Grappling with the Good: Talking about Religion and Morality in Public Schools

6. Grappling in the Classroom II: The Role of Religion

While acknowledging reasonable disagreement is a central virtue of democratic citizenship, Ethical Dialogue also seeks to help participants identify common ground and potential for compromise. Americans appear increasingly unwilling to seek common ground, however, especially with issues informed by religious perspectives. When asked in 2004 whether deeply religious elected officials should vote based on their religious views or be willing to compromise, a majority of Americans who attend religious services at least once a week chose the former. According to the same survey, nonreligious Americans were also increasingly unwilling to compromise on such issues. These findings represented dramatic increases from just four years prior.1 An entire book could be written speculating on the root causes of this unwillingness to compromise; not surprisingly, people blame their ideological opponents for the initial intransigence, to which they are simply responding in kind. What does seem clear, however, is that as a society, we are not very good at talking across disagreements informed by religion. Consider these survey results in light of a 2004 decision by administrators at Fort Mill High School in South Carolina to remove same-sex marriage and stem cell research from the scheduled topics of a student-run debate. They feared that state laws prohibiting health class discussion of abortion and homosexual sex would carry over to similar topics and other discussion formats.2 While Americans recognize religion as influential in many people’s political views, this very factor of religion—and our disagreement 103 6 Grappling in the Classroom II The Role of Religion ...