Missouri lawmakers consider ‘right to pray’ amendment

A measure proposing to do that, House Joint Resolution 11, sponsored by Rep. Mike McGhee, a Republican from Odessa, passed the Missouri House of Representatives last month by a final vote of 134-24. (See below for complete text.)

That moved it over to the Missouri Senate, where it was heard and passed this week by the General Laws Committee. To take effect, Senate leaders would have to place it on the legislative calendar for a vote, and it would need to pass before the Legislature adjourns May 15.

The resolution calls for the question to be put to voters in November 2010 or at a special election, at the governor’s discretion.

McGhee said the bill — now making its third annual go-round in the Legislature — is a response to reports from around the state of students being stopped while trying to pray in public school lunchrooms, for example, or being forbidden by teachers from writing essays about Jesus.

McGhee told The Chronicle he knew of three cases in his hometown in which students at each of the local elementary, junior and senior high schools had been harassed while expressing what should be protected religious sentiments.

“This little boy was singing ‘Jesus loves me’ on the playground, and the teacher told him to stop singing that during recess,” McGhee said. “The family raised Cain, and the principal later told the teacher to allow it.”

McGhee said a constitutional amendment would make it clear to teachers and other public employees what sort of conduct is allowed on state property.

“The constitution is clear that it’s OK to pray in public or in private, but people don’t know that,” McGhee said.

The very fact that the constitutional amendment has been proposed and debated these past three years is salutary, McGhee said.

“The word is getting out that it’s OK to pray in public,” he said, “in the library, in school, in the lunch line.”

McGhee denied that he was trying to encourage public prayer with the amendment, and he said it would not allow anything not already permitted under state law.

In an Associated Press report last month, Democratic Rep. Mike Talboy of Kansas City questioned the need for the amendment.

But freshman Democratic Rep. Jason Kander of Kansas City, who is Jewish, voted for the bill in the House.

“My reasons were it didn’t do anything that wasn’t already allowed in the law, so I had no objection, and, two, it said we’d display the Bill of Rights in classrooms,” Kander said. “So if we are going to amend the Constitution for something as controversial as school prayer, I would like to also emphasize civic engagement.”

Text of HJR 11

(Editor’s note: additions to the existing Constitutional language are shown in bold below.)

Section A. Section 5, article I, Constitution of Missouri, is repealed and one new section adopted in lieu thereof, to be known as section 5, to read as follows:

Section 5. That all men and women have a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own consciences; that no human authority can control or interfere with the rights of conscience; that no person shall, on account of his or her religious persuasion or belief, be rendered ineligible to any public office or trust or profit in this state, be disqualified from testifying or serving as a juror, or be molested in his or her person or estate; that to secure a citizen's right to acknowledge Almighty God according to the dictates of his or her own conscience, neither the state nor any of its political subdivisions shall establish any official religion, nor shall a citizen's right to pray or express his or her religious beliefs be infringed; that the state shall not coerce any person to participate in any prayer or other religious activity, but shall ensure that any person shall have the right to pray individually or corporately in a private or public setting so long as such prayer does not result in disturbance of the peace or disruption of a public meeting or assembly; that citizens as well as elected officials and employees of the state of Missouri and its political subdivisions shall have the right to pray on government premises and public property so long as such prayers abide within the same parameters placed upon any other free speech under similar circumstances; that the General Assembly and the governing bodies of political subdivisions may extend to ministers and clergypersons the privilege to offer invocations or other prayers at meetings or sessions of the General Assembly or governing bodies; that the state shall ensure public school students their right to free exercise of religious expression without interference, as long as such prayer or other expression is private and voluntary, whether individually or corporately, and in a manner that is not disruptive and as long as such prayers or expressions abide within the same parameters placed upon any other free speech under similar circumstances; and, to emphasize the right to free exercise of religious expression, that all free public schools receiving state appropriations shall display, in a conspicuous and legible manner, the text of the Bill of Rights of the Constitution of the United States; but this section shall not be construed to excuse acts of licentiousness, nor to justify practices inconsistent with the good order, peace or safety of the state, or with the rights of others.

The official ballot language would read:

"Shall the Missouri Constitution be amended to ensure:

• That the right of Missouri citizens to express their religious beliefs shall not be infringed;
• That school children have the right to pray and acknowledge God voluntarily in their schools; and
• That all public schools shall display the Bill of Rights of the United States Constitution."

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