Chuck Hughes, Rowan-Salisbury School Board
The other day, I noticed several negative comments in Salisbury’s other newspaper regarding Commissioner Pierce’s weighing in on the County Commissioners inviting guest chaplains to provide an opening prayer. Commissioner Pierce believed the use of chaplains would not violate a judge’s temporary injunction. The commissioner’s statement helped me reevaluate the issue from a more basic perspective. This issue is and has always been a 1st amendment issue, not a religious one.
Those who criticized the County Commissioners for invoking the name of Jesus Christ in their opening prayer were also quick to speak of the commissioners in unflattering terms (in Salisbury’s other paper) when they decided to invite community chaplains to open their meetings with prayers. The use of chaplains was put forward to satisfy the injunction’s demands. I believe that Jesus’ response to the Pharisees who attempted to bait him into speaking out against taxation, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s”, may have a degree of application in the commissioner’s plan B, at least until the injunction is reversed and the court recognizes that the right to pray in the name of our Lord does not belong to Caesar but to the people.
This attack on the freedom of speech conjures the following thoughts: When I was a boy, I stood by passively while the schoolyard bully battered a smaller boy. “What’s it to me,” I said. “After all, he’s just the boy next door.” The next day, I was the boy next door. When you eagerly accept the loss of freedom of others with whom you disagree today, who will stand with you when they take yours away tomorrow?
