A Tale From the Ongoing Spiritual War

A funny thing happened a few weeks back when I asked Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-Santa Clarita) about the progress of the so-called “Religious Freedom Amendment,” which McKeon co-sponsored.

McKeon and I had discussed school prayer before, and I was curious why two members of a church that seems like a living, breathing monument to the 1st Amendment guarantee of religious freedom would want to tinker with the American Constitution.

Both McKeon and Rep. Ernest Istook (R-Okla.), the bill’s author, are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It puzzled me that Mormon politicians would ally themselves with a cause that is strongly identified with the sort of fundamentalist Christians who may not regard Mormons as true Christians at all.

At any rate, McKeon seemed to have forgotten his position on Istook’s measure. An aide retrieved some paperwork, and as McKeon read it, a look of puzzlement gave way to a bemused grin.

Yes, he was indeed a co-sponsor.

But when the majority whip had asked him how he planned to vote, McKeon had marked himself down as “leaning no.”

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Ultimately, McKeon voted yes. The final tally earlier this month was 224-203--a distant 65 votes short of the two-thirds required for a proposed amendment to pass the House. So ended this little skirmish in America’s long-running spiritual war.

McKeon’s earlier ambivalence, however, seems more meaningful, more appropriate and even more typically American. America, a promised land to so many, has always valued religious freedom and has always struggled with what is and isn’t kosher, constitutionally speaking.

Look inside your wallet. “In God We Trust” says the money printed by the Treasury of a nation that treasures the separation of church and state. The U.S. Supreme Court, while forbidding organized prayer in public schools, doesn’t mind a pledge of allegiance to the flag of “one nation, under God,” as if this doesn’t trample on the rights of atheist Americans.

Buck McKeon and Ernest Istook, meanwhile, belong to a home-grown American church that considers the U.S. Constitution to be divinely inspired. America’s promise of religious freedom created the opportunity for the prophet Joseph Smith to act on his visions in the 1820s. Smith and his followers often experienced persecution at the hands of rival Christians. Smith, himself, was killed by a mob before Brigham Young led the Mormons to the isolation of Utah.

McKeon and Istook spring from a church that abandoned its isolationist ways and has moved in fits and starts toward the American mainstream. The church’s formal repudiation of polygamy in 1890 was a major step in a pattern of assimilation. Only 20 years ago the church took another important step by allowing black men to become full members of the lay priesthood.

To an extent, Istook’s initiative may reflect part of the assimilationist spirit that has helped the church grow to 5 million members in the United States and 10 million worldwide. The Mormon church itself, however, took no stand on his proposal.

Elbert Eugene Peck, publisher and editor of the Mormon intellectual journal Sunstone, is one who freely discusses the “embarrassing questions” that history raises for his church. Peck, for one, wishes his church’s experience with persecution would foster an attitude that is “more tolerant, more live-and-let-live.”

The Mormons, indeed, share common ground with the Roman Catholic Church and fundamentalist Protestant sects in their stance toward homosexuality, as well as other social issues.

“The great irony is they don’t really champion minorities,” Peck says of his church. “They don’t champion the same rights they claim for themselves. What fundamentalist Christians say about gays--that they’re immoral--is exactly what they said about the Mormons in the 1800s.”

Istook argued that his measure would simply afford religious speech the same protection as nonreligious speech in schools or on other public property. The amendment, supporters said, would address such incidents as courts banning prayers at commencement ceremonies and restricting Nativity scenes and caroling on public property.

Critics of the measure said the 1st Amendment was strong and sufficient. “A horrible solution in search of a problem” is how one critic described it. The Clinton administration, among others, was quick to point out that students are free to engage in voluntary prayer at school, may say grace at lunch and meet in religious groups before and after school. Among the unintended consequences, critics suggested, could be that it would allow government to endorse religious messages and permit taxes to flow toward religious purposes.

Buck McKeon, when he was a co-sponsor “leaning no,” had another reason for his ambivalence.

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Inside his office, McKeon pointed to the passage stating that “the people’s right . . . to recognize their religious beliefs, heritage or traditions on public property, including schools, shall not be infringed.”

These words had given McKeon pause. He said he worried what sort of cults might be allowed on campus and remembered, specifically, the Canyon Country couple who made headlines some years back with an unorthodox “church” of their own. Their beliefs incorporated a kind of absolution, a cleansing of the soul, achieved through sex with the high priestess (and a donation).

The high priestess and her husband called it the Church of the Most High Goddess. Vice detectives, meanwhile, called it prostitution.

Can I get a witness from the congregation?

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Scott Harris’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Readers may write to him at The Times’ Valley Edition, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth, CA 91311, or via e-mail at scott.harris@latimes.com. Please include a phone number.