Limits to Freedom: Oklahoma's Private Values and Public Policies on the Right to Read ; No. 4; Religion

<v Speaker>This is Limits to Freedom: Oklahoma's Private Values and Public Policies <v Speaker>on the Right to Read. <v Speaker>This program is sponsored by the Public Library Systems in Oklahoma and supported in part <v Speaker>by a grant from the Oklahoma Humanities Committee at the National Endowment for the <v Speaker>Humanities. Views and opinions expressed in this program do not necessarily represent <v Speaker>the views of either the station or the sponsoring agencies. <v Speaker>[Banjo music plays] <v Woman>I'm not a Christian. And because of that, I think that growing up in this <v Woman>country has meant feeling left out of a lot of thing, a lot of the time. <v Woman>When I was younger, it meant that I went to school and said prayers I didn't believe in <v Woman>and it meant that I didn't understand why my friends didn't know anything about my <v Woman>religion, but I knew about theirs. <v Woman>Even now, it means always being a little bit on the defensive <v Woman>because you never know how someone will react to finding out you're not a Christian.

<v Woman>I guess what it means more than anything is always feeling a little bit different. <v Woman>Sometimes it makes you feel hurt. <v Woman>Sometimes it makes you feel angry because you're an American too. <v Woman>But mostly it's just always remembering that little bit of difference. <v Man>The fact that I grew up in a Christian country was never something I really thought very <v Man>much about. There were just two families in town who weren't Christians and we didn't <v Man>see much of them. Nearly all my friends were Christian, just like I was. <v Man>Worrying about whether this was a Christian country or not. <v Man>Never seemed very important. <v Man>If I thought about it at all, I guess I just assumed since most of the people around were <v Man>Christian, then this was a Christian country. <v Narrator>If you're listening to this program, you probably feel pretty much like that young man

<v Narrator>who just spoke. Chances are you're one of the overwhelming majority of Oklahomans <v Narrator>who are Christians. <v Narrator>When President Ford asked you to do your duty as part of a Christian nation, that sounds <v Narrator>perfectly reasonable. It might not sound so reasonable to the young lady who spoke first, <v Narrator>even though she has grown up in a country of Christians, she might not want to consider <v Narrator>this a Christian country. <v Narrator>She might want to hear more about her religion in the schools, if she hears about any <v Narrator>religion at all. And she might feel hurt that many of her friends don't know much about <v Narrator>her religion, whatever it is, because they have no place to go for information about her <v Narrator>religion or any other minority religion. <v Narrator>According to the latest Supreme Court decisions, she has the United States Constitution <v Narrator>on her side. The Constitution says this must be a country with no established <v Narrator>religion and it doesn't even mention God once. <v Narrator>This program will be taking a look at how Oklahomans view religion and its place in our <v Narrator>public lives. We'll be asking what it is like to belong to a religious minority <v Narrator>in Oklahoma and whether the majority has any right to decide on questions involving

<v Narrator>religious beliefs. And even if the answer to that question is no, <v Narrator>does the Protestant majority in this country have any responsibility to provide <v Narrator>information about other religions besides its own? <v Narrator>These issues have plagued our country for nearly 200 years and the controversy over them <v Narrator>continues even as we discuss the subject. <v Narrator>Here in Oklahoma, two sides of the question are spotlighted by Oklahoma State University <v Narrator>Professor Richard Eckerman and Oklahoma City Southern Baptist Minister Jerry McDonald. <v Richard Eckerman>The law should strictly keep its hands off <v Richard Eckerman>all religious issues. <v Richard Eckerman>The law should not be used either to give favor to <v Richard Eckerman>or to give disfavor to any particular religious <v Richard Eckerman>position simply because it's a religious position. <v Jerry McDonald>God is the one who started human government himself. <v Jerry McDonald>I certainly believe in human government, human beings governing over one another. <v Jerry McDonald>I think that's- that's right. I think that's biblical.

<v Jerry McDonald>But I think that we've just relaxed our standards as a nation. <v Jerry McDonald>America started out a Christian nation, started out in prayer on her knees, religion. <v Jerry McDonald>We've gone a long ways from that. We've gone to man's ideas rather than God's ideas. <v Speaker>[Yankee Doodle melody plays] <v Narrator>Let's go back to the beginning when portions of this country were founded because small <v Narrator>groups of English Puritans wanted religious freedom. <v Narrator>Freedom to worship as they saw fit, but only as they saw fit. <v Narrator>Religious tolerance played no part in the Puritan scheme of things. <v Narrator>There was only one way to salvation, said the Puritans. <v Narrator>America was to show the world that way. <v Narrator>They call their government a theocracy. <v Narrator>And it was to be a perfect blending of church and state. <v Narrator>God, through his ministers, would run the government. <v Narrator>That's a pretty foreign idea to most of us today. <v Narrator>It's foreign. Because the man who wrote our Constitution didn't buy the idea of a <v Narrator>theocracy. Most of our founding fathers had grown up in communities where there was an

<v Narrator>established religion and they knew what it was like. <v Narrator>As a result, those same men insisted that the First Amendment to the Constitution read, <v Narrator>Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. <v Narrator>Tulsa educator Dr. Geraldine Rosenthal says our founding fathers believed that <v Narrator>establishing freedom of religion was the only way to unite the citizens of the 13 <v Narrator>original colonies into a single democracy. <v Geraldine Rosenthal>In that colonial period, people came here of dozens of different religious backgrounds <v Geraldine Rosenthal>and the colonial governments had tried every way they could think of to handle the <v Geraldine Rosenthal>problem of how people of many different religions could get along when the government <v Geraldine Rosenthal>chose one religion as the religion of the state. <v Geraldine Rosenthal>And so they found that the politics of the time were spending a great deal of its effort <v Geraldine Rosenthal>and its energy and religious questions. <v Geraldine Rosenthal>And so the founding fathers decided that religion should be a personal decision <v Geraldine Rosenthal>and that government should concern itself with political and economic matters. <v Geraldine Rosenthal>Some of the founding fathers were afraid the church would tell the government what to do.

<v Geraldine Rosenthal>Other founding fathers were afraid the government would tell the church what to do. <v Geraldine Rosenthal>The First Amendment is first because it's the most important and it confers <v Geraldine Rosenthal>all the others. If you're going to have real freedom of religion, you need freedom of <v Geraldine Rosenthal>speech, freedom to print hymnals, freedom to assemble, to practice your religion. <v Narrator>That's where it all started. Back in 1788, when our founding fathers decided the brand <v Narrator>new United States of America would be the modern world's first democracy and the first <v Narrator>country with no state religion. <v Narrator>As an extra precaution, they prohibited any government interference with the exercise of <v Narrator>anyone's private religion. <v Speaker>[Country tune] <v Narrator>Oklahoma had a religious beginning too. <v Narrator>Even before the boomers came the missionaries. <v Narrator>By the time Oklahoma became a state, the churches were as important to Oklahomans as the <v Narrator>yearly wheat harvest. And almost as plentiful.

<v Narrator>Oklahoma City University Professor Duane Cummins says Oklahoma provided more fertile <v Narrator>ground for religion than almost any other state. <v Duane Cummins>The history of Oklahoma presents a unique case. <v Duane Cummins>On earlier frontiers, the missionary most often worked alone <v Duane Cummins>and without the support of an organization. <v Duane Cummins>For decades, Oklahoma had been viewed as something of a foreign mission field <v Duane Cummins>and by the time of the land runs, most denominations had formed active missionary <v Duane Cummins>societies, which gave financial aid to the representatives who were working in the field. <v Duane Cummins>One result was that churches often arrived in Oklahoma before the people. <v Duane Cummins>Ministers occasionally participated in the land runs, staking out town site claims <v Duane Cummins>for the construction of their church buildings well before the people settled or <v Duane Cummins>before the town itself was incorporated. <v Duane Cummins>This represents a significant reversal of the trend that you find on previous frontiers. <v Duane Cummins>The consequence was the early appearance of churches deeply involved <v Duane Cummins>in the development of community affairs and the lives of the people.

<v Duane Cummins>The church, along with the Masonic Lodge, where two of the most significant institutions <v Duane Cummins>in forming community values during the early years of the state's history. <v Narrator>Freedom of religion wasn't much trouble for those early Oklahomans. <v Narrator>They were too busy building a state. <v Narrator>Besides, it was hard to find a non-Bible Christian in those days, as it was to imagine <v Narrator>high rise buildings dotting the plains down south of Guthrie. <v Narrator>The Rosicrucians caused a little stir during the 20s, and the Klan wasn't always fond <v Narrator>of Jews and Catholics. But for the most part, Oklahoma was peacefully fundamentalist and <v Narrator>that was that. Then, after a decade of legal wrangling, came <v Narrator>1964. <v Folk Singer>"What did you learn in school, dear little boy of mine? <v Folk Singer>What did you learn in school today, dear little boy <v Folk Singer>of mine? <v Folk Singer>I learned the Bible and the Golden Rule come from God who rules the <v Folk Singer>world. I learned that Jesus showed the way and those doubt will have to pay. <v Folk Singer>That's what I learned in school today, school today,

<v Folk Singer>school today. <v Folk Singer>That's what I learned in school today. <v Folk Singer>That's what I learned in school." <v Narrator>That was the problem. Oklahoma children, like children all over the country, were going <v Narrator>to school and learning prayers. <v Narrator>Protestant Christian prayers. <v Narrator>And they were reading from the Bible. The Protestant Bible. <v Narrator>All the children were, even those who weren't Protestants. <v Narrator>1964 was the year the United States Supreme Court said this had to stop, <v Narrator>that mandated prayers of any religion could no longer be prescribed for American <v Narrator>schoolchildren. That was eleven years ago. <v Narrator>And the battle over this landmark decision has not yet ended. <v Narrator>Oklahoma's own senator, Dewey Bartlett, is introducing a constitutional amendment to <v Narrator>permit mandated prayer in the schools once again. <v Dewey Bartlett>Yes, we've had hearings on a <v Dewey Bartlett>constitutional amendment to provide voluntary prayer in the schools. <v Dewey Bartlett>I support this strongly and we'll introduce it as an amendment if <v Dewey Bartlett>I possibly can.

<v Dewey Bartlett>As far as safeguards for this - it is voluntary, <v Dewey Bartlett>which is certainly a safeguard. <v Dewey Bartlett>And then I think everybody realizes you can't force a person to pray. <v Dewey Bartlett>It's impossible. But what is happening is <v Dewey Bartlett>that the minority, those who do not want to pray, <v Dewey Bartlett>are getting their way for the majority. <v Dewey Bartlett>And I think it's very important that those who want to pray <v Dewey Bartlett>may have the opportunity to do it on a voluntary basis, whether they be in the minority <v Dewey Bartlett>or the majority. I feel that prayer is a way <v Dewey Bartlett>of binding people together, of sorting out values <v Dewey Bartlett>good from bad, and of having a <v Dewey Bartlett>joint commitment in a good moral direction. <v Dewey Bartlett>I see it as one of the big problems of today, a breakdown <v Dewey Bartlett>in our morality.

<v Dewey Bartlett>I think having the right to pray and encouraging people <v Dewey Bartlett>to pray through voluntary prayer in school is a good thing. <v Narrator>Senator Bartlett believes that the problems cited by the Supreme Court in their 1964 <v Narrator>decision could be solved by making prayer voluntary. <v Narrator>So anyone who does not wish to participate can leave the room while prayers are being <v Narrator>said. But the senators claim that prayer in schools can ever be voluntary is <v Narrator>disputed by Tulsa University religion professor Harold Hill. <v Harold Hill>Monkey business, as I think of it, the saying we will not have prayer before classes is <v Harold Hill>simply about respecting the rights of those who don't happen to care to join the public <v Harold Hill>prayer. I personally feel that any kind of an act which demands <v Harold Hill>a person that he participate an expression of <v Harold Hill>his beliefs when he does not cannot express his beliefs <v Harold Hill>is an act of violation of his basic rights. <v Harold Hill>And don't tell me that, well, when you ask the kids one after another, they won't consent <v Harold Hill>to do it. Well, consent to do it under peer pressure or under fear of

<v Harold Hill>disfavor from their parents or from teachers or whatever. <v Harold Hill>The way to protect the basic rights is in part at least to see to it that no attempt <v Harold Hill>was made to threaten them. On the other hand, of course, it is important that people <v Harold Hill>stand up for their own rights. We can't expect other people to protect us altogether. <v Harold Hill>So I'm very much opposed to only prayer <v Harold Hill>in the formal sense - that is, written prayer, formal recitation of prayers. <v Harold Hill>Even silent prayers, people can pray. <v Harold Hill>You can't keep it out of the schools. They just do it inside themselves. <v Harold Hill>That's how prayer is always done anyway. <v Narrator>Meanwhile, the controversy continues over the question of whether prayer belongs in <v Narrator>school in the first place. Oklahoma City parent activist Mrs. Earl Naylor says it does. <v Mrs. Naylor>I don't believe religion never hurt anybody. <v Mrs. Naylor>I don't think there's anything wrong in praying in school. <v Mrs. Naylor>I think that any child doesn't want to participate should not have to. <v Mrs. Naylor>Just like I would not want my child to have to participate in a sex education class

<v Mrs. Naylor>or a sensitivity training seminar. <v Mrs. Naylor>I don't think anyone was being forced to before the Supreme Court decision. <v Mrs. Naylor>And I think since that religion has been thrown out of school, <v Mrs. Naylor>we have the drug problem. <v Mrs. Naylor>We have more teenagers becoming alcoholics. <v Mrs. Naylor>We have discipline problems in school. We have physical violence in school. <v Mrs. Naylor>Children are not safe in school physically. <v Mrs. Naylor>Teachers are not safe in school physically. <v Mrs. Naylor>This is more so in the cities than in Oklahoma City. <v Mrs. Naylor>But from everything I've read in the paper, this is true in Oklahoma City. <v Mrs. Naylor>And there's just no doubt that things are bad in the- in the schools <v Mrs. Naylor>and children are, God help them all, they're <v Mrs. Naylor>iving in a terrible time of the low morals and the things that <v Mrs. Naylor>they're exposed to that they were not fifteen or twenty years ago. <v Mrs. Naylor>And- and a lot of this has come of that since they kicked God out of school. <v Narrator>Dr. Geraldine Rosenthal, on the other hand, says giving teachers the right to decide on

<v Narrator>what prayers would be said was unfair, and the experience was damaging to students <v Narrator>of minority religions. <v Geraldine Rosenthal>The 1964 Supreme Court decision on religion in the schools was a very necessary <v Geraldine Rosenthal>decision because the schools of the country were trying to convert children, which <v Geraldine Rosenthal>usually meant to the religion of the teacher. <v Geraldine Rosenthal>It was telling them that if they did not accept in practice the religious behavior <v Geraldine Rosenthal>of the majority of the people in their particular community, they were no good as people. <v Geraldine Rosenthal>And it was requiring them to participate in religious activities which were contrary <v Geraldine Rosenthal>to their own religious faiths. <v Geraldine Rosenthal>So the Supreme Court decision said that public schools, which are supported <v Geraldine Rosenthal>by taxes and which require children by law to attend, had <v Geraldine Rosenthal>no right to interfere in the religious attitudes given the children by their homes. <v Geraldine Rosenthal>The court decision didn't end prayer. <v Geraldine Rosenthal>I pray in school every day, but I do it quietly to myself. <v Geraldine Rosenthal>I don't call attention to myself. I don't say, everybody look at me, I'm praying. <v Geraldine Rosenthal>Because that, after all, is an attempt to convert people to your way

<v Geraldine Rosenthal>of doing things religiously. <v Geraldine Rosenthal>The Supreme Court in this decision did a very unusual thing because they <v Geraldine Rosenthal>knew how important religion is in culture, in our entire lives. <v Geraldine Rosenthal>They specifically said how religion could be incorporated into the <v Geraldine Rosenthal>schools. And it's very simple and very easy. <v Geraldine Rosenthal>They said you may teach about religion, its role, its history, <v Geraldine Rosenthal>its function, its importance in the life of people. <v Geraldine Rosenthal>But you may not teach to believe in any one religion, <v Geraldine Rosenthal>nor to practice any one religion. <v Geraldine Rosenthal>When the schools operate this way, they do the job of the school, which <v Geraldine Rosenthal>is to educate and they leave to the home, to the parents, <v Geraldine Rosenthal>who have the God given right to decide their children's religious education, what <v Geraldine Rosenthal>that religious education will be. <v Narrator>It has been eleven years since that far reaching Supreme Court decision, and the ground <v Narrator>between these various positions has scarcely narrowed.

<v Narrator>Senator Bartlett says he is pleased to visit schools in Oklahoma, where prayers are still <v Narrator>being said. Probably in violation of that ruling. <v Narrator>Others say the whole issue of prayer in the schools is dead or dying because people no <v Narrator>longer care about the subject. <v Speaker>[Folk music plays] <v Man>That's why nothing- literally <v Man>nothing- about Judaism or Jews until I was in college and made some <v Man>Jewish friends. And initially I had a very bad impression <v Man>and I didn't know particularly where they'd been garnered, perhaps from my own early <v Man>Christian upbringing. There, I guess you- you'd say the lack of information fostered an <v Man>impression, which I man- manufactured out of almost nothing. <v Narrator>Dr. Rosendahl says that schools can teach about religion in a classroom setting like <v Narrator>any other subject. Schools aren't doing it, though. <v Narrator>Perhaps they're afraid of the whole topic. Perhaps they don't know how to teach about <v Narrator>religion. Perhaps they don't want to accept a Supreme Court ruling.

<v Narrator>Whatever the reason, Professor Harold Hill is seeing the results. <v Harold Hill>They don't- they can't spell the name of their own denomination. <v Harold Hill>They never even heard of the other religions. <v Harold Hill>And if they have heard about the other religion, it'll be about <v Harold Hill>zen, let's say. <v Harold Hill>But zen, to them, means incense filled rooms and the <v Harold Hill>Lotus posture, had a loft somewhere in San Francisco. <v Harold Hill>Or maybe Alan Watts with a god's eye around his neck. <v Harold Hill>They really don't know anything about it. <v Harold Hill>Discovered and they misunderstand what it's about. <v Harold Hill>The second place- no to get it mixed up with things like transcendental meditation and <v Harold Hill>yoga down at the YMCA or something of the sort. <v Harold Hill>And it's, uh, they don't know very much, unfortunately, about these other religions. <v Harold Hill>Not to mention the ones in their own country, such as a Jew knowing about <v Harold Hill>the Christian, the Christian about the Jew. <v Narrator>This is obviously a disturbing trend to many Oklahomans. <v Narrator>Oklahoma City Baptist Minister Gene Garrison says he wants to see people learning about <v Narrator>religions other than their own.

<v Gene Garrison>I think it is important for us to know enough about other <v Gene Garrison>religions that we can relate to people who have those <v Gene Garrison>religious beliefs, not in a shallow way, but in a meaningful <v Gene Garrison>way. We can really care for them and enter into relationships <v Gene Garrison>with them without those religions being a barrier. <v Gene Garrison>It's very unfortunate that religions create the barriers between <v Gene Garrison>human beings that they do when religion is intended - regardless of what it is, <v Gene Garrison>Buddhism, Shintoism, Christianity, Judaism- it's intended to unite, <v Gene Garrison>and it builds barriers. If understanding other religions would help eliminate <v Gene Garrison>the barriers. You bet. I think we ought to understand all we can about other religions. <v Narrator>On the other hand, Southern Baptist Minister Jerry McDonald says he sees no need for <v Narrator>education about other religions. <v Narrator>In fact, he would prefer that it not be offered. <v Jerry McDonald>I don't think it's very important. I really don't. <v Jerry McDonald>I don't think it's very important for him to know about other religions.

<v Jerry McDonald>I think Christianity has been the most important thing in our nation. <v Jerry McDonald>I think it's something I believe very strongly in, I believe very strongly <v Jerry McDonald>in Christ. And I just think they're going to be exposed to enough of <v Jerry McDonald>other opinions of things anyway. As far as I'm concerned, I don't think they need to know <v Jerry McDonald>all about the others. <v Narrator>The philosophical differences between these two Oklahoma City ministers is a very <v Narrator>important one related to the topic of this program. <v Narrator>Some religions believe that information about other religions is undesirable. <v Narrator>Others believe that knowing about other religions strengthens one's commitment to one's <v Narrator>own religion. The difference between these positions is a matter of belief. <v Narrator>But what is important and what must be decided is whether information about all religions <v Narrator>is necessary in a democratic society made up of a large number of religious groups. <v Narrator>Would people get along better, understand each other more fully if they knew more about <v Narrator>each other's beliefs? If we believe this, then do we have a responsibility in the <v Narrator>interest of a better democracy to provide as much information as possible about various <v Narrator>religions? Or is it possible that learning about other religions would just accentuate

<v Narrator>the differences among people? <v Narrator>Or as Reverend McDonald fears, would this information weaken our beliefs in our own <v Narrator>religion if it comes at the wrong time or the wrong place. <v Narrator>The answer to these questions is not easy. <v Narrator>But it is important as we rededicate ourselves on our nation's 200th anniversary. <v Speaker>[Upbeat folk music] <v Narrator>Up to now, we've been talking and pretty cold theoretical terms, but there are still <v Narrator>Oklahomans for whom the battle for religious freedom is a day to day, hour to hour <v Narrator>struggle. Until very recently, black Muslims in Oklahoma were not even allowed to <v Narrator>practice their own religion in the state prisons. <v Narrator>Christian ministers of the various sects were permitted, indeed encouraged, to visit <v Narrator>their parishioners inside Oklahoma's jails. <v Narrator>Black Muslims had to go to court to force the prisons to allow religious services and <v Narrator>materials inside the walls. <v Narrator>This is just one example. Other black Muslims have complained repeatedly of harassment <v Narrator>from Oklahoma authorities.

<v Narrator>The new minister of the Temple of Islam in Oklahoma City, Ibrahim Abdullah, says the <v Narrator>situation is improving, but he is still concerned about the problem of black Oklahomans <v Narrator>getting free access to information about his religion. <v Ibrahim Abdullah>The honorable Warith Deen Mohammed, the leader of the Nation of Islam, <v Ibrahim Abdullah>is speaking primarily to our people today. <v Ibrahim Abdullah>But he's also teaching the entire world that religion <v Ibrahim Abdullah>means alive, that religion is something that God <v Ibrahim Abdullah>intended to give life to the people of the world. <v Ibrahim Abdullah>Under the current rule of Christian, the Judeo <v Ibrahim Abdullah>Christian Society, religion is something that concerns itself <v Ibrahim Abdullah>primarily with death. <v Ibrahim Abdullah>So we find that the people of the world are concerning themselves more with deaths <v Ibrahim Abdullah>than actually deriving full benefits from the lives that they're living. <v Ibrahim Abdullah>And freedom in regards to this is a monopoly of- <v Ibrahim Abdullah>Christianity, is a monopoly on Christianity by the Western world.

<v Ibrahim Abdullah>And they have exploited it throughout the world- the rest of the world, throughout <v Ibrahim Abdullah>Africa, Asia, Latin America. <v Ibrahim Abdullah>And as a result, the people who are worshiping in these religions are <v Ibrahim Abdullah>not experiencing the fullness of life that they could, if they understood what <v Ibrahim Abdullah>God is actually dictating to the people today. <v Ibrahim Abdullah>So now that Warith Deen Mohammed is teaching us that religion is alive and that <v Ibrahim Abdullah>especially for our people here in America, our religion has not been a <v Ibrahim Abdullah>beneficial thing. it has been an anathema. <v Ibrahim Abdullah>It has been a thing that has caused us to actually suffer mental death. <v Ibrahim Abdullah>So we have freedom today to accept Islam as taught by Warith Deen Mohammed, <v Ibrahim Abdullah>which would give us freedom, justice and equality and a full <v Ibrahim Abdullah>life instead of one of ignorance and darkness. <v Narrator>Other religious groups complain of the effects of prejudice in Oklahoma. <v Narrator>Jehovah's Witnesses have thought court battles in other states for the right not to <v Narrator>salute the flag or fight in the army. <v Narrator>Jews are not permitted to join a number of private clubs in the state.

<v Narrator>Catholics complain that they are sometimes treated with suspicion and hostility by the <v Narrator>Protestant majority. And finally, atheists must be considered a religious minority <v Narrator>in Oklahoma. After all, as Supreme Court Justice Jackson put it the day <v Narrator>that this country ceases to be free for irreligion. <v Narrator>It will cease to be free for religion, except for the sect that can win political power. <v Narrator>But Donna Meyer, a past president of the Women of the Church of St. Andrew's Presbyterian <v Narrator>in Oklahoma City, says Oklahomans are not really free to have no religion. <v Donna Meyer>We don't really have a choice, whether to be Christian or not. <v Donna Meyer>We just assume that this is a Christian nation and therefore, we don't really have <v Donna Meyer>a choice to decide whether we choose to be a Christian or not. <v Donna Meyer>I think that anybody who might have the leanings towards atheism <v Donna Meyer>would not admit it because they would be persecuted by people. <v Donna Meyer>They would immediately think that that person is morally bankrupt, <v Donna Meyer>which is not the case at all. But this seems to be the propaganda that has been put out <v Donna Meyer>that a person has no morals and he is an atheist and therefore

<v Donna Meyer>you should be aware of him because he's a very dangerous person. <v Donna Meyer>Now, whenever the constitution was written, it said that we will be <v Donna Meyer>a country that we could have freedom of religion, and <v Donna Meyer>to me it means we're just free to have no religion at all. <v Donna Meyer>Now, it doesn't mean that we end up without morals or anything like that, <v Donna Meyer>but it does mean that we don't have to be pushed into going <v Donna Meyer>to church if we don't feel like that's really what we want to <v Donna Meyer>do. <v Narrator>Just these few examples should serve to illustrate the point that even in 1975 in <v Narrator>Oklahoma, everyone is not being afforded their constitutional right to religious freedom. <v Speaker>[Upbeat folk music plays] <v Narrator>We've looked at some of the issues involved in religious freedom and access to religious <v Narrator>information in Oklahoma. We have discovered that not all Oklahomans agree on the <v Narrator>importance or desirability of open access to that information.

<v Narrator>And we have found that not all Oklahomans feel that they are actually being allowed their <v Narrator>constitutional right to religious freedom. <v Narrator>But the final issue, the one that Oklahomans must now decide, is whether we <v Narrator>believe our society will benefit from having all its members know about all its different <v Narrator>religions. And if so, do we have a responsibility to make sure this <v Narrator>information is truly available to everyone? <v Narrator>The First Amendment to the Constitution does not really answer these questions for us. <v Narrator>It only provides protection for this country's minorities to be able to believe and <v Narrator>practice any religion they wish. <v Narrator>But is this negative protection really enough or might it be in the best interests of <v Narrator>democracy to take positive action to provide information about all religions, not just <v Narrator>our own? These are not easy questions and there is no one <v Narrator>answer. But 200 years after this nation was founded on the principle of religious <v Narrator>freedom, it is certainly time to reexamine what that principle actually means. <v Speaker>[Upbeat folk music plays] <v Announcer>This has been Limits to Freedom: Oklahoma's Private Values and Public Policies on the

<v Announcer>Right to Read. This program is sponsored by the Public Library Systems of Oklahoma <v Announcer>and supported in part by a grant from the Oklahoma Humanities Committee and the National <v Announcer>Endowment for the Humanities. <v Announcer>Views and opinions expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of either <v Announcer>the station or the sponsoring agency.