In rural Louisiana, ministers wield heft in school-prayer fight
“The ACLU defends pedophiles,” says the pastor of Crossgate Church. “You have to understand where they’re coming from.”
Husser sees education, like most everything else, in terms of “absolutes” — either his side or the other prevails. Right now, he’s looking good: Officials in Tangipahoa Parish, the latest battleground in the national war over religion in school, are listening to him.
They are listening to other ministers too, many of them, in this pastoral exurb of New Orleans where churches are as abundant as tall pines. The preachers want the ACLU to go home, and let the school board kick off deliberations with a lengthy prayer mentioning Jesus.
It did this for decades — until the ACLU and a parent objected, in 2003. The civil liberties group, backed in February by a federal judge in New Orleans, says the practice violates the Constitution’s ban against government sanctioning of one religious doctrine over another.
But the board here is not giving up. It is pressing the case to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
It’s a fight like many others, in other places, over the last two decades: What place should religion — prayer — have in school functions?
Yet here, in a contemporary twist, evangelical ministers are making their weight felt, in line with their newfound influence on broader stages elsewhere.
The board first turned away help from a heavyweight Christian legal group. But when some 500 church members showed up, shepherded by dozens of ministers — and with Husser helping to lead the way — the board changed its mind: the Alliance Defense Fund’s aid would be sought.
There are no prayers in the school board room while the appeal is pending, but ministers take turns praying outside, as Rev. Brian Strickland did this week when he bowed his head to celebrate the defense fund’s advent: “We thank you, Lord, for just allowing them to come on board.”
Inside, Rev. Husser’s daughter Danielle was invited by the school board to give the “patriotic song,” which followed the “patriotic reading,” which followed the Pledge of Alliance.
The school board retreated to a private room to discuss the ACLU, and came out fighting. It has been battling the rights group for more than 10 years, first over a classroom warning against evolution, then over a minister who delivered pizza and sermons to students at lunch, and then over prayers at football games and board meetings.
It has lost each time, with no apparent political cost. One board member was re-elected after a letter critical of prayer’s prevalence, written by his Jewish opponent, was circulated, with a scrawled note casting her as an outsider.
Husser says board members often come to him for advice. “We have a good relationship with them,” he says, speaking in his office behind the giant corrugated-metal ark that houses his church of 600. He had “just kind of skimmed over” Judge Ginger Berrigan’s 25-page opinion, but felt certain it was dead wrong. And like others here, he was angered that Berrigan, a former ACLU board member, hadn’t recused herself.
In a ruling that drew on history and legal precedent, the judge noted the “great irony” of Americans, fleeing religious persecution, then working to establish religious dominance for their own sect.
Husser, however, feels certain he speaks for the majority. “We’re community leaders,” he said. “We serve the community. We’re in touch with the community. We share their values.”
Depth of religious sentiment in Tangipahoa is not in question.
In the cafeteria at Loranger High School, a thumbprint machine to identify students has aroused the ire of parents who think the machine “is a forerunner of the Antichrist,” Husser said.
“We know that there are electronic devices that will be used in the End-Time by the Antichrist,” the minister said. “Some feel that it is leading into some of the tactics of the Antichrist, which is a cashless system.”
The ACLU’s plaintiff, fearful of harassment and retribution — he has his children in the schools — disguises himself as “John Doe.” The rights group won’t allow interviews with him. A sign on the way into the parish seat reads: “Jesus is Lord over Amite,” and the ACLU is definitely not popular.
“It’s taken away our freedom of expression, our right to choose our beliefs,” said Robert Allen, watching his son play baseball at Loranger. “The people opposing it have their rights, but do they have the right to impose their beliefs on someone else?”
Meanwhile, the beliefs of people continue to pop up regularly here, including in the 18,000-student school district — to the anger of the ACLU, which has filed four contempt-of-court motions saying Tangipahoa is violating a 2004 settlement.
“It’s just like a woman putting on a girdle,” explained board member Sandra Simmons, after Tuesday’s night’s meeting. “You squelch religious liberties somewhere, it will pop up somewhere else.”
But a few others in the parish are worried that one set of beliefs is struggling to establish dominance over all others, and liberties are getting lost in the process.
“I don’t think the schools are the place for the prevalence for a particular type of religion,” said Howard Nichols, a former school board member. And he’s concerned that a school district with a mediocre record — it sits in the middle of state rankings — is being distracted from academics.
“The people behind all this are fundamentalist Christians. They have stampeded the board by these massive demonstrations,” he said. “I think we are diverting a tremendous amount of time that could be spent on improving test scores.”