, and we willtake
the future. ~

"Suicide is a sin, unless, of course, 40U plan to leave all qour moneq to the church."

Vol. 33, No.3

Page 49

Under the Covers

Eunuchs for the kingdom

of heaven
he issuance of this book in De- Essen, West Germany. However, she
cember 1990 brought a flurry of did lose her chair in New Testament and
news stories across the nation Ancient Church History when she interwith the biggest splash in the New York preted the "Virgin Birth" theologically
Times. With the media's predilection of - of which more later. She is the first
"anything for a story," the book was woman to ever qualify for a religious
brought to the attention of John Cardi- chair in any German university, but on
nal O'Connor, the archbishop of New the other hand she is the daughter of the
York, by the publisher, which sent him former West German president, Gustav
an advance copy of it in November 1990. Heinemann, and her husband is a first
O'Connor reacted in his usual bombas- cousin of Poland's Roman Catholic pritic style, but with much vehemence, in mate.
a column of the weekly publication
Catholic New York which he titled "A The European response
As always with books such as this, the
Seed of Hatred." In this he said that
Doubleday was acting as a "purveyor of European market was tested first, and
hatred and scandal and malice and libel the book sold very well in Germany and
and calumny" by publishing the book. in Italy - 300,000 copies since it was
O'Connor posited his reaction in a read- first published in Germany in October
ing of the dust cover - he did not deign 1988, where it stayed on the best -seller
to open the pages of the book. Had he list for twenty months. The book has
done so he would have been in for a been No.1 of the best-selling nonfiction
traumatic afternoon of reading. None- works of Italy during 1990. But then, the
theless on his meagre knowledge he saw percentage of persons wedded to the
church in those countries is very low.
that the book was "utterly preposterous" and could openly accuse the pub- The book was also published in Great
Britain, the Netherlands, and France,
lishing house of "Catholic bashing."
Doubleday loved it and had its spokes- before a try was made in the American
market. Of course, no European theoloman issue a statement that:
gian has attacked it.
The cover, incidentally, is simply so
We are distressed and deeply
artistically gauche that it would put off
disappointed. We have never beany buyer. But for those who do pick up
fore suffered an attack like Cardithe book and read it, the contents come
nal O'Connor's in more than thirty
as a shock to any theist. Most Atheists
years of publishing religious books.
react with a "he-hum"; we have known
this for a hundred years.
Doubleday, owned by the German
The title comes from Matt. 19:12:
media giant Bertelsmann A.G., is a
prominent publisher of religious books
There are eunuchs born so
- issuing about twenty-five titles a year.
from their mother's womb, there
The rights for the book to be published
are eunuchs made so by human
in the United States cost Doubleday
agency and there are eunuchs
$28,000.
The cardinal declined to be interwho have made themselves so for
the sake of the kingdom of Heavviewed by the press, but an aide opined
en.
that Doubleday was seeking publicity.
The author is a woman and a promActually, that has little to do with the
inent German theologian. Her Ph.D. is
in [Roman] Catholic theology and she theme of the book, but apparently some
has qualified as a lecturer in her subject bright advertising executive thought
and currently holds the chair for the His- that it was "cool" and would make the
tory of Religion at the University of book sell. It does, however, have much

A German book
recently issued in the
United States explores
the history and depth
of Christianity's
aversion to human
sexuality.

Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven:

Women, Sexuality and the Catholic
Church
by Uta Ranke-Heinemann
Translated by Peter Heinegg
New York City: Doubleday
Hardback, 1990, 360 pages, $21.95.

Page 50

Vol. 33, No.3

American Atheist

to do with the Roman Catholic church's

demand that priests be celibate by sheer
will.
The book itself has thirty short chapters some of which are repetitive. The
author relies heavily on Karlheinz Deschner, a very well known German Atheist
author. American Atheists are in fact, at
this time, attempting to obtain English
translations and the right to reprint his
entire series of books. We have been in
direct telephone contact with Mr. Deschner. He could not be featured at the
American Atheist Convention in either
1990 or 1991since he speaks only German.

The staining of Mary's womb

much of Christianity is posited in it.

There are long historical antecedents
to the idea of a menstruating woman
being taboo, and the author provides a
rundown. She explores all of the contraceptive practices in those pre-Christian
days and the church's rejection of them
- as it tries to save the sperm at any
cost.

Typically,the author begins with an introduction in which she speaks of the

District Court of Hamburg finding a
magazine editor guilty of blasphemy.
She completely neglects to point out
that the law of blasphemy is used against
anyone who dares to openly challenge
the church - except persons with her The villain of the piece
There is always a villain in theology,
credentials and connections.
Up front, in couching her argument,
and in this instance the author finds that
she admits to having a hearty sexual ap- to be "the greatest of Church Fathers"
petite and then "goes to" to prove that - Saint Augustine. Well, we all know
the Roman Catholic church has really about him, don't we? Aurelius Augushad an abhorrence for such a vice at the tinus! was originally a Manichean." A
root of its theology: there can be no sex- common whoremonger, Augustine was
ual pleasure without sin.
converted to Christianity at age thirtyCoupled with this is an analysis of the three, ordained as a priest at age thirtyVirgin Birth and its consequences. Pri- seven, and consecrated as a bishop at
marily the church cannot accept that age forty-one. He then spent thirty-four
Mary's womb could ever have been years as bishop of Hippo (in modern"stained" by the presence of male day Algeria, about 100 miles west of
sperm and that even with and during Carthage). His most famous writings
birth her hymen remained intact. With are his autobiography Confessiones this as an idolatrous goal the church of and well it needed to be confessional consequence had to come up with a
hatred of both sex and the human body.
The author is a historian of the Roman
Catholic religion, and as she reveals I(November 13,354-August 28, 430), born in
eastern Numidia (modern-day Algeria).
more of the history of that church the
2Mani or Manes (216?-?276),sage in the Perreader can only be shocked at just how sian court of King Shapur I, originated
much has been kept secret. Roman Ca- Manichaeism. This religion teaches the
tholicism, of course, came out of pagan release of spirit from the clutches of matter
and Eastern religious antecedents, and through asceticism (self-denial). It is primarily
Dr. Ranke-Heinemann exposes how a salvation theology.
Austin, Texas

Vol. 33, No.3

and De Civitate Dei (City of God). Because of his own life, he came up with
contempt for or hatred of sex as a main
theme for Christianity, and the author
evaluates it thus: "Practically speaking
this meant the sexual enslavement of
women," who were given to man for his
use.
One particular chapter, on "The Evolution of Celibacy," is most revealing as
to exactly when, where, and why celibacy
for the priesthood was instituted for the
Roman Catholic clergy. One could well
buy the book for the information in this
chapter alone, so common has marriage
been among the priests of this church.
However, one compelling reason is not
given: the desire of the church to retain
control of any property of a priest,
which - if the priest were married might devolve to his widow, or children.
Two other chapters are historical and
reveal the "Celibates' Fear of Women"
as well as "The Suppression of Women
by Celibates." The synods of the church
have all issued statutes regarding rules
of living- and it has been most notably
these which have put depraved, sinridden woman in her place. The author
lists the synods so you do not need to
dig so far.

The sins of the unborn

Even more frightening is the idea that
the act of generation stains children
born of that act with original sin which is why unbaptized children cannot
enter "eternal bliss." But think of how
rare a child it is who arrives without sexual congress of the parents - the Christians allege one (J.c.), and even he was
fathered by the Holy Ghost. But, the
author points out, if one considers that
a good Christian should abstain from
sex on all Sundays, all feast days, the
forty days prior to Easter, the twenty
days prior to Christmas, the twenty
days prior to Pentecost, and three days
before receiving Communion, or during
the entire pregnancy of one's wife there isn't that much time left in which
to sin. And the sin of fornication is given
Page 51

In the case of both abortion and onanism,

perhaps what we have is the Thomist philosophy that
every ejaculation must lead to procreation - we are
simply preserving male semen.
more emphasis by the Roman Catholic
church than crimes against human lifein
war, mass murder, and through the
death penalty.
When Ranke-Heinemann turns to the
church's evaluation of women, she can
no longer contain her remarks in scholarly references.
It is astonishing how abundant1ydown through history one generation has intellectually begotten
another generation of incompetent self-styled experts, surrounded them with a divine halo, devoting substantial portions of their
lives to utter nonsense.
And then further, as she reviews it all:
Roman Catholicism . . . [this
ghetto of the male church] ... is
a follythat poses as religion and invokes the name of God .... It has
burdened [countless people] with
hairsplitting nonsense. In the name
of a supernatural world that is
alien and hostile to humanity it has
oppressed the nature and naturalness of people .... Its theology is
no theology, and its morality is no
morality. It has come to grief on its
own stupidity.

The shame
of the Angelic Doctor
Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), the Italian scholastic, also comes under the
withering eye of the author. This man
who is titled by the church as Doctor
Angelicus (the Angelic Doctor), and
Princeps Scholasticorum (Prince of
Scholastics), the Roman Catholic authority on sexual morality, she sees as
especially vile,for he sees sex as immunditia (filthiness), macula (staining),
foeditas (disgusting), and turpitudo
(shamefulness). And she characterizes
his as "nonsensical, incompetent, patronizing treatment." For Thomas (the
Thomist philosophy of the church), conjugal sex is a goal-directed secretion of
Page 52

semen to breed children - only that.

Dr. Ranke-Heinemann rails about the
church's war against contraception,
pointing out that papal decretals characterize contraception as quasi-murder
or murder. She inserts a pungent, short
history of birth control and the church.
John Paul II is a special target as she
charges him with pleasure-hating insofar as the sexual activity of married persons is concerned.
And to this day the Church
gives fictitious potential children
more protection than it gives the
real, half-grown children from the
death and hell of the battlefields, in
keeping with the intolerable, perverse [Roman] Catholic doctrine
that the actual crimes of humanity
are committed in the bedrooms of
married couples and not in the
theaters of war and the mass
graves.

ing victims to theologians. She points

out that in Roman Catholic theology the
child's baptism takes precedence over
the life of the mother. Without baptism
the child could be lost as far as eternal
salvation is concerned - and for all we
know this may be the reason for the
abortion battle today: to save the child
for baptism.
In the case of both abortion and onanism, perhaps what we have is the Thomist
philosophy that every ejaculation must
lead to procreation - we are simply preserving male semen. Thus, the proscription against masturbation, onanism,
and homosexuality - the practitioners
of which forfeit the love of god.

"A shadow of a wife

and mother"

When Uta Ranke-Heinemann stopped

in her life to praise the Virgin Mary and
to write of her contribution to mankind
in mothering J.e., she did not know
what she would find in the historical
The author misses little - as she re- annals of the church.
views the church's position on incest,
What was there was the doctrine that
impotence, satanic loves, witches, change- Mary could not give birth in the ordinary
lings, practices of the devil. She charges
female way. She was forever to remain
Saint Thomas Aquinas as "the one who a virgin, with hymen unbroken either by
contributed most to the establishment
the insertion of a penis to introduce
of the witchcraft hysteria."
semen or the expulsion of a child. The
And those who have been enchanted
traditional teaching of the church reby the famous Provincial Letters of mained steadfast:
Mary's hymen remained intact.
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) willbe horrified
to learn that when he died at thirty-nine
The birth was painless.
a hair shirt with little iron hooks was
There was no sordes (afterbirth found on his body. Pascal had worn it to filth).
punish himself as he furthered the docMary was without "the original curse."
trine of Jansenism. 3
(Gen. 3: "In pain you shall bring forth
children.") Saint Augustine had exThe salvation of the ejaculation
plained this: "She conceived without
There is also one chapter on "Abor- carnal pleasure and therefore gave birth
tion," one on "Onanism," and one on without pain." Mary had to be mater in"Homosexuality." In the former she ex- violata - and the author cannot accept
poses the dogma that would save the this.
child and kill the mother as women fallFor Uta Ranke-Heinemann,
Mary
must be above all things else a woman.
She rails about it:
3From the Dutch-born bishop of Louvain,
Belgium, Cornelis Jansen (d. 1638):Allsex is
to serve procreation only.
Vol. 33, No.3

Mary . . . was not allowed a

share in anything having to do with
American Atheist

female sexuality, in anything connected with the natural process of

conceiving and bearing a child.
She was not allowed to get her
only son through the love of a
man, it had to be the Holy Spirit,
and there could be no pleasure.
She was not allowed to bear her
son in the natural way, because
she had to remain intact in childbirth .... Thus she was turned into
a sort of sexless creature, to a
shadow of a wife and mother, ...

Dial A Minister
Dial A Pastor Dial A Prayer

Faith at odds
with church dogma
But the tragedy is that Dr. RankeHeinemann believes that there was a
Mary and that there was a J. C. and that
mankind can be redeemed through this
savior - and his mother, ifonly she can
be permitted to be real.
Mariology must live on - restored to
a record of a natural phenomenon. The
story must be sexual and female as
opposed to asexual and male as now it
is structured. As it now exists the author
sees the pope as finding himself "in a
growing shambles of outdated ideas" but she is unable to see that she herself
stands in that shambles wanting only to
rearrange it.
The author is angry with her church
- passionately and personally so. The
book is a cry of outrage. The history in
it, the analysis of Roman Catholic doctrines, the references to the church philosophers and founders are but minor
incidentals to that outrage. As a woman
she has been made cuckold to that
church. Only through long years of
study and reverence for the Virgin Mary
was she able to come to a realization
that what she held most dear was counterfeit. In this public announcement she
reveals her anguish - and yet, and yet,
she believes in god. She believes in
Jesus Christ. She believes in Christianity.
And that is the tragedy of Uta RankeHeinemann revealed in this, her book.
~
.

Austin, Texas

&

n~~"",("hp.r

------ 4
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Page "53

Letters to the Editor

Media manipulation
Today I saw on a local television station a November 1990 airing of the
"American Atheist Forum." In this
broadcast you documented the events
leading to and following the then-Vice
President Bush's comments concerning
the patriotism and citizenship of Atheists. He was not sure if Atheists were indeed citizens because the United States
of America is "one nation under God."
I was shocked.
And the runaround you received
from the White House and the everobjective media was outrageous.
I am not an Atheist, and I disagree
with many of your suppositions regarding nature, society, etc. But that's okay.
We are all entitled to our opinions - or
at least I thought so.
What concerns me the most about
your broadcast was the role of the
media. It is frightening to realize that
what we read, see, and hear on various
media is controlled and manipulated to
represent a preconceived idea of right,
wrong, good, and eviL I will not sleep
well tonight.
I wish you luck in overcoming the oppressions dictated by our society when
one chooses to be different.

"Letters to the Editor" should be either questions or comments of general

concern to Atheists or to the Atheist
community. Submissions should be
brief and to the point. Space
limitations allow that each letter
should be three hundred words or,
preferably, less. Please confine your
letters to a single issue only. Mail them
to: American Atheist, P. O. Box
140195, Austin, TX 78714-0195.

Page 54

appeal in regard to their refusal to take

the oath. But they still can't be Boy
Scouts. They are on a seesaw of winning
and losing, but mostly losing. Does this
mean they willfinallyend up in jail, as did
Robin Murray-O'Hair?
Helen E. Johnson
California
Ms. Johnson refers to a California
case involving twin Atheist Cub Scouts.
The boys were removed from Cub
Scout Pack 519 in Anaheim, California,
in January 1991 after they announced
that they did not believe in god. Further,
they refused to say the word god during
the recitation of the Cub Scout Promise,
which states:
Ipromise to do my best to do my
duty to God and my country, to
help other people and to obey the
law of the Pack.

The boys were told that it was necessary for them to make this pledge in its
entirety at every Cub Scout meeting.
Their father then sued the Cub Scouts.
In a preliminary hearing, an Orange
County Superior court ruled that the
boys could not be barred from attending
Steve Ryall the meetings but reserved its ruling on
Georgia whether the two could be expelled for
refusing to make a pledge to god. An
added facet to the situation is that the
Marlon Brando and oaths
When Marlon Brando testified at the two boys are attempting to earn a Bear
trial of his son Christian (I wonder if he merit badge, the completion of which inis), Brando refused to take the oath "So cludes religious requirements. At the
help me God," because, he said, he did time of the preliminary ruling, the court
not believe in god as such. But why did held that the badge could not be withheld from them if they refused to meet
he have to add "as such," equivocating,
as so many Atheists do, to avoid the these theistic requirements.
"Aword"? Brando accepted the court's
Fortunately, there is no chance that
allowable version of the oath, just omit- the twins would end up in jail for standing by their principles. They will probting the word god.
The two brothers, on the other hand, ably just be completely ostracized from
who openly refused to take the Cub their community. Robin Murray-O'Hair's
Scout oath including "For God and jailing was the result of her refusal to
Country," did not quaver at being called obey a judge's order that she take an
Atheist, nor did their father. They lost oath or affirmation "So help me God" in
their first bout in court but won on order to serve on a jury.
Vol. 33, No.3

American Atheist

Eliminate charitable
and religious tax deductions
. Recently I purchased some literature
from your organization. I read it with
great interest. It is nice to know that Iam
not the only nonbeliever in the country.
I believe that your organization serves
a very valuable function as a watchdog
to prevent government and religion
from getting too cozy.
However, there is one position which
you take which I find to be extreme and
possibly alienating. I refer to your position that churches should be taxed.
The ideal situation would be one in
which government neither supports nor
opposes religion. It is inconsistent for
you to intervene when there is an instance of government supporting religion - and at the same time demand
that government punish it by taxation.
The thing about the tax laws which I
have resented the most is the allowance
of deductions for religious or charitable
contributions. This has led to abuses
which are just as abundant in organized
charity as in religion. I believe that if
someone wants to give to support a particular cause or institution, it should be
because he believes that such a cause is
deserving of financial support and not
because he wants to avoid taxes.
A more reasonable position would be
to eliminate the tax deduction for contributions. The latter position is more
reasonable and achievable.
Raymond E Gawryla
Pennsylvania

The Gulf War

.I have just finished reading the last
edition of your magazine (Vol.33, No.2)
and need to let you know it was a tour
de force. It has been a while since I have
felt so in touch with reality and genuine
humanness. Our vaunted superior American culture continues to grow into an
overt military machine via friendly fascism, using the mask of Christianity to
hide its hideous face.
Thank you for your superb publication; you have my grateful support.
Jean C. Smith
California
With regard to the Gulf War, I would
like to express a different viewpoint than
the one in your last issue. Atheists are in
all shades of the political spectrum and we create some new ones! - so I
hope you willsee fit to print this alternative Atheist viewpoint.
I fellthat U.S. participation in the Gulf
War and the liberation of Kuwait was
correct and just, albeit for completely
different reasons than those proffered
by the various sides. We can dismiss the
lunatic theistic reasons right away.

There is no "god" to fight for, or who arbitrates the victor in war. Victory belongs
to the stronger and smarter force, not to
the "right" or "god-blessed" one.
Saddam Hussein is a monster, but like
Manuel Noriega he is our monster. He is
a product of the Reagan administration's policies. It was cynical opportunism that led us to arm Saddam. We are
now paying the cost of this and other
Reagan-era excesses (and willfor a long
time to come). For this reason, it was
our responsibility to deal with Saddam
when he invaded Kuwait.
There is another reason. The comparison with the rape of Austria is more
apt than the historically ignorant realize.
Austria was a clerical-fascist dictatorship. The reason why it was wrong to
allow the Anschluss is not that Austria's
government was any good. It was for the
sake of the other, future victims, starting
with democratic Czechoslovakia and
moving to most of the northern hemisphere.
Stopping Saddam Hussein now is
preferable to stopping him in Europe, or
North America. Unlike some Atheists, I
can envision something worse than living in a Christian-dominated state: living
in an Islamic (or Jewish! or Maoist! or
Hindu!) state. I would rather have none
of the loonies, but lifeis fullof choices to
determine the least undesirable of a bad
lot.
Mark Crispin
Life Member #218
Washington

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Vol. 33, No.3

American Atheist

suggested

American Atheist
introductory reading list

III
Literature on Atheism is very hard to find in most public
and university libraries in the United States - and most of
the time when you do find a book catalogued under the
word A theism it is a work against the Atheist position.
Therefore we suggest the following publications which are
available from American Atheist Press as an introduction
into the multifaceted areas of Atheism and state/church separation. To achieve the best understanding
of thought in
these areas the featured publications should be read in the
order listed. These by no means represent our entire collection of Atheist and separationist materials.

1. All the Questions You Ever Wanted to Ask American

Atheists with All of the Answers by Jon Murray and
Madalyn

O'Hair.

Paperback.

248 pp. #5356

$9.00

12. History's Greatest Liars by Joseph

3. What on Earth Is an Atheist! by Madalyn

Paperback.

288 pp. #5412

$4.00
O'Hair.
$8.00

4. An Atheist Speaks by Madalyn O'Hair. Paperback.

pp. #5098

5. All about Atheists by Madalyn O'Hair. Paperback.

pp. #5097

321
$8.00

Ingersoll.

342 pp. #5216

$10.00

349 pp. #5349

15. Our Constitution O'Hair.

8. Essays on American Atheism, vol. II by Jon G. Murray. Paperback.

284 pp. #5350

$10.00

9. Essays in Freethinking, vol. I by Chapman

Paperback.

229 pp. #5052

10. Essays in Freethinking, vol. II by Chapman

Paperback.

240 pp. #5056

Cohen.
$9.00
Cohen.
$9.00

II. Life Story of Auguste Comte by F. J. Gould. Paperback. 179 pp. #5132
$6.50

$4.00

The Way It Was by Madalyn

Stapled. 70 pp. #5400

$4.00

16. Religion and Marx by Rick B. A. Wise. Paperback.

267
$12.00

pp. #5521

17. Fourteen Leading Cases on Education, Religion, and

Financing Schools. Paperback. 273 pp. #5500
$5.00
18. Sex Mythology

by Sha

Rocco.

Stapled.

#5440

55 pp.
$4.00

19. Women and Atheism, The Ultimate Liberation by

Madalyn O'Hair. Stapled. 21 pp. #5420
$3.50
20. Christianity Before Christ by John G. Jackson.
back. 238 pp. #5200

Paper$9.00

21. The Bible Handbook (All the contradictions,

absurdities, and atrocities from the Bible) by G.W. Foote, W.P.

Ball, John Bowden, and Richard M. Smith. Paperback.
372 pp. #5008
$9.00

22. The X- Rated Bible by Ben Edward

back. 428 pp. #5000

$10.00

$4.00

soll. Stapled. 37 pp. #5184

7. Essays on American Atheism, vol. I by Jon G. Murray.

Paperback.

Stapled. 57 pp. #5156

14. Some Reasons I Am a Freethinker by Robert G. Inger-

407
$8.00

6. Ingersoll the Magnificent by Joseph Lewis. Paperback.

Paper$6.50

13. Atheist Truth vs. Religion's Ghosts by Col. Robert G.

2. The Case Against Religion: A Psychotherapist's View

by Dr. Albert Ellis. Stapled. 57 pp. #5096

McCabe.

back. 176 pp. #5524

Akerley.

Paper$10.00

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Amendment I
Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise
thereof; or abridging the freedom of
speech, or of the press; or the right
of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government
for a redress of grievances.

"[D]o not allow the Church or the State, to govern your thought or dictate your judgment."
-

Matilda Joslyn Gage

Woman, Church, and State