JEFFERSON CITY – Missouri Baptists are being urged to vote Aug. 7 in favor of a constitutional amendment that guarantees the right of Missourians to pray and worship on public property and to choose any or no religion.
“It’s an amendment that was over a decade in the making,” said David Krueger, chairman of Missouri Baptist Convention’s Christian Life Commission (CLC).
“The sad part is that we have to have an amendment like this in the Missouri Constitution to guard what the federal constitution already gives us in the First Amendment. We have to spell out what our Bill of Rights actually guarantees us.”
Krueger said the CLC is excited that the amendment has come up.
Also expressing excitement is Rep. Mike McGhee, R-Odessa, who sponsored House Joint Resolution 2 in 2011 which created the proposed amendment. He is a member of First Baptist Church, Odessa.
McGhee, his capitol staff, and several organizations are working to set up town hall meetings across the state and are contacting clergy to ask them to get their congregations out to vote.
He has been surprised at the response he has seen from other religions and from other states.
“When I was in Washington, DC at a Religious Freedom Conference [in May], there were so many different religions there that were excited about the prayer conference,” McGhee reported.
“Seventeen different states were represented there. They would like to introduce this into their own legislatures.
“We’re the ‘Show Me State.’ I think we can show the other 49 states how important prayer is and how we can get it back for the students so they can take their Bibles to school, pray in the lunchroom, pray at the flagpole, and pray before a football game.”
McGhee spent several years trying to get the amendment passed after hearing complaints of parents whose children were told they could not take their Bible to study hall or sing Christian songs on the playground.
He was successful in 2011. It was signed by the governor and was scheduled for the Aug. 7,2012 election.
John L. Yeats, executive director for the Missouri Baptist Convention, urged “every convictional Missouri Baptist to prepare to vote in August on this important amendment.”
Yeats is encouraging MBC churches to do everything possible to make certain every adult is a registered voter and will vote their convictions.
“In a day when the idea of religious freedom is marginalized by too many public servants and elected leaders, an amendment is necessary to define what is acceptable,” he said.
“From our common sense perspective, no one needs to check the practice of their faith at the door of a government facility, whether it be an educational institution, courthouse, statehouse, city park, public ball field or city council meeting.”
Kerry Messer, lobbyist for the CLC, pointed out that Constitutional Amendment 2 doesn’t actually create any new protections of religious expression.
What it does, he said, is to outline the parameters of religious liberties in three areas of confusion that encompass the vast majority of violations.
“First are students’ rights to pray in public schools and include biblical or religious materials in optional writing or other classroom assignments,” he explained.
“Second is the right of local governments to allow invocations or invite area ministers to open their public meetings with prayer.
“Third is to help maintain these enumerated principles by requiring not just the First Amendment but the entire Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution to be posted in a ‘conspicuous and legible manner’ in every public school within Missouri.”
With pastors being urged to encourage members to get out and vote, Messer believes the election turnout will tell the fuller story of how much Missouri Baptist influence remains in the state.
The full text of the proposed amendment can be found online at the Secretary of State’s website, www.sos.mo.gov/elections/2012ballot/.