Religious Liberties Should Be Restored

In response to Benjamin Hubbard’s commentary on religion in schools (“More Awareness--Not an Equality Amendment--Is Needed,” Oct. 1), the concern of many conservative Christians is to undo about 50 years of “bad” rulings by our court system that have effectively created a religious apartheid in society--not just in public schools.

The Supreme Court decision of 1962 which held that the First Amendment prohibits students in public schools from reciting a brief prayer at the start of the school day was merely the first in a long series of damaging decisions that have resulted in religious hostility and discrimination. Since the Clinton Administration’s guidelines on student religious activities that are permitted under the First Amendment, 19 cases of discrimination on the basis of religion have been filed in different courts.

Many incidents have proven that there is a definite anti-Christian bias within the governmental system. For example, a Feb. 7, 1995, letter circulated from the Laguna Niguel regional office of the Internal Revenue Service singled out any form of Christian expression as prohibited. In late 1993, the EEOC implemented guidelines that would have declared an expression of faith to be equal with sexual harassment in creating a “hostile” workplace. It was only after a tremendous grass-roots effort and an act of Congress that the EEOC backed down. The ugly cancer of religious apartheid keeps reappearing in our governmental body.

If Americans are to reverse this destructive trend of government hostility toward religious expression, abolish discrimination against religious activity and people of faith, and restore true government accommodation toward religious belief, all ambiguity with regard to the Constitution and the First Amendment must be eliminated.

This can only be done with a constitutional amendment, [because] we have strayed so far from the original intentions of the our nation’s founders. The Religious Equality Amendment will accomplish two main objectives:

* Extend to religious expression the same protections currently enjoyed under the law by other forms of non-religious public expression.

* Put an end to the practice of denying generally available governmental benefits to persons and organizations based on their religious affiliations or beliefs.

The Religious Equality Amendment seeks to restore the precious religious liberties that our forebears crossed the ocean and fought a revolution to establish.

THE REV. LOUIS P. SHELDON

Chairman, Traditional Values Coalition

Anaheim