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SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
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No. 90-1014
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ROBERT E. LEE, individually and as PRINCIPAL OF
NATHAN BISHOP MIDDLE SCHOOL, et al.,
PETITIONERS v. DANIEL WEISMAN etc.
on writ of certiorari to the united states court of
appeals for the first circuit
[June 24, 1992]

  Justice Scalia, with whom The Chief Justice, Justice
White, and Justice Thomas join, dissenting.
  Three Terms ago, I joined an opinion recognizing that the
Establishment Clause must be construed in light of the
-[g]overnment policies of accommodation, acknowledgment,
and support for religion [that] are an accepted part of our
political and cultural heritage.-  That opinion affirmed that
-the meaning of the Clause is to be determined by reference
to historical practices and understandings.-  It said that -[a]
test for implementing the protections of the Establishment
Clause that, if applied with consistency, would invalidate
longstanding traditions cannot be a proper reading of the
Clause.-  Allegheny County v. Greater Pittsburgh ACLU,
492 U. S. 573, 657, 670 (1989) (Kennedy, J., concurring in
judgment in part and dissenting in part).
  These views of course prevent me from joining today's
opinion, which is conspicuously bereft of any reference to
history.  In holding that the Establishment Clause prohibits
invocations and benedictions at public-school graduation
ceremonies, the Court-with nary a mention that it is doing
so-lays waste a tradition that is as old as public-school
graduation ceremonies themselves, and that is a component
of an even more longstanding American tradition of
nonsectarian prayer to God at public celebrations generally.
As its instrument of destruction, the bulldozer of its social
engineering, the Court invents a boundless, and boundlessly
manipulable, test of psychological coercion, which promises
to do for the Establishment Clause what the Durham rule
did for the insanity defense.  See Durham v. United States,
94 U. S. App. D. C. 228, 214 F. 2d 862 (1954).  Today's
opinion shows more forcefully than volumes of argumenta-
tion why our Nation's protection, that fortress which is our
Constitution, cannot possibly rest upon the changeable
philosophical predilections of the Justices of this Court, but
must have deep foundations in the historic practices of our
people.
                            I
  Justice Holmes' aphorism that -a page of history is worth
a volume of logic,- New York Trust Co. v. Eisner, 256 U. S.
345, 349 (1921), applies with particular force to our Estab-
lishment Clause jurisprudence.  As we have recognized, our
interpretation of the Establishment Clause should -com-
por[t] with what history reveals was the contemporaneous
understanding of its guarantees.-  Lynch v. Donnelly, 465
U. S. 668, 673 (1984).  -[T]he line we must draw between
the permissible and the impermissible is one which accords
with history and faithfully reflects the understanding of the
Founding Fathers.-  Abington School District v. Schempp,
374 U. S. 203, 294 (1963) (Brennan, J., concurring).
-[H]istorical evidence sheds light not only on what the
draftsmen intended the Establishment Clause to mean, but
also on how they thought that Clause applied- to contempo-
raneous practices.  Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U. S. 783, 790
(1983).  Thus, -[t]he existence from the beginning of the
Nation's life of a practice, [while] not conclusive of its
constitutionality . . . , is a fact of considerable import in the
interpretation- of the Establishment Clause.  Walz v. Tax
Comm'n of New York City, 397 U. S. 664, 681 (1970)
(Brennan, J., concurring).
  The history and tradition of our Nation are replete with
public ceremonies featuring prayers of thanksgiving and
petition.  Illustrations of this point have been amply
provided in our prior opinions, see, e.g., Lynch, supra, at
674-678; Marsh, supra, at 786-788; see also Wallace v.
Jaffree, 472 U. S. 38, 100-103 (1985) (Rehnquist, J.,
dissenting); Engel v. Vitale, 370 U. S. 421, 446-450, and n.
3 (1962) (Stewart, J., dissenting), but since the Court is so
oblivious to our history as to suggest that the Constitution
restricts -preservation and transmission of religious beliefs
. . . to the private sphere,- ante, at 10, it appears necessary
to provide another brief account.
  From our Nation's origin, prayer has been a prominent
part of governmental ceremonies and proclamations.  The
Declaration of Independence, the document marking our
birth as a separate people, -appeal[ed] to the Supreme
Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions- and
avowed -a firm reliance on the protection of divine Provi-
dence.-  In his first inaugural address, after swearing his
oath of office on a Bible, George Washington deliberately
made a prayer a part of his first official act as President:
-it would be peculiarly improper to omit in this first
official act my fervent supplications to that Almighty
Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the
councils of nations, and whose providential aids can
supply every human defect, that His benediction may
consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people
of the United States a Government instituted by
themselves for these essential purposes.-  Inaugural
Addresses of the Presidents of the United States 2
(1989).
Such supplications have been a characteristic feature of
inaugural addresses ever since.  Thomas Jefferson, for
example, prayed in his first inaugural address: -may that
Infinite Power which rules the destinies of the universe
lead our councils to what is best, and give them a favorable
issue for your peace and prosperity.-  Id., at 17.  In his
second inaugural address, Jefferson acknowledged his need
for divine guidance and invited his audience to join his
prayer:
-I shall need, too, the favor of that Being in whose
hands we are, who led our fathers, as Israel of old,
from their native land and planted them in a country
flowing with all the necessaries and comforts of life;
who has covered our infancy with His providence and
our riper years with His wisdom and power, and to
whose goodness I ask you to join in supplications with
me that He will so enlighten the minds of your ser-
vants, guide their councils, and prosper their measures
that whatsoever they do shall result in your good, and
shall secure to you the peace, friendship, and approba-
tion of all nations.-  Id., at 22-23.
Similarly, James Madison, in his first inaugural address,
placed his confidence
-in the guardianship and guidance of that Almighty
Being whose power regulates the destiny of nations,
whose blessings have been so conspicuously dispensed
to this rising Republic, and to whom we are bound to
address our devout gratitude for the past, as well as
our fervent supplications and best hopes for the
future.-  Id., at 28.
Most recently, President Bush, continuing the tradition
established by President Washington, asked those attending
his inauguration to bow their heads, and made a prayer his
first official act as President.  Id., at 346.
  Our national celebration of Thanksgiving likewise dates
back to President Washington.  As we recounted in Lynch,
      -The day after the First Amendment was proposed,
Congress urged President Washington to proclaim `a
day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed
by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and
signal favours of Almighty God.'  President Washington
proclaimed November 26, 1789, a day of thanksgiving
to `offe[r] our prayers and supplications to the Great
Lord and Ruler of Nations, and beseech him to pardon
our national and other transgressions . . . .'-  465 U. S.,
at 675, n. 2 (citations omitted).
This tradition of Thanksgiving Proclamations-with their
religious theme of prayerful gratitude to God-has been
adhered to by almost every President.  Id., at 675, and nn.
2 and 3; Wallace v. Jaffree, supra, at 100-103 (Rehnquist,
J., dissenting).
  The other two branches of the Federal Government also
have a long-established practice of prayer at public events.
As we detailed in Marsh, Congressional sessions have
opened with a chaplain's prayer ever since the First
Congress.  463 U. S., at 787-788.  And this Court's own
sessions have opened with the invocation -God save the
United States and this Honorable Court- since the days of
Chief Justice Marshall.  1 C. Warren, The Supreme Court
in United States History 469 (1922).
  In addition to this general tradition of prayer at public
ceremonies, there exists a more specific tradition of invoca-
tions and benedictions at public-school graduation exercises.
By one account, the first public-high-school graduation
ceremony took place in Connecticut in July 1868-the very
month, as it happens, that the Fourteenth Amendment (the
vehicle by which the Establishment Clause has been
applied against the States) was ratified-when -15 seniors
from the Norwich Free Academy marched in their best
Sunday suits and dresses into a church hall and waited
through majestic music and long prayers.-  Brodinsky,
Commencement Rites Obsolete?  Not At All, A 10-Week
Study Shows, Updating School Board Policies, Vol. 10, p. 3
(Apr. 1979).  As the Court obliquely acknowledges in
describing the -customary features- of high school gradua-
tions, ante, at 3-4, and as respondents do not contest, the
invocation and benediction have long been recognized to be
-as traditional as any other parts of the [school] graduation
program and are widely established.-  H. McKown, Com-
mencement Activities 56 (1931); see also Brodinsky, supra,
at 5.
                           II
  The Court presumably would separate graduation
invocations and benedictions from other instances of public
-preservation and transmission of religious beliefs- on the
ground that they involve -psychological coercion.-  I find it
a sufficient embarrassment that our Establishment Clause
jurisprudence regarding holiday displays, see Allegheny
County v. Greater Pittsburgh ACLU, 492 U. S. 573 (1989),
has come to -requir[e] scrutiny more commonly associated
with interior decorators than with the judiciary.-  American
Jewish Congress v. Chicago, 827 F. 2d 120, 129 (Easter-
brook, J., dissenting).  But interior decorating is a rock-hard
science compared to psychology practiced by amateurs.  A
few citations of -[r]esearch in psychology- that have no
particular bearing upon the precise issue here, ante, at 14,
cannot disguise the fact that the Court has gone beyond the
realm where judges know what they are doing.  The Court's
argument that state officials have -coerced- students to take
part in the invocation and benediction at graduation
ceremonies is, not to put too fine a point on it, incoherent.
  The Court identifies two -dominant facts- that it says
dictate its ruling that invocations and benedictions at
public-school graduation ceremonies violate the Establish-
ment Clause.  Ante, at 7.  Neither of them is in any
relevant sense true.
                            A
  The Court declares that students' -attendance and
participation in the [invocation and benediction] are in a
fair and real sense obligatory.-  Ibid.  But what exactly is
this -fair and real sense-?  According to the Court, students
at graduation who want -to avoid the fact or appearance of
participation,- ante, at 8, in the invocation and benediction
are psychologically obligated by -public pressure, as well as
peer pressure, . . . to stand as a group or, at least, maintain
respectful silence- during those prayers.  Ante, at 13.  This
assertion-the very linchpin of the Court's opinion-is
almost as intriguing for what it does not say as for what it
says.  It does not say, for example, that students are
psychologically coerced to bow their heads, place their
hands in a D-rer-like prayer position, pay attention to the
prayers, utter -Amen,- or in fact pray.  (Perhaps further
intensive psychological research remains to be done on
these matters.)  It claims only that students are psychologi-
cally coerced -to stand . . . or, at least, maintain respectful
silence.-  Ibid. (emphasis added).  Both halves of this
disjunctive (both of which must amount to the fact or
appearance of participation in prayer if the Court's analysis
is to survive on its own terms) merit particular attention.
  To begin with the latter: The Court's notion that a
student who simply sits in -respectful silence- during the
invocation and benediction (when all others are standing)
has somehow joined-or would somehow be perceived as
having joined-in the prayers is nothing short of ludicrous.
We indeed live in a vulgar age.  But surely -our social
conventions,- ibid., have not coarsened to the point that
anyone who does not stand on his chair and shout obsceni-
ties can reasonably be deemed to have assented to every-
thing said in his presence.  Since the Court does not dispute
that students exposed to prayer at graduation ceremonies
retain (despite -subtle coercive pressures,- ante, at 8) the
free will to sit, cf. ante, at 14, there is absolutely no basis
for the Court's decision.  It is fanciful enough to say that -a
reasonable dissenter,- standing head erect in a class of
bowed heads, -could believe that the group exercise signi-
fied her own participation or approval of it,- ibid.  It is
beyond the absurd to say that she could entertain such a
belief while pointedly declining to rise.
  But let us assume the very worst, that the nonparticipat-
ing graduate is -subtly coerced- . . . to stand!  Even that
half of the disjunctive does not remotely establish a
-participation- (or an -appearance of participation-) in a
religious exercise.  The Court acknowledges that -in our
culture standing . . . can signify adherence to a view or
simple respect for the views of others.-  Ante, at 13.  (Much
more often the latter than the former, I think, except
perhaps in the proverbial town meeting, where one votes by
standing.)  But if it is a permissible inference that one who
is standing is doing so simply out of respect for the prayers
of others that are in progress, then how can it possibly be
said that a -reasonable dissenter . . . could believe that the
group exercise signified her own participation or approval-?
Quite obviously, it cannot.  I may add, moreover, that
maintaining respect for the religious observances of others
is a fundamental civic virtue that government (including
the public schools) can and should cultivate-so that even
if it were the case that the displaying of such respect might
be mistaken for taking part in the prayer, I would deny
that the dissenter's interest in avoiding even the false
appearance of participation constitutionally trumps the
government's interest in fostering respect for religion
generally.
  The opinion manifests that the Court itself has not given
careful consideration to its test of psychological coercion.
For if it had, how could it observe, with no hint of concern
or disapproval, that students stood for the Pledge of
Allegiance, which immediately preceded Rabbi Gutterman's
invocation?  Ante, at 4.  The government can, of course, no
more coerce political orthodoxy than religious orthodoxy.
West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U. S.
624, 642 (1943).  Moreover, since the Pledge of Allegiance
has been revised since Barnette to include the phrase
-under God,- recital of the Pledge would appear to raise the
same Establishment Clause issue as the invocation and
benediction.  If students were psychologically coerced to
remain standing during the invocation, they must also have
been psychologically coerced, moments before, to stand for
(and thereby, in the Court's view, take part in or appear to
take part in) the Pledge.  Must the Pledge therefore be
barred from the public schools (both from graduation
ceremonies and from the classroom)?  In Barnette we held
that a public-school student could not be compelled to recite
the Pledge; we did not even hint that she could not be
compelled to observe respectful silence-indeed, even to
stand in respectful silence-when those who wished to
recite it did so.  Logically, that ought to be the next project
for the Court's bulldozer.
  I also find it odd that the Court concludes that high
school graduates may not be subjected to this supposed
psychological coercion, yet refrains from addressing whether
-mature adults- may.  Ante, at 14.  I had thought that the
reason graduation from high school is regarded as so
significant an event is that it is generally associated with
transition from adolescence to young adulthood.  Many
graduating seniors, of course, are old enough to vote.  Why,
then, does the Court treat them as though they were first-
graders?  Will we soon have a jurisprudence that distin-
guishes between mature and immature adults?
                            B
  The other -dominant fac[t]- identified by the Court is that
-[s]tate officials direct the performance of a formal religious
exercise- at school graduation ceremonies.  Ante, at 7.
-Direct[ing] the performance of a formal religious exercise-
has a sound of liturgy to it, summoning up images of the
principal directing acolytes where to carry the cross, or
showing the rabbi where to unroll the Torah.  A Court
professing to be engaged in a -delicate and fact-sensitive-
line-drawing, ante, at 18, would better describe what it
means as -prescribing the content of an invocation and
benediction.-  But even that would be false.  All the record
shows is that principals of the Providence public schools,
acting within their delegated authority, have invited clergy
to deliver invocations and benedictions at graduations; and
that Principal Lee invited Rabbi Gutterman, provided him
a two-page flyer, prepared by the National Conference of
Christians and Jews, giving general advice on inclusive
prayer for civic occasions, and advised him that his prayers
at graduation should be nonsectarian.  How these facts can
fairly be transformed into the charges that Principal Lee
-directed and controlled the content of [Rabbi Gutterman's]
prayer,- ante, at 9, that school officials -monitor prayer,-
ante, at 10, and attempted to -`compose official prayers,'-
ante, at 9, and that the -government involvement with
religious activity in this case is pervasive,- ante, at 7, is
difficult to fathom.  The Court identifies nothing in the
record remotely suggesting that school officials have ever
drafted, edited, screened or censored graduation prayers, or
that Rabbi Gutterman was a mouthpiece of the school
officials.
  These distortions of the record are, of course, not harm-
less error: without them the Court's solemn assertion that
the school officials could reasonably be perceived to be
-enforc[ing] a religious orthodoxy,- ante, at 13, would ring
as hollow as it ought.
                           III
  The deeper flaw in the Court's opinion does not lie in its
wrong answer to the question whether there was state-
induced -peer-pressure- coercion; it lies, rather, in the
Court's making violation of the Establishment Clause hinge
on such a precious question.  The coercion that was a
hallmark of historical establishments of religion was
coercion of religious orthodoxy and of financial support by
force of law and threat of penalty.  Typically, attendance at
the state church was required; only clergy of the official
church could lawfully perform sacraments; and dissenters,
if tolerated, faced an array of civil disabilities.  L. Levy, The
Establishment Clause 4 (1986).  Thus, for example, in the
colony of Virginia, where the Church of England had been
established, ministers were required by law to conform to
the doctrine and rites of the Church of England; and all
persons were required to attend church and observe the
Sabbath, were tithed for the public support of Anglican
ministers, and were taxed for the costs of building and
repairing churches.  Id., at 3-4.
  The Establishment Clause was adopted to prohibit such
an establishment of religion at the federal level (and to
protect state establishments of religion from federal
interference).  I will further acknowledge for the sake of
argument that, as some scholars have argued, by 1790 the
term -establishment- had acquired an additional mean-
ing--financial support of religion generally, by public
taxation--that reflected the development of -general or
multiple- establishments, not limited to a single church.
Id., at 8-9.  But that would still be an establishment
coerced by force of law.  And I will further concede that our
constitutional tradition, from the Declaration of Indepen-
dence and the first inaugural address of Washington,
quoted earlier, down to the present day, has, with a few
aberrations, see Holy Trinity Church v. United States, 143
U. S. 457 (1892), ruled out of order government-sponsored
endorsement of religion-even when no legal coercion is
present, and indeed even when no ersatz, -peer-pressure-
psycho-coercion is present-where the endorsement is
sectarian, in the sense of specifying details upon which men
and women who believe in a benevolent, omnipotent
Creator and Ruler of the world, are known to differ (for
example, the divinity of Christ).  But there is simply no
support for the proposition that the officially sponsored
nondenominational invocation and benediction read by
Rabbi Gutterman-with no one legally coerced to recite
them-violated the Constitution of the United States.  To
the contrary, they are so characteristically American they
could have come from the pen of George Washington or
Abraham Lincoln himself.
  Thus, while I have no quarrel with the Court's general
proposition that the Establishment Clause -guarantees that
government may not coerce anyone to support or participate
in religion or its exercise,- ante, at 8, I see no warrant for
expanding the concept of coercion beyond acts backed by
threat of penalty-a brand of coercion that, happily, is
readily discernible to those of us who have made a career of
reading the disciples of Blackstone rather than of Freud.
The Framers were indeed opposed to coercion of religious
worship by the National Government; but, as their own
sponsorship of nonsectarian prayer in public events demon-
strates, they understood that -[s]peech is not coercive; the
listener may do as he likes.-  American Jewish Congress v.
Chicago, 827 F. 2d, at 132 (Easterbrook, J., dissenting).
  This historical discussion places in revealing perspective
the Court's extravagant claim that the State has -for all
practical purposes,- ante, at 9, and -in every practical
sense,- ante, at 18, compelled students to participate in
prayers at graduation.  Beyond the fact, stipulated to by the
parties, that attendance at graduation is voluntary, there
is nothing in the record to indicate that failure of attending
students to take part in the invocation or benediction was
subject to any penalty or discipline.  Contrast this with, for
example, the facts of Barnette: Schoolchildren were required
by law to recite the Pledge of Allegiance; failure to do so
resulted in expulsion, threatened the expelled child with the
prospect of being sent to a reformatory for criminally
inclined juveniles, and subjected his parents to prosecution
(and incarceration) for causing delinquency.  319 U. S., at
629-630.  To characterize the -subtle coercive pressures,-
ante, at 8, allegedly present here as the -practical- equiva-
lent of the legal sanctions in Barnette is . . . well, let me
just say it is not a -delicate and fact-sensitive- analysis.
  The Court relies on our -school prayer- cases, Engel v.
Vitale, 370 U. S. 421 (1962), and Abington School District
v. Schempp, 374 U. S. 203 (1963).  Ante, at 13.  But
whatever the merit of those cases, they do not support,
much less compel, the Court's psycho-journey.  In the first
place, Engel and Schempp do not constitute an exception to
the rule, distilled from historical practice, that public
ceremonies may include prayer, see supra, at 3-6; rather,
they simply do not fall within the scope of the rule (for the
obvious reason that school instruction is not a public
ceremony).  Second, we have made clear our understanding
that school prayer occurs within a framework in which legal
coercion to attend school (i. e., coercion under threat of
penalty) provides the ultimate backdrop.  In Schempp, for
example, we emphasized that the prayers were -prescribed
as part of the curricular activities of students who are
required by law to attend school.-  374 U. S., at 223
(emphasis added).  Engel's suggestion that the school-prayer
program at issue there-which permitted students -to
remain silent or be excused from the room,- 370 U. S., at
430-involved -indirect coercive pressure,- id., at 431,
should be understood against this backdrop of legal coer-
cion.  The question whether the opt-out procedure in Engel
sufficed to dispel the coercion resulting from the mandatory
attendance requirement is quite different from the question
whether forbidden coercion exists in an environment utterly
devoid of legal compulsion.  And finally, our school-prayer
cases turn in part on the fact that the classroom is inher-
ently an instructional setting, and daily prayer
there-where parents are not present to counter -the
students' emulation of teachers as role models and the
children's susceptibility to peer pressure,- Edwards v.
Aguillard, 482 U. S. 578, 584 (1987)-might be thought to
raise special concerns regarding state interference with the
liberty of parents to direct the religious upbringing of their
children: -Families entrust public schools with the educa-
tion of their children, but condition their trust on the
understanding that the classroom will not purposely be
used to advance religious views that may conflict with the
private beliefs of the student and his or her family.-  Ibid.;
see Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U. S. 510, 534-535
(1925).  Voluntary prayer at graduation-a one-time
ceremony at which parents, friends and relatives are
present-can hardly be thought to raise the same concerns.
                           IV
  Our religion-clause jurisprudence has become bedeviled
(so to speak) by reliance on formulaic abstractions that are
not derived from, but positively conflict with, our long-
accepted constitutional traditions.  Foremost among these
has been the so-called Lemon test, see Lemon v. Kurtzman,
403 U. S. 602, 612-613 (1971), which has received well-
earned criticism from many members of this Court.  See,
e.g., Allegheny County, 492 U. S., at 655-656 (opinion of
Kennedy, J.); Edwards v. Aguillard, supra, at 636-640
(1987) (Scalia, J., dissenting); Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U. S.
at 108-112 (Rehnquist, J., dissenting); Aguilar v. Felton,
473 U. S. 402, 426-430 (1985) (O'Connor, J., dissenting);
Roemer v. Maryland Bd. of Public Works, 426 U. S. 736,
768-769 (1976) (White, J., concurring in judgment).  The
Court today demonstrates the irrelevance of Lemon by
essentially ignoring it, see ante, at 7, and the interment of
that case may be the one happy byproduct of the Court's
otherwise lamentable decision.  Unfortunately, however, the
Court has replaced Lemon with its psycho-coercion test,
which suffers the double disability of having no roots
whatever in our people's historic practice, and being as
infinitely expandable as the reasons for psychotherapy
itself.
  Another happy aspect of the case is that it is only a
jurisprudential disaster and not a practical one.  Given the
odd basis for the Court's decision, invocations and benedic-
tions will be able to be given at public-school graduations
next June, as they have for the past century and a half, so
long as school authorities make clear that anyone who
abstains from screaming in protest does not necessarily
participate in the prayers.  All that is seemingly needed is
an announcement, or perhaps a written insertion at the
beginning of the graduation Program, to the effect that,
while all are asked to rise for the invocation and benedic-
tion, none is compelled to join in them, nor will be assumed,
by rising, to have done so.  That obvious fact recited, the
graduates and their parents may proceed to thank God, as
Americans have always done, for the blessings He has
generously bestowed on them and on their country.
                         *  *  *
  The reader has been told much in this case about the
personal interest of Mr. Weisman and his daughter, and
very little about the personal interests on the other side.
They are not inconsequential.  Church and state would not
be such a difficult subject if religion were, as the Court
apparently thinks it to be, some purely personal avocation
that can be indulged entirely in secret, like pornography, in
the privacy of one's room.  For most believers it is not that,
and has never been.  Religious men and women of almost
all denominations have felt it necessary to acknowledge and
beseech the blessing of God as a people, and not just as
individuals, because they believe in the -protection of divine
Providence,- as the Declaration of Independence put it, not
just for individuals but for societies; because they believe
God to be, as Washington's first Thanksgiving Proclamation
put it, the -Great Lord and Ruler of Nations.-  One can
believe in the effectiveness of such public worship, or one
can deprecate and deride it.  But the longstanding Ameri-
can tradition of prayer at official ceremonies displays with
unmistakable clarity that the Establishment Clause does
not forbid the government to accommodate it.
  The narrow context of the present case involves a
community's celebration of one of the milestones in its
young citizens' lives, and it is a bold step for this Court to
seek to banish from that occasion, and from thousands of
similar celebrations throughout this land, the expression of
gratitude to God that a majority of the community wishes
to make.  The issue before us today is not the abstract
philosophical question whether the alternative of frustrat-
ing this desire of a religious majority is to be preferred over
the alternative of imposing -psychological coercion,- or a
feeling of exclusion, upon nonbelievers.  Rather, the
question is whether a mandatory choice in favor of the
former has been imposed by the United States Constitution.
As the age-old practices of our people show, the answer to
that question is not at all in doubt.
  I must add one final observation: The founders of our
Republic knew the fearsome potential of sectarian religious
belief to generate civil dissension and civil strife.  And they
also knew that nothing, absolutely nothing, is so inclined to
foster among religious believers of various faiths a tolera-
tion-no, an affection-for one another than voluntarily
joining in prayer together, to the God whom they all
worship and seek.  Needless to say, no one should be
compelled to do that, but it is a shame to deprive our public
culture of the opportunity, and indeed the encouragement,
for people to do it voluntarily.  The Baptist or Catholic who
heard and joined in the simple and inspiring prayers of
Rabbi Gutterman on this official and patriotic occasion was
inoculated from religious bigotry and prejudice in a manner
that can not be replicated.  To deprive our society of that
important unifying mechanism, in order to spare the
nonbeliever what seems to me the minimal inconvenience
of standing or even sitting in respectful nonparticipation, is
as senseless in policy as it is unsupported in law.
  For the foregoing reasons, I dissent.