This letter is in response to Greg Rivara’s amusng column regarding the issue of whether or not prayer is appropriate at NIU graduation ceremonies.

One might feel justifiably outraged, not to mention a bit apprehensive at Mr. Rivara’s gall in defending one of the pillars of American liberal democracy (i.e. the separation of church and state) as a “thorn lodged in the country’s side”-I believe “almost meaningless” is the phrase he used-were it not so strikingly evident that Mr. Rivara has neither the vaguest conception of, nor slightest interest in, the original intent or meaning of this crucial principle.

The fact we as Americans, believers and non-believers alike, have any right at all to protest the state-mandated imposition of religious beliefs is in itself proof of the importance of this “almost meaningless” idea.

Without this precedent, no such right could ever exist.

One might also feel a twinge of embarrassment for Mr. Rivara for his blithe presumption that the number of “athiests, agnostics, or othernamed disbelievers” is so small as to be insignificant; that is to say, undeserving of consideration, if the paltriness of his arguments hadn’t dismissed him first as a thoughtful commentator on the subject.

It seems evident this is not, as he asserts, a case of willful minority dictating what is permissible to a powerless majority, but rather, an instance when a state institution needs to dignify and uphold the rights of the individual being trivialized and dismissed as irrelevant.

If the defense of this right is too much to expect, not even prayer, Greg Rivara, will regain what we have lost.

Alain Sherter

Senior

Political Science