In politics, as in marriage, moments of silence have an important place. On the subject of school prayer, both Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton are learning that holding your tongue can sometimes be better than speaking your mind.
Just days after the election, Gingrich said that when he becomes speaker of the House in January, he will push for a constitutional amendment permitting organized worship in public schools. The reaction from many fellow Republicans bristled with dismay. "If we don't deal with economic issues," complained Gov. John Engler of Michigan, "we'll need more than prayer to solve our problems." Moderates like Sen. John Chafee of Rhode Island muttered that if the agenda of the religious right captured the GOP, Republicans might soon be taking a "loyalty oath."
Clinton's first reaction was to be conciliatory, knowing that the Democrats have long been on the losing side of the values debate. To many average Americans, a party that prefers condoms to creches in the public schools has its priorities wrong, and that's precisely the sentiment Gingrich was trying to exploit when he accused the president and his wife of being "counterculture McGoverniks." But when Clinton said he was searching for a compromise that provides for a "moment of silence" to start the school day, liberal allies immediately denounced his position as "gravely dangerous." Meyer Eisenberg of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith told a rally on the Supreme Court steps: "In the real world, a moment of silence is a fig leaf for prayer."
Undeterred, the president renewed his plea for common ground and common sense. "We ought to look for ways to work together," he told a press conference last week, reflecting a message that many voters are sending to Washington these days. They view the capital as a city filled with special pleaders who care only about their own narrow interests and equate compromise with heresy. And just to prove the voters' point, Clinton is drawing fire from orthodox activists on both sides who want it all their own way: either a public prayer that reflects their own particular religious doctrines or a total absence of religion in any public setting.
Here's where a moment of silence has a special virtue. Quiet knows nothing of coercion or dogma. Like a fresh page in a notebook, it is a space to be filled by each student in his or her own way: with a prayer, a hope, a wish, a song, a dream, a memory. Silence is a small, fragile thing. It cannot cure teen pregnancy or stop random violence. It cannot banish gangs or drugs. It cannot rebuild families or restore faith. But it can, at times, replenish the spirit. In public schools that look like prisons, guarded by metal detectors and filled with mental tension, silence offers everybody a brief chance to speak, uninterrupted, in a pure, inner voice. As poet Marianne Moore puts it: "The deepest feeling always shows itself in silence."
