In the 1943 Flag Salute case that upheld the right of Jehovah's Witness students to refuse to salute the flag, Justice Robert Jackson wrote the following paragraph that has come to be seen as the essence of First Amendment protections: "If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. If there are any circumstances which permit an exception, they do not now occur to us." Since 9/11, a troubling question has been whether government officials may prescribe what is orthodox Islam in an attempt to distinguish radical jihadists-- who the U.S. is fighting-- from other Muslims whose religious practice the U.S. is dedicated to protect. Two developments this week point up the problem.
President Bush, speaking yesterday to military personnel and families at Ft. Benning, Georgia (full text) arguably attempted to define what is and is not a valid religious belief. He said: "It's important for the American people to understand al Qaeda still is in Iraq.... They don't believe in freedoms, like freedom to worship. I, frankly -- well, speaking about religion, these are murderers. They use murder as a tool to achieve their objective. Religious people don't murder. They may claim they're religious, but when you kill an innocent woman, or a child to create a political end, that's not my view of religion. And yet, there are a lot of peaceful, religious people in the Middle East."
On Tuesday the House of Representatives passed HR 1, a bill implementing recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. Title XIV is titled "Quality Educational Opportunities in Arab and Predominantly Muslim Countries". The bill establishes a fund to encourage educational reform in Arab and predominantly Muslim countries. One of the bill's goal is to "dramatically increase... the availability of modern basic education through public schools in Arab and predominantly Muslim countries, which will reduce the influence of radical madrassas and other institutions that promote religious extremism." (Sec. 1411(b)(1)). Is Congress here attempting to supplant the teaching of Islamic fundamentalism with a version of Islam that it finds more acceptable? If that is a fair characterization of the bill, are there any First Amendment objections to it?
