Oklahoma SQ 790: The First Amendment, not Oklahoma's special version

Oklahoma State Question 790 is a legislative referendum which would remove a discriminatory and inconsistently applied provision in the Constitution of Oklahoma that deals with the relationship of religion and government. Its passage would allow the People of Oklahoma through our elected representatives to weigh and balance a variety of public concerns in the development and administration of our laws. Passing SQ 790 would place these questions solely in the context of the well-developed body of Federal jurisprudence concerning the free exercise and establishment clauses of the First Amendment, and would eliminate the added burden of a state provision, the meaning and interpretation of which has shifted over the 109 years since statehood, and which the State Supreme Court has inconsistently applied even within the last two years. Passing SQ 790 would eliminate a provision which discriminates against religious organizations by denying the possibility of even an indirect benefit from an action taken in pursuit of secular state aims.

SQ 790 would delete Article II, Section 5, which reads:

No public money or property shall ever be appropriated, applied, donated, or used, directly or indirectly, for the use, benefit, or support of any sect, church, denomination, or system of religion, or for the use, benefit, or support of any priest, preacher, minister, or other religious teacher or dignitary, or sectarian institution as such.

The proposed amendment was placed on the ballot by Senate Joint Resolution 72, which was approved by a 39-5 vote in the State Senate and a 65-7 vote in the State House. (All five no votes in the Senate and all seven nay votes in the House were from Democrats, as were 2 of the 4 Senate abstentions and 17 of the 24 House abstentions.) The House Rules Committee passed it with a unanimous 9-0 vote. The Senate Rules Committee voted 13-2 in favor.

At the time of its passage, the Oklahoma Constitution was the longest governing document in the world, regulating the price of railroad tickets, regulating who could receive free railroad tickets (and including a special exemption for ministers of religion and YMCA traveling secretaries), decreeing the flash point of kerosene, and defining the term "colored" (although the legal impediments connected with the word were left to legislation -- the "Jim Crow" law passed as the Legislature's first act).

Over its 109-year history, Article II, Section 5, has been cited in about a dozen Oklahoma State Supreme Court cases, involving everything from discounted streetcar fares for parochial school students (OK), to letting private school students ride the public school bus (not OK), to chapel services at a state orphanage (OK), to a cross on the State Fairgrounds (OK), to, most recently, school vouchers for special-needs students (OK) and the Ten Commandments monument on the grounds of the State Capitol (not OK). The rulings have been woefully inconsistent.

The most recent two rulings illustrate the problem:

In Prescott v. Oklahoma Capitol Preservation Commission (2015 OK 54), the State Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that the Ten Commandments monument "operates for the use, benefit or support of a sect or system of religion." Stretching the definition of words to the breaking point, the majority opinion claimed that Judeo-Christianity was a system of religion and that the text of the Ten Commandments was sectarian because it followed the translation that was common to all English-speaking Protestant denominations for over three centuries. (The monument also includes the text of the Ten Commandments in ancient, pre-exilic Hebrew script.) Justice Combs, on this year's retention ballot, wrote a dissent in this case. Justice Winchester, also on the ballot went along with the majority's decision.

A year later, in Oliver v. Hofmeister (26 OK 15), the Court ruled unanimously that it did not violate Article II, Section 5, for the state to provide funding that parents of special-needs children could use to pay for private school education. The majority argued that the Lindsay Nicole Henry Scholarship is constitutional, because the program is voluntary, because the parents choose the school and may select from religious or non-religious schools, and because the State benefits in that acceptance of the scholarship "relieves the school district of its obligation to the student to provide special education services mandated by the state and federal governments."

It is easy to see how the two decisions might have been reversed: The Ten Commandments are not unique to one Christian denomination or even to Christianity. They are held in respect and reverence by the three great monotheistic religions, so they can hardly be called "sectarian" as understood by the framers of our state's constitution. There is no such thing as a "Judeo-Christian system of religion." It would be more accurate to say that Judeo-Christian is a broad classification that embraces a group of different religions with some common features. The church-affiliated schools that receive state funding in the form of tuition vouchers are benefitting indirectly from state expenditure. The constitutional provision makes no allowance for offsetting state benefit.

The problem comes down to two words, one of which -- "indirectly" -- is overly broad, and the other -- "sectarian" -- has changed meanings since 1907.

Of all the private organizations in Oklahoma, only organizations which are religious in nature must be screened off from even an indirect benefit from government expenditure. Interpreted literally, the provision is absurd. Churches, religious schools, convents, and monasteries benefit indirectly from government spending on law enforcement, street resurfacing, sidewalks, and water and sewer service. A government that is banned from doing anything that might indirectly benefit a sectarian institution will be doing nothing at all.

But what does "sectarian" mean? Is anything religious necessarily sectarian, or did the framers of the Oklahoma Constitution understand a distinction between those two terms?

The same Constitutional Convention that adopted Article II, Section 5, saw no conflict with opening its proceedings with prayer or giving religious ministers a special exemption for free railroad tickets. The Constitution of the proposed State of Sequoyah, which was drafted by many of the same leaders who created the Oklahoma Constitution, had a provision similar to Article II, Section 5, but it also designated Sunday as a "perpetual day of rest" and banned atheists from holding public office.

The Oklahoma public schools that my parents and grandparents attended included prayers and Bible reading. At Catoosa Elementary School in 1970, Mrs. Paul's 2nd grade class opened each day with the Pledge of Allegiance and the Lord's Prayer.

For the first six decades or so of our state's history, the idea that the Ten Commandments were sectarian would have seemed ridiculous. What could be less sectarian than a document held in esteem by all the denominations of Judaism -- orthodox, conservative, and Reform alike -- dozens of Protestant denominations, Roman Catholicism, Greek and Russian and Syrian Orthodoxy, and even modern religions like Mormonism and Christian Science?

What was considered sectarian? Whether infants should be baptized, whether communion was a symbolic memorial or involved the transubstantiation of bread and wine into flesh and blood, whether the church should be governed by bishops, elders, or the membership of the congregation. Promotion by public schools or city governments of a civic religion of generic Protestantism was not seen as a violation of this constitutional provision by the men who put it there.

To the framers of the Oklahoma Constitution, "sectarian" was a code word for Catholic. While Article II, Section 5, is not identical to the unsuccessful Blaine Amendment to the U. S. Constitution, it is in the same vein and shares the same motivation. In the late 19th century, America experienced an influx of immigrants from Ireland and southern Europe. These immigrants were happy to become Americans, but they did not want their children to become Protestants, and they reacted to the public schools' generic Protestantism by setting up their own parochial schools. In reaction to this, politicians who wanted immigrants to assimilate passed provisions like the Blaine Amendment and Article II, Section 5, to ensure that choosing to avoid the prescribed path of religious assimilation would always carry an extra financial burden.

In one case dealing with this constitutional provision, the State Supreme Court noted that a chapel on the grounds of the State's Whitaker Orphanage near Pryor would be used for "non-sectarian, non-denominational religious worship" -- a juxtaposition that would have made perfect sense to the framers of Oklahoma's Constitution but apparently baffles seven of the nine members of our current State Supreme Court.

A few weeks ago I debated in support of SQ 790 against Jim Huff, one of the plaintiffs in the Ten Commandments monument case. Mr. Huff repeatedly made the claim that approval of SQ 790 and repeal of Article II, Section 5, would leave a hole in the law regarding the relationship of religion and government. He claims that its passage will lead to more lawsuits.

On the contrary. The "hole" would be filled by a well-defined body of jurisprudence regarding the First Amendment's "establishment" and "free exercise" clauses. If SQ 790 passes, state, local, and school officials in Oklahoma will have the guidance of dozens of First Amendment cases across the entire country. The two lawsuits mentioned above could have been avoided if Article II, Section 5, were repealed, because precedents in other states already established the constitutionality of the legislature's actions.

If SQ 790 fails, Oklahoma officials will only be able to guess, based on a dozen inconsistent rulings, whether their actions will be regarded as constitutional when the inevitable lawsuit is brought to the State Supreme Court.

Because of the clarity that repeal of Article II, Section 5, will bring to the interaction of government and religion in Oklahoma, I am voting YES, to APPROVE SQ 790.

MORE comments -- a couple of further thoughts I've posted elsewhere that may help summarize the case:

Regarding their Ten Commandments monument, Texas officials could make decisions based on dozens of 1st Amendment establishment and free-exercise precedents from cases across the US. Oklahoma officials are burdened with an overly broad ("indirectly") provision with few precedents (about a dozen) and shifting definitions ("sectarian"). But the existence of Article II, Section 5 is no excuse for our State Supreme Court. The seven justices who ruled against the monument should be blamed for wrongly claiming that there is a "Judeo-Christian system of religion" (Judeo-Christian is a label for a broad grouping of religions with some common elements; if it's a system, where's its hierarchy, where are its rituals set down?) and that the monument is "sectarian" (its text is revered by all denominations or sects of Judaism and Christianity, and is even regarded as holy scripture by Islam).

When Article II, Section 5, was placed in the Oklahoma Constitution, and similar "Blaine Amendment"-type provisions were added to other state constitutions, the framers wanted to encourage children to be indoctrinated in the state religion of the day (generic protestantism) and make it harder for families who wanted to educate their children in their own religion. The motivation for those who want to keep it today hasn't changed, but the state religion has been changed (by the U. S. Supreme Court in the 1960s) to atheism and materialism.

MORE: After the jump, a summary of the Oklahoma State Supreme court cases citing Article II, Section 5.