Some experts hopeful despite public's First Amendment views

By Cheryl Arvidson
The Freedom Forum Online

07.13.00

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Robert Corn-Revere

ARLINGTON, Va. — Three leading supporters of individual freedoms said today that despite some fairly grim findings in a new Freedom Forum survey on how people view the exercise of First Amendment rights, they remain optimistic that citizens still hold dear the concepts underlying those freedoms.

In a panel discussion for the Washington rollout of the First Amendment Center's State of the First Amendment 2000 report, Juan Williams, a longtime Washington journalist and talk radio host on National Public Radio, Nadine Strossen, president of the American Civil Liberties Union, and First Amendment attorney Robert Corn-Revere said the survey findings were a challenge rather than cause for alarm.

Williams said he thought the survey showed "a distinction between the reaction to the ideal" and an individual's personal opinion when asked some fairly specific questions about the First Amendment in practice. For example, he said, he would not consider it inconsistent for the public to support prayer in schools but also support the Supreme Court's recent ruling that it would be unconstitutional to engage in organized prayer before a football game.

Strossen said although some of the survey findings were "disturbing," they were also a "challenge, and I do think the challenge is one that is met through education." It should not be surprising, she said, that individuals can react adversely when asked about some specific instances where the First Amendment comes into play — displays of offensive art or speech, Internet pornography, violence on television and in music lyrics and on perceived press excesses, for example.

But people's views on such specific matters tend to be "fairly superficial," she said, while the concepts underlying the First Amendment are more complex. If you take a little more time to explain the situation, she said, often individuals whose "first blush" reaction may be negative will come around to support the broader concepts. As a result, she said, the survey provides "a wonderful base for continued activism and education" of the public.

"Yes, there's a job for more education," said Corn-Revere, but he added it was heartening that the survey still shows a majority in support of basic freedoms such as speech, press and other forms of expression.

"We have a strong culture that supports freedom of expression," Corn-Revere said. "The numbers tend to suggest that American instincts support free expression."

He said he considered the survey less a "national referendum" than a "national mood ring."

"If the respondents were federal judges, I'd worry," Corn-Revere said.

However, Charles Haynes, a senior scholar on religious freedom at the First Amendment Center, said he was not as sanguine as his colleagues over the findings on religion questions.

He noted that the survey showed majorities support having teachers or school officials lead prayers in public schools, having prayers at school events such as football games if the majority votes for it, posting the Ten Commandments in public schools and using the Bible as a factual text in history or social studies classes.

He likened the "broad streak of majoritarianism" in the responses to the religion questions to an old description of Puritanism: "Religious freedom for me but not for thee."

"The society is only as just and free as it protects the rights of the smallest majority in the least popular communities," Haynes said.

Haynes also said he was surprised that many Americans don't seem to grasp the link between an individual's right to practice the religion of his or her choice and the prohibition of an established government religion carried in the First Amendment.

Although when asked, most individuals do not want the government dictating their religious practices, they don't seem to recognize that when teachers lead prayers or school districts post certain scriptures and not others, that is government involvement in religion.

"They don't understand that these principles must go together to fuel religious freedom in this country," Haynes said, and "the violation of that principle opens the floodgate" to any number of restraints on the free practice of religion.

"I think history has shown that government corrupts religion."

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