Invoke God? You Haven’t Got a Prayer

The prayer police are at it again.

Thank God--oops, careless choice of words--that we are protected by patriots who will not rest in their determination to ensure that America’s children are constitutionally protected against prayer that could poison minds and bring down the republic.

What follows is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me, uh, God.

In California’s prep school version of March Madness, Sacramento’s Grant High School boys basketball team recently made it to the state championship finals--a game away from the glory of being No. 1. After the game, the boys and their coach intended to ask their opponents to join them in prayer, as had been their practice over the past two years.

Not this time. After the Sacramento Bee ran a photo of Coach Tony Lowden and his team huddled in prayer after a regular-season game, the prayer police swung into action. Rumored to have been tipped off by one of the coach’s detractors, the Americans United for Separation of Church and State based in Washington, D.C., shot off a threat to the Grant Joint Union High School District warning of “a gross violation of constitutional limitations.”

Describing this scary assault on constitutional virtues was Ayesha Kahn, litigation counsel for the D.C. zealots, who told the Bee that “once the coach gets involved, it sends the message that the school supports the prayer, and that is a problem.”

So what was this “problem”?

Stephen Walton, the team’s co-captain and the son of a pastor, initiated the sessions last year in the wake of a seven-game losing streak. The prayers were voluntary and led by the students. The coach and his players further argued that because they were all Christians, no one’s personal beliefs were at stake.

Other area coaches acknowledged they too had been praying with their teams and with Grant’s. One noted that the controversy was “silly” and another that the joint prayers were not only good sportsmanship but “a way to draw kids of all religions and races together.”

Grant High is in a predominantly African American community, and the after-game prayers--according to Walton--have brought them together with predominantly white teams. After intense games, he noted, “we have an opportunity to come together and join hands as friends, as brothers, almost.”

Brotherhood. Now that has the ugly whiff of a “gross” constitutional violation.

After lawyer Kahn and her righteous band of prayer detectives fired off their threatening letter, the school superintendent caved and told Coach Lowden (also African American) he could not coach the championship game if he prayed with his players. The superintendent’s lame response: “God knows, I believe in prayer too. But I have to protect the district and the Constitution.” Note his invocation of the “G” word in the crusade to save Sacramento kids from the subversion of prayer.

Then there’s the rationale of one Charles Haynes, with his fancy title of senior scholar for religious freedom at the Freedom Forum’s First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University. (I pray I got the title right.) The coach is an authority figure, said Haynes. “He decides who plays and who doesn’t play. What student is going to say, ‘I don’t want to pray’ if the coach is holding hands in prayer and risk losing playing time or the respect of other members of the team?”

Haynes surely doesn’t know much about basketball. No sane coach would risk losing a game in favor of enforcing postgame head-bowing. By the way, the mighty--but prayerless--Pacers of Grant High lost the championship.

Our Constitution gives a murderer the right to counsel, allows the Nazi party to march tauntingly in a Jewish community and protects a woman’s right to an abortion. The Congress opens each day’s session with prayer, our judicial system is grounded in oaths to God, and our trust in the Almighty is openly touted on currency and coin. However, our school superintendents have a better shot at handing out condoms than prayer.

Onetime California U.S. Senate candidate Bruce Herschensohn proposed this sensible amendment to the U.S. Constitution: “Neither the United States nor any state has the authority to prohibit or mandate observances of religion, including any prayer anywhere.”

Freedom to pray. Freedom not to pray. Sounds sinister--just like brotherhood.

Kenneth L. Khachigian is a veteran political strategist and former White House speech writer who practices law in Orange County. His column appears here every other week.