To the editor:
The questions raised by the ACLU's prayer suit seem thorny and tangled because they involve two interrelated and complex issues: the issue of the unconstitutional establishment of religion and the issue of the proper constraints that may be imposed on the free exercise of religion in a community setting.With respect to the first issue, it seems clear that for state-supported schools to allow only one church or one religion to offer prayers at school-sponsored events constitutes an establishment of religion contrary to the guarantees of the First Amendment.
On the other hand, to ban all prayers at such functions would constitute favoritism for the views of those who hold that God and religion are bunk.
The only proper alternative seems to be religious accommodation - to allow the adherents of all world views, including theists, atheists, agnostics and secularists, to pray or otherwise participate in graduation exercises on a rotating basis.
The free exercise of religion, like the freedom of speech, is not absolute - though in my opinion it is nearly absolute. The time, place and manner of the practice of religion at state-sponsored civic activities ought to be subject to limited constraints that only slightly burden the religious minority in order to preserve the integrity of the community activity in question.
As taxpayers we spend a great deal on our public schools with the expectation that public education will prepare students to be better adults and citizens.
As part of this preparation, students may be expected to learn to tolerate, accommodate and respect other world views, to grant others the same religious liberties they claim for themselves, and to accord the belief structures of others the same dignity before the law that they reserve for their own.
There is no reason why our public schools should not reflect in microcosm the very pluralism vouchsafed to the entire nation in its founding documents.
Paul J. Toscano, attorney
Salt Lake City