Fighting the Religious Coercion Amendment
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
July 12, 1995
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT ON RELIGIOUS LIBERTY IN AMERICA
James Madison High School
Vienna, Virginia
THE PRESIDENT:... Today I want to talk about a conversation -- abou t a subject that
can provoke a fight in nearly any country town or on any city street corner in America --
religion. It's a subject that should not drive us apart. And we have a mechanism as old as
our Constitution for bringing us together.
This country, after all, was founded by people of profound faith who mentioned Divine
Providence and the guidance of God twice in the Declaration of Independence. They
were searching for a place to express their faith freely without persecution. We take it
for granted today that that's so in this country, but it was not always so. And it certainly
has not always been so across the world. Many of the people who were our first settlers
came here primarily because they were looking for a place where they could practice
their faith without being persecuted by the government.
Here in Virginia's soil, as the Secretary of Education has said, the oldest and deepest
roots of religious liberty can be found. The First Amendment was modeled on Thomas
Jefferson's Statutes of Religious Liberty for Virginia. He thought so much of it that he
asked that on his gravestone it be said not that he was President, not that he had been
Vice President or Secretary of State, but that he was the founder of the University of
Virginia, the author of the Declaration of Independence and the author of the Statues of
Religious Liberty for the state of Virginia.
And of course, no one did more than James Madison to put the entire Bill of Rights in
our Constitution, and especially, the First Amendment
Religious freedom is literally our first freedom. It is the first thing mentioned in the
Declaration of Independence. And as it opens, it says Congress cannot make a law that
either establishes a religion or restricts the free exercise of religion. Now, as with every
provision of our Constitution, that law has had to be interpreted over the years, and it has
in various ways that some of us agree with and some of us disagree with. But one thing is
indisputable: the First Amendment has protected our freedom to be religious or not
religious, as we choose, with the consequence that in this highly secular age the United
States is clearly the most conventionally religious country in the entire world, at least the
entire industrialized world.
We have more than 250,000 places of worship. More people go to church here every
week, or to synagogue, or to a mosque or other place of worship than in any other
country in the world. More people believe religion is directly important to their lives than
in any other advanced, industrialized country in the world. And it is not an accident. It is
something that has always been a part of our life.
I grew up in Arkansas which is, except for West Virginia, probably the state that's most
heavily Southern Baptist Protestant in the country. But we had two synagogues and a
Greek Orthodox church in my hometown. Not so long ago in the heart of our agricultural
country in Eastern Arkansas one of our universities did a big outreach to students in the
Middle East, and before you know it, out there on this flat land where there was no
building more than two stories high, there rose a great mosque. And all the farmers from
miles around drove in to see what the mosque was like and try to figure out what was
going on there. (Laughter.)
This is a remarkable country. And I have tried to be faithful to that tradition that we have
of the First Amendment. It's something that's very important to me
Secretary Riley mentioned when I was at Georgetown, Georgetown is a Jesuit school, a
Catholic school. All the Catholics were required to teach theology, and those of us who
weren't Catholic took a course in world's religion, which we called Buddhism for Baptists.
(Laughter.) And I began a sort of love affair with the religions that I did not know
anything about before that time.
It's a personal thing to me because of my own religious faith and the faith of my family.
And I've always felt that in order for me to be free to practice my faith in this country, I
had to let other people be as free as possible to practice theirs, and that the government
had an extraordinary obligation to bend over backwards not to do anything to impose any
set of views on any group of people or to allow others to do it under the cover of law.
That's why I was very proud -- one of the proudest things I've been able to do as
President was to sign into law the Religious Freedom Restoration Act in 1993. And it was
designed to reverse the decision of the Supreme Court that essentially made it pretty
easy for government, in the pursuit of its legitimate objectives, to restrict the exercise of
people's religious liberties. This law basically said -- I won't use the legalese -- the
bottom line was that if the government is going to restrict anybody's legitimate exercise
of religion they have to have an extraordinarily good reason and no other way to achieve
their compelling objective other than to do this. You have to bend over backwards to
avoid getting in the way of people's legitimate exercise of their religious convictions.
That's what that law said...
..l. Now what I want to talk to you about for a minute is that our Founders understood
that religious freedom basically was a coin with two sides. The Constitution protected the
free exercise of religion, but prohibited the establishment of religion. It's a careful
balance that's uniquely American. It is the genius of the First Amendment. It does not, as
some people have implied, make us a religion-free country. It has made us the most
religious country in the world.
First of all, let me tell you a little about my personal history. Before the Supreme Court's
decision in Engel against Vitale, which said that the state of New York could not write a
prayer that had to be said in every school in New York every day, school praye r was as
common as apple pie in my hometown. And when I was in junior high school, it was my
responsibility either to start every day by reading the Bible or get somebody else to do it.
Needless to say, I exerted a lot of energy in finding someone else to do it from time to
time, being a normal 13-year-old boy.
Now, you could say, well, it certainly didn't do a ny harm; it might have done a little good.
But remember what I told you. We had two synagogues in my hometown. We also had
pretended to be deeply religious and there were no blacks in my school, they were in a
segregated school. And I can tell you that all of us who were in there doing it never gave
a second thought most of the time to the fact that we didn't have blacks in our schools
and that there were Jews in the classroom who were probably deeply offended by half the
stuff we were saying or doing -- or maybe made to feel inferior.
I say that to make the point that we have not become less religious over the last 30 years
by saying that schools cannot impose a particular religion, even if it's a Christian religion
and 98 percent of the kids in the schools are Christian and Protestant. I'm not sure the
Catholics were always comfortable with what we did either. We had a big Catholic
population in my school and in my hometown. But I did that -- I have been a part of this
debate we are talking about. This is a part of my personal life experience. So I have seen
a lot of progress made and I agreed with the Supreme Court's original decision in Engel
v. Vitale.
Now, since then, I've not always agreed with every decision the Supreme Court made in
the area of the First Amendment. I said the other day I didn't think the decision on the
prayer at the commencement, where the Rabbi was asked to give the nonsectarian
prayer at the commencement -- I didn't agree with that because I didn't think it any
coercion at all. And I thought that people were not interfered with. And I didn't think it
amounted to the establishment of a religious practice by the government. So I have not
always agreed.
But I do believe that on balance, the direction of the First Amendment has been very
good for America and has made us the most religious country in the world by keeping the
government out of creating religion, supporting particular religions, interfering, and
interfering with other people's religious practices.
What is giving rise to so much of this debate today I think is two things. One is the
feeling that the schools are special and a lot of kids are in trouble, and a lot of kids are in
trouble for nonacademic reasons, and we want our kids to have good values and have a
good future.
So let me tell you what I think the law is and what we're trying to do about it, since I like
the First Amendment, and I think we're better off because of it, and I think that if you
have two great pillars -- the government can't establish and the government can't
interfere with -- obviously there are going to be a thousand different factual cases that
will arise at any given time, and the courts from time to time will make decisions that we
don't all agree with, but the question is, are the pillars the right pillars, and do we more or
less come out in the right place over the long run
The Supreme Court is like everybody else, it's imperfect -- and so are we. Maybe they're
right and we're wrong. But we are going to have these differences. The fundamental
balance that has been struck it seems to me has been very good for America, but what is
not good today is that people assume that there is a positive-antireligious bias in the
cumulative impact of these court decisions with which our administration -- the Justice
Department and the Secretary of Education and the President -- strongly disagree. So let
me tell you what I think the law is today and what I have instructed the Department of
Education and the Department of Justice to do about it.
The First Amendment does not -- I will say again -- does not convert our schools into
religion-free zones. If a student is told he can't wear a yarmulke, for example, we have an
obligation to tell the school the law says the student can, most definitely, wear a
yarmulke to school. If a student is told she cannot bring a Bible to school, we have to tell
the school, no, the law guarantees her the right to bring the Bible to school
There are those who do believe our schools should be value-neutral and that religion has
no place inside the schools. But I think that wrongly interprets the idea of the wall
between church and state. They are not the walls of the school.
There are those who say that values and morals and religions have no place in public
education; I think that is wrong. First of all, the consequences of having no values are not
neutral. The violence in our streets -- not value neutral. The movies we see aren't value
neutral. Television is not value neutral. Too often we see expressions of human
degradation, immorality, violence and debasement of the human soul that have more
influence and take more time and occupy more space in the minds of our young people
than any of the influences that are felt at school anyway. Our schools, therefore, must be
a barricade against this kind of degradation. And we can do it without violating the First
Amendment.
I am deeply troubled that so many Americans feel that their faith is threatened by the
mechanisms that are designed to protect their faith. Over the past decade we have seen
a real rise in these kind of cultural tensions in America. Some people even say we have a
culture war. There have been books written about culture war, the culture of disbelief, all
these sort of trends arguing that many Americans genuinely feel that a lot of our social
problems today have arisen in large measure because the country led by the government
has made an assault on religious convictions. That is fueling a lot of this debate today
over what can and cannot be done in the schools
Much of the tension stems from the idea that religion is simply not welcome at all in what
Professor Carter at Yale has called the public square. Americans feel that instead of
celebrating their love for God in public, they're being forced to hide their faith behind
closed doors. That's wrong. Americans should never have to hide their faith. But some
Americans have been denied the right to express their religion and that has to stop. That
has happened and it has to stop. It is crucial that government does not dictate or demand
specific religious views, but equally crucial that government doesn't prevent the
expression of specific religious views.
When the First Amendment is invoked as an obstacle t o private expression of religion it
is being misused. Religion has a proper place in private and a proper place in public
because the public square belongs to all Americans. It's especially important that parents
feel confident that their children can practice religion. That's why some families have
been frustrated to see their children denied even the most private forms of religious
expression in public schools. It is rare, but these things have actually happened.
I know that most schools do a very good job of protecting students' religious rights, but
some students in America have been prohibited from reading the Bible silently in study
hall. Some student religious groups haven't been allowed to publicize their meetings in
the same way that nonreligious groups can. Some students have been prevented even
from saying grace before lunch. That is rare, but it has happened and it is wrong.
Wherever and whenever the religious rights of children are threatened or suppressed, we
must move quickly to correct it. We want to make it easier and more acceptable for
people to express and to celebrate their faith.
Now, just because the First Amendment sometimes gets the balance a little bit wrong in
specific decisions by specific people doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the First
Amendment. I still believe the First Amendment as it is presently written permits the
American people to do what they need to do. That's what I believe) Let me give you
some examples and you see if you agree.
First of all, the First Amendment does not require students to leave their religion at the
schoolhouse door. We wouldn't want students to leave the values they learn from
religion, like honesty and sharing and kindness, behind the schoolhouse door -- behind at
the schoolhouse door, and reinforcing those values is an important part of every school's
mission.
Some school officials and teachers and parents believe that the Constitution forbids any
religious expression at all in public schools. That is wrong. Our courts have made it clear
that that is wrong. It is also not a good idea. Religion is too important to our history and
our heritage for us to keep it out of our schools. Once again, it shouldn't be demanded,
but as long as it is not sponsored by school officials and doesn't interfere with othe r
children's rights, it mustn't be denied.
For example, students can pray privately and individually whenever they want. They can
say grace themselves before lunch. There are times when they can pray out loud
together. Student religious clubs in high schools can and should be treated just like any
other extracurricular club. They can advertise their meetings, meet on school grounds,
use school facilities just as other clubs can. When students can choose to read a book to
themselves, they have every right to read the Bible or any other religious text they want.
Teachers can and certainly should teach about religion and the contributions it has made
to our history, our values, our knowledge, to our music and our art in our country and
around the world, and to the development of the kind of people we are. Students can also
pray to themselves -- preferably before tests, as I used to do. (Laughter.)
Students should feel free to express their religion and their beliefs in homework, through
art work, during class presentations, as long as it's relevant to the assignment. If
students can distribute flyers or pamphlets that have nothing to do with the school, they
can distribute religious flyers and pamphlets on the same basis. If students can wear
T-shirts advertising sports teams, rock groups or politicians, they can also wear T-shirts
that promote religion. If certain subjects or activities are objectionable to their students
or their parents because of their religious beliefs, then schools may, and sometimes they
must, excuse the students from those activities...
...It is in that spirit that I am today directing the Secretary of Education and the Attorney
General to provide every school district in America before school starts this fall with a
detailed explanation of the religious expression permitted in schools, including all the
things that I've talked about today. I hope parents, students, educators and religious
leaders can use this directive as a starting point. I hope it helps them to understand their
differences, to protect student's religious rights, and to find common ground. I believe we
can find that common ground.
This past April a broad coalition of religious and legal groups -- Christian and Jewish,
conservative and liberal, Supreme Court advocates and Supreme Court critics -- put
themselves on the solution side of this debate. They produced a remarkable document
called "Religion in Public Schools: A Joint Statement of Current Law." They put aside
their deep differences and said, we all agree on what kind of religious expression the law
permits in our schools. My directive borrows heavily and gratefully from their wise and
thoughtful statement. This is a subject that could have easily divided the men and women
that came together to discuss it. But they moved beyond their differences and that may
be as important as the specific document they produced...
... I will say again, the First Amendment is a gift to us. And the Founding Fathers wrote
the Constitution in broad ways so that it could grow and change, but hold fast to certain
principles. They knew -- they knew that all people were fallible and would make mistakes
from time to time. And I have -- as I said, there are times when the Supreme Court
makes a decision, if I disagree with it, one of us is wrong. There's another possibility:
both of us could be wrong. (Laughter.) That's the way it is in human affairs
But what I want to say to the American people and what I want to say to you is that
James Madison and Thomas Jefferson did not intend to drive a stake in the heart of
religion and to drive it out of our public life. What they intended to do was to set up a
system so that we could bring religion into our public life and into our private life without
any of us telling the other what to do.
This is a big deal today. One county in America, Los Angeles County, has over 150
different racial and ethnic groups in it -- over 150 different. How many religious views do
you suppose are in those groups? How many? Every significant religion in the world is
represented in significant numbers in one American county, and many smaller religious
groups -- in one American county.
We have got to get this right. We have got to get this right. And we have to keep this
balance. This country needs to be a place where religion grows and flourishes.
Don't you believe that if every kid in every difficult neighborhood in America were in a
religious institution on the weekends, the synagogue on Saturday, a church on Sunday, a
mosque on Friday, don't you really believe that the drug rate, the crime rate, the violence
rate, the sense of self-destruction would go way down and the quality of the character of
this country would go way up? (Applause.)
But don't you also believe that if for the last 200 years we had had a state governed
religion, people would be bored with it, I think that it would -- (laughter and applause) --
they would think it had been compromised by politicians, shaved around the edges,
imposed on people who didn't really content to it, and we wouldn't have 250,000 houses of
worship in America? (Applause.) I mean, we wouldn't.
It may be perfect -- imperfect, the First Amendment, but it is the nearest thing ever
created in any human society for the promotion of religion and religious values because it
left us free to do it. And I strongly believe that the government has made a lot of
mistakes which we have tried to roll back in interfering with that around the edges.
That's what the Religious Freedom Restoration Act is all about. That's what this
directive that Secretary Riley and the Justice Department and I have worked so hard on
is all about. That's what our efforts to bring in people of different religious views are all
about. And I strongly believe that we have erred when we have rolled it back too much.
And I hope that we can have a partnership with our churches in many ways to reach out
to the young people who need the values, the hope, the belief, the convictions that comes
with faith, and the sense of security in a very uncertain and rapidly changing world.
But keep in mind we have a chance to do it because of the heritage of America and the
protection of the First Amendment. we have to get it right.
Thank you very much. (Applause.)
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