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Mrs. Ruhlin Goes to Washington:Louise Ruhlin, School Prayer, and

the Possibilities and Limitations ofReligious Political Lobbying inModern America

Aaron L. Haberman

One day in the late 1960s, a housewife from Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio,named Louise Ruhlin had what she considered a disturbing conversa-tion with her youngest son after he returned home from school. Herson asked why do we park God outside of school, by which hemeant the absence of organized prayer or other forms of religiousobservance in his school. When she asked him why he felt this way,he responded that he had learned in school that the separation ofchurch and state mandated it. Unnerved by his comments, Ruhlintold her son that she would look into it, but he responded that she

would just be like other adults and forget about the matter. His senti-ments struck a nerve and Ruhlin decided to launch a campaign torestore voluntary prayer to public schools.1 Over the next few yearsRuhlin recruited associates from around the country to pressureU.S. congressmen into supporting a constitutional amendment

AARON L. HABERMAN (BA, Washington and Lee University; MA, PhD, Universityof South Carolina) is a lecturer of history, University of Northern Colorado. Hehas published an article inThe Historian. Special interests include modern con-

servatism, role of religion in politics, and constitutional history. This article ispart of a larger project on school prayer and the political experience of theChristian Right to be published by the University of Virginia Press. The authorgratefully acknowledges the following people for their suggestions, help, andadvice during this project: Patrick Maney, Dan Carter, Lawrence Glickman,Laura Woliver, Eric Cheezum, Jacob Blosser, Keri Dunphy, the staffs of theOhio Historical Society and the University of Akron Archival Service, andfinally, Christopher Marsh, Pat Cornett, and the editorial team at the Journalof Church and State.

Journal of Church and Statevol. 51 no. 2, pages 289311; doi:10.1093/jcs/csp039

1. Martinsville Daily (VA), August 18, 1971.

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allowing public school prayer. Because of Ruhlins efforts, in the fallof 1971 the House of Representatives debated and voted on a pro-posed school prayer amendment. The vote ultimately fell short ofthe required two-thirds majority needed to pass a constitutional

amendment. Nevertheless, Ruhlins efforts signaled the beginningof a much larger conservative grassroots religious movement thatwould transform the United States during the 1970s.

Louise Ruhlins crusade for a school prayer amendment occurredat time of great flux in the American political system. As has beenwell documented by other scholars, the 1970s witnessed the begin-ning of a right turn in American politics in which various conser-vative movements took control of the Republican Party and helpedelect Ronald Reagan to the presidency in 1980. One of the key

groups in this conservative political ascendance was Americas con-servative Christians. Fearing for the moral future of the UnitedStates because of the perceived excesses of the 1960s as well asSupreme Court decisions that had banned school prayer andmade abortion legal, many previously apolitical evangelical andfundamentalist Christians began in the late 1970s to join newlyformed religious political organizations, including, most notably,the Moral Majority led by the Reverend Jerry Falwell. A substantial

body of historical, sociological, and political science literature

exists on the rise of politically active conservative Christians.2

2. See William Martin, With God on Our Side: The Rise of the Religious Right inAmerica (New York: Broadway Books, 1996); Michael Lienesch, RedeemingAmerica: Piety and Politics in the New Christian Right (Chapel Hill: Universityof North Carolina Press, 1993); Jerome Himmelstein, To the Right: The Trans-formation of American Conservatism (Berkeley: University of California Press,1990); Allen Hertzke, Representing God in Washington: The Role of ReligiousLobbies in the American Polity (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press,1988); Walter Capps, The New Religious Right: Piety, Patriotism, and Politics

(Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1990); Justin Watson, The Chris-tian Coalition: The Dreams of Restoration, Demands for Recognition (New York:St. Martins Press, 1997); D. G. Hart, That Old Time Religion in Modern America:Evangelical Protestantism in the Twentieth Century(Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2002);Mark J. Rozell and Clyde Wilcox, Second Coming: The New Christian Right in Vir-ginia Politics (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996); Clyde Wilcox,Onward Christian Soldiers? The Religious Right in American Politics (Boulder:Westview Press, 1996); Steve Bruce, The Rise and Fall of the New ChristianRight: Conservative Protestant Politics in America, 19781988 (Oxford: Claren-don Press, 1988); Garry Wills, Under God: Religion and American Politics(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990); Mathew C. Moen, The Transformation

of the Christian Right (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1992); GeoffreyLayman, The Great Divide: Religious and Cultural Conflict in American Party Poli-tics (New York: Columbia University Press 2001); Duane Murray Oldfield The

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This scholarship has effectively explored many facets of theso-called Christian Rights political experience from a close analysisof its political beliefs, to its rise to prominence within the Republi-can Party, to its impact on political campaign rhetoric and electoral

results. More recently, scholars have shifted their focus to grassrootsconservative Christian organizations with a special emphasis onthe role women played in these movements. As historian DonaldCritchlow argues, during the 1970s social issues like abortion,school prayer, and the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) capturedthe attention of many conservative Christian women like Ruhlinand mobilized them to become involved in politics on a grassrootslevel, which ultimately activated a disheartened conservative move-ment and laid the foundation for the election of Ronald Reagan in

1980.3Louise Ruhlins story, which for the most part has been largely

untold by scholars, offers a useful case study of a grassroots reli-gious political organization that sheds light on the rise of conserva-tive Christian women as active political participants in modernAmerica. Significantly, in pursuing a school prayer amendmentRuhlin did not attempt to use her foray into lobbying as a stepping-stone for greater personal political power or influence. She seemedto care only about the issue itself and preserving what she believed

to be traditional American family values. She showed no interest inincreasing her personal public profile. Indeed, whenever she issuedpress releases, took out ads in various newspapers in support ofschool prayer, or contributed quotes to articles about her move-ment, her name always appeared as Mrs. Ben Ruhlin. In this sense,Ruhlin differed significantly from Phyllis Schlafly, the futureleader of a national campaign against the ratification of the ERAand the most prominent and successful female conservative activist

American Protestantism, and Joseph Crespino, Civil Rights and the ReligiousRight, all in Rightward Bound: Making America Conservative in the 1970s, ed.Bruce J. Schulman and Julian Zelizer (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,2008).3. Donald Critchlow, Mobilizing Women: The Social Issues, in The ReaganPresidency: Pragmatic Conservatism & Its Legacies, ed. W. Elliot Brownlee andHugh Davis Graham (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2003), 29394. Forother works on grassroots conservatism and the rise of conservative Christianwomen activists see Lisa McGirr, Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New

American Right(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001); Donald Critchlow,Phyllis Schlafly and Grassroots Conservatism: A Womans Crusade (Princeton:Princeton University Press 2005); Catherine Rymph Republican Women: Femin

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of the 1970s. Schlafly, a longtime Republican leader who hadachieved a national reputation in the 1960s through a series of best-selling books and her work on behalf of Barry Goldwaters presiden-tial campaign in 1964, had strong connections with GOP leadership.

When she began her quest to defeat the ERA she was able to draw ona large national network of support. According to her biographerDonald Critchlow, Schlafly represented a conduit between the intel-lectual conservative elite and the grassroots. Ruhlin, on the otherhand, was the grassroots. She did not have an establishednetwork of supporters around the country or any kind of followingoutside of her local area when she first launched her grassrootscampaign.

Ruhlins story also raises important questions about the possibi-

lities and limitations of religious-based political lobbying inmodern America. She succeeded at forming a large national move-ment of religious women who saw the barring of prayer in publicschools as a telltale sign pointing toward Americas moral decline.Ruhlin and her associates came close to getting the House of Repre-sentatives to pass a school prayer amendment while other conserva-tive Christian activists, male and female, helped stop the ratificationof the ERA and overturned gay rights legislation in Florida. Mostimportantly, these policy efforts mobilized conservative Christians

politically and made them active members of the Republican Party,contributing to key GOP victories from 1980 through 2004. Despitethese successes, however, conservative Christians largely fell shortin advancing most of their national public policy agenda, includingrepeatedly failing to secure federal legislation to ban abortion andpornography, or reinstating school prayer. As will be shown,Ruhlins failure to secure a prayer amendment in 1971 signaled(though neither she nor other conservative Christians at the timewere aware of it) an emerging secularization of American politics

where overt religious/moral values would have a limited influenceon federal public policy.4 Thus, paradoxically, beginning in the

4. The use of the term secular to describe the condition of the modernAmerican political system under which the Christian Right has operated, isnot intended to suggestas social theorists like Max Weber once dida totalabsence of religious ideology from the public sphere or a lack of religious influ-ence within the political arena. Rather, the secularization of modern Americanpolitics should be understood as a process in which political values and debate,once shaped directly by interpretations of religious text, are now infused and

merged with nonreligious ideas of constitutional interpretation and notionsof civil rights. In other words, whereas American lawmakers in the nineteenthcentury and early twentieth century often argued for some policies in terms


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1970s and carrying through into the twenty-first century, oneelement of politics (public policy) became more secularized andarguably more liberal while key parts of the electorate and

broader American political culture moved to the right.5

Controversy surrounding prayer in public schools has been a partof the United States since the founding. During the early-nineteenthcentury, Protestant denominational leaders argued about whoseprayers should be used in schools. The infusion of Irish Catholicimmigrants in the mid-1800s provoked local school board clashesover attempts to require the reading of biblical passages from theProtestant King James Bible or the employment of Protestant ver-sions of the Lords Prayer. In the 1840s, for example, reports circu-lated in Philadelphia of teachers beating Catholic students who

refused to read from the King James Bible. At times, even, these con-flicts boiled over into riots.6 Eventually these matters moved to thecourts, and throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centu-ries local and state courts weighed in on questions of whether publicofficials could mandate school prayers and which prayers would notviolate individual students rights. In general, however, the courtsand most Americans accepted or desired the presence of religion inschools, provided that Catholic or other minority faith studentscould opt out of any religious exercise that offended them.7

This trend changed dramatically with the 1962 case Engelv. Vitale, in which the Supreme Court prohibited state sponsoredorganized vocal prayer in public schools, arguing that it violatedthe constitutions First Amendment prohibition on governmentestablished religion. The decision, as well as the Courts subsequentruling a year later in Abington School District v. Schemppwhich

banned bible reading in public schoolsshocked conservativeChristians and made them fearful for Americas future. Many con-servative Christians interpreted the decisions as a direct challenge

to Gods symbolic standing in America by a minority of cultural

influence on American politics in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries see forexample, Richard Carwardine, Evangelicals and Politics in Antebellum America(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993); Gaines Foster, Moral Reconstruction:Christian Lobbyists and the Federal Legislation of Morality, 18651920(ChapelHill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002).5. Critchlow points out an element of this 1970s paradox in his biography ofPhyllis Schlafly, though he deals specifically with the simultaneous rise of fem-

inism and conservative female activists. According to Critchlow, the paradox ofthe decade was this: If this was the age of liberation, it was equally the age ofreaction See Critchlow Phyllis Schlafly 214


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secularists. Presbyterian minister Edward Elson, for example,declared, [a] secular nation is not what we were at the beginning.Then we said it was God who gave us liberty, God who broughtforth the nation, God who hath preserved us a nation. . . . We are a

theistic people.8 If God were to be driven from the schools andother public spaces, Elson continued, we must find and soon findways of involving the whole people in public symbolic acts attestingthat we are a theistic people even though not a theocratic state.9

Conservative Christians have continually struggled to carry outElsons decree.

In the immediate years following the Engel and Abingtondecisions, there were two significant movements by Congressto pass a constitutional amendment restoring school prayer.

New York Republican representative Frank Becker led the firstmovement. In 1964 he proposed an amendment that read:Nothing in this Constitution shall be deemed to prohibit the offer-ing, reading from, or listening to prayers or biblical scriptures, ifparticipation therein is on a voluntary basis, in any governmentalor public school, institution or place.10 That same year he forcedthe House Judiciary Committee (where all proposed constitutionalamendments in the House are first considered) to hold hearingson the matter. The hearings lasted eighteen days and included

over 2,700 pages of testimony and submitted materials. Advocateson both sides of the issue testified, but in the end the JudiciaryCommittee never referred the proposed amendment to the fullHouse for a vote.11 Two years later, the Senate took up schoolprayer. Republican Everett Dirksen of Illinois, the Senate MinorityLeader, pushed his own proposed amendment, which read,Nothing contained in this Constitution shall prohibit the authorityadministering any school, school system, educational institution orother public building supported in whole or in part through the

expenditure of public funds from providing for or permitting thevoluntary participation by students or others in prayer. Nothingcontained in this article shall authorize any such authority to pre-scribe the form or content of any prayer.12 Under his leadership

8. Bible and Prayer Ruling: A Signal to the Churches, Christianity Today 7:19(1963), 27.9. Ibid.10. U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, Hearings before the Committee onthe Judiciary, School Prayers(Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office,

1964), 22. (Hereafter cited as School Prayer Hearings 1964).11. DelFattore, The Fourth R, 126.12 U S Congress Senate Hearings before the Subcommittee on constitutional


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the Senate Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments of theJudiciary Committee held hearings, and eventually he brought itto a vote before the entire Senate. The vote, however, did not pass.13

In both the 1964 and 1966 hearings, school prayer advocates were

partly undone by the nature of their arguments. In most cases,those in favor of the prayer amendment argued that the UnitedStates needed to affirm publicly its faith in God through schoolprayer, or risk losing its favored status in the world by incurringGods wrath. School prayer advocates also contended that an over-whelming majority of Americans believed in God and thereforefavored the amendment to reinstate majority rule over localschool decisions to insure religious freedom. Opponents counteredthat the best way to protect religious freedom was by keeping gov-

ernment out of religious practice entirely. Many of these opponentsincluded religious leaders from Catholicism, Judaism, and mainlineProtestant churches, who worried that children of their faiths would

be forced to say or listen to religious prayers that were not of theirown denomination. The presence of religious leaders against theprayer amendment at the hearings suggested to many congressmenthat conservative Christians who favored school prayer did notnecessarily speak for the overwhelming majority of Americans.The continued opposition of religious leaders would stifle conser-

vative Christians during all future debates over school prayeramendments.14

In 1967, a year after Dirksens prayer amendment failed to passthe Senate, the Illinois Senator submitted a new proposal whichread: Nothing in this Constitution shall abridge the right ofpersons lawfully assembled in any public building which is sup-ported in whole or in part through the expenditure of publicfunds, to participate in non-denominational prayer.15 Dirksenhoped to circumvent objections to earlier versions of the school

prayer amendment by confronting the broader issue of religion inpublic buildings. Though this new amendment of course includedpublic schools, it turned the issue into a debate over the rights ofall people to engage in prayer virtually anywhere in the publicsphere. The phrase non-denominational prayer, which Dirksenincluded ostensibly to assuage those who worried that their

13. DelFattore, The Fourth R, 135.14. For a good summation of the pro prayer position see Reverend Gabriel

Abdullah testimony during the 1964 hearings. School Prayer Hearings 1964,1104. Opposition to the prayer amendment can be seen in the testimonies ofC Emanuel Carlson of the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs and


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children would be forced to listen to, or partake in, the prayers ofother denominations, presented some potential long-term pro-

blems. If the amendment passed and schools reinstituted prayers,the courts could still nullify many of these prayers by simply

arguing that they were sectarian. Debates over the meaning of non-denominational prayer plagued the school prayer movement foryears to come. In the meantime the Senate took no action on theproposal for the remainder of the term. At the start of the next con-gressional session in 1969 Dirksen teamed with Ohio Republicanrepresentative Chalmers Wylie to submit identical prayer amend-ments in both Houses of Congress. The proposals again wentnowhere. In September 1969, Dirksen passed away and it appearedas though this issue would die with him.16

The issue might well have ended if Louise Ruhlin had not takenspecial interest in the matter following the conversation with herson over the absence of religious expression in public schools.The wife of Ben Ruhlin, the owner of a prominent local aluminumsiding company, Louise was an active member of her local Churchof Christ. For Ruhlin, like many Americans who favored schoolprayer, the issue was simple. They wanted their schools to reflectthe values they believed lay at the heart of American identity byallowing students to engage in voluntary prayer. Moreover, they

never got caught up in the policy debates over broader consti-tutional issues or the specific composition of school prayers.Ruhlin and her supporters just wanted school prayer.

Such a determined and straightforward approach to the issue hadboth its advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, thisapproach allowed Ruhlin to appeal to many everyday women andget them involved in the movement because they understoodschool prayer in similar terms. This large network of supportersapplied enough political pressure to force the House of Representa-

tives to debate a school prayer amendment in 1971. This approach,however, ignored the nature of congressional debate. For thosedeciding the fate of the bill didhave to consider the exact wordingof the amendment and its broader constitutional implications.Ruhlin and her supporters inability or unwillingness to acceptand adjust to such political realities would ultimately doom anychance they had at securing the amendment.

Such concerns, however, were not on Ruhlins mind when she firstdecided to pursue a school prayer amendment. Indeed, Ruhlins

biggest challenge early on was that she was not a national figure


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with an established grassroots political organization in place.Despite such long odds, Ruhlin began her school prayer crusadein the spring of 1970 by writing a letter to President RichardNixon. She asked Nixon how could an education geared to make

American students well rounded be without God at the center ofour lives? She worried about the future generations of Americansif their lives lacked a strong religious foundation.17 Her lettersoon appeared in the Cuyahoga Falls City Press with a note urgingreaders to write to the local superintendent of schools demandinga return of school prayer. Almost immediately letters beganpouring into the superintendents office. A typical letter includedone from a former schoolteacher who argued that student disci-pline declined greatly after prayer and Bible study disappeared

from schools. She believed that a good strong belief in God, bywhatever name he is called, and in His rewards and punishments,is a most necessary element in a childs education.18

In early summer 1970, with substantial local support in hand,Ruhlin sought to expand her movement. After contacting her repre-sentative, Republican William Ayres, she started taking out ads inmajor newspapers across the country, which included a coupon to

be sent to the House Judiciary Committee calling for support ofthe Dirksen and Wylie amendments. Many people sent the

coupons directly back to her, which she collected to present tothe Judiciary Committee. The venture cost her close to six thousanddollars. Ruhlin claimed later that she personally received over ahundred thousand of these coupons and knew of at least sixhundred thousand more which had been clipped and sent in byprayer supporters. Additionally she sent every congressman copiesof her letter to Nixon.19 Emboldened by the initial response to hercampaign, Ruhlin traveled to Washington and met with both JamesEastland and Emanuel Celler, the respective Senate and House Judi-

ciary Committee chairmen. She tried to convince them to reportout the still pending Dirksen and Wylie prayer amendments.

In Celler, Ruhlin met a formidable foe. He used his position asJudiciary Committee chairman to stymie earlier attempts at aprayer amendment in 1964.20 Any proposed constitutional

17. Cuyahoga Falls City Press, April 8, 1970.18. Letter, Mrs. Virginia Stahl to Harold Wilson, June 1, 1970, Box 15, Folder 4,Mrs. Ben Ruhlins Prayer Campaign Committee Files, University of Akron Archi-

val Services, Akron, Ohio. (Hereafter cited as MBRF, UAAS).19. Congressional Quarterly Almanac 1971, 626; Philadelphia Inquirer, July 12,1971; Chalmers Wylie Papers Box 116 Folder 27 Ohio Historical Society


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amendment in either House of Congress must be referred to therespective Judiciary Committee where it is debated and voted on. Ifa majority of the Judiciary Committee votes in favor of the amend-ment then it is referred to the entire congressional body for debate

and vote. As Judiciary chairman, Celler had the ability to keep thebill from ever being debated by his committee. He did this in 1964when Frank Becker proposed his school prayer amendment. Thisforced Becker to seek a discharge petition to bypass the JudiciaryCommittee and have the amendment appear before the entireHouse. Only after it appeared that Becker might achieve the necess-ary votes for a discharge petition did Celler agree to the lengthypublic hearings on the proposed amendment. Following the hearingsthe amendment never came to a vote before the Judiciary Committee

and Becker failed to get the necessary signatures for discharge. In1970 Celler repeated these stalling tactics with Wylies proposedamendment by burying the proposal in committee. In September1970, a frustrated Ruhlin sent Celler a telegram demanding that hereport the prayer amendment to the full House. Celler had been alongtime supporter of Israel, and Ruhlin knew this. In her telegramshe threatened to start calling on the American people to see thatIsrael isnt kept free by American support.21

Beyond trying to intimidate Celler, Ruhlin made school prayer an

issue in the 1970 congressional elections. A few weeks prior to Elec-tion Day, Ruhlin wrote to the Columbus Dispatch(Ohio) supportingWylies re-election bid (despite the fact that Wylie represented adifferent district than Ruhlins) on the basis of his commitment tothe prayer amendment and the time he personally took to meetwith her organization.22 Other school prayer lobbying organiz-ations followed a similar tact for the 1970 election. Similarly,another school prayer advocacy organization, the Maryland-basedCitizens for Public Prayer, also used the issue in the 1970 campaign.

They issued a press release on October 28, 1970, supporting thereelection of Lawrence Hogan from Marylands fifth district

because he strongly supports the civil right of free schoolprayer. The press release noted how Hogans opponent, RoyalHart, had voted against a school prayer proposal before the Mary-land legislature.23 The efforts of Ruhlin and the Citizens forPublic Prayer paid off as both Wylie and Hogan won their reelection

bids. Unfortunately for Ruhlin, however, her own congressman and

21. Telegram, Louise Ruhlin to Emanuel Celler, September 19, 1970, Box 5,Folder 15, MBRF, UAAS.22 Letter Louise Ruhlin to Columbus Dispatch October 17 1970 Box 116


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an avid supporter of public school prayer, William Ayres, suffereddefeat to his Democratic challenger, John Seiberling, who openlyopposed a school prayer amendment.

Neither Ayress defeat nor the continued intransigence of

Emanuel Celler deterred Ruhlin. Following Ayress advice, Ruhlinwent to Wylie for help. Presenting him with over a hundred thou-sand petition signatures, she encouraged the Ohio representativeto resubmit his proposed prayer amendment in the new Congressand press Celler to hold committee hearings. If this failed, Ruhlinwanted Wylie to file a discharge petition so that the amendmentcould bypass Cellers committee and come for a vote before theentire House. Ruhlin promised that she and her associates wouldwork hard to lobby the required 218 congressmen to sign. Wylie

approached Celler about the hearings, but the Judiciary Chairmenrefused.24 Celler probably assumed that Wylie would never beable to muster the necessary signatures for discharge, and thematter would die. He did not, however, factor in the tenacity ofLouise Ruhlin, who along with many other determined grassrootsactivists would spend countless hours asking, cajoling, and even-tually threatening representatives until they agreed to support theamendment.

On April 1, 1971, Wylie filed the discharge petition for his prayer

amendment igniting Ruhlins campaign. The Ohio representativeoffered Ruhlin and some of her staff the use of his congressionaloffices to aid their cause. By this time Ruhlin had established anational movement known as the Prayer Campaign Committee(PCC). Her efforts caught the attention of a number of other organ-izations around the country that also strongly believed in schoolprayer. These groups included the American Legion, Veterans ofForeign Wars, the Back to God Movement, Citizens for PublicReverence, and the aforementioned Citizens for Public Prayer.

Leaders from these various groups pledged to help Ruhlin byopening offices in Washington, DC, to begin the intense lobbyingcampaign. Throughout the next several months Ruhlin coordi-nated efforts with these and other groups. They met frequently,exchanged numerous letters and phone calls, and formulated astrategy to convince wavering congressmen to sign the dischargepetition.

Ruhlin believed that to win this battle she needed to recruit count-less constituents to put relentless pressure on their representatives.

The PCC and the other school prayer lobbying organizations hadchapters throughout the country, making it possible for Ruhlin to


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representative. The prayer groups generally drew these volunteersfrom, and coordinated their efforts through, local churches.25

Church bulletins kept congregations abreast of prayer amendmentactivities and generally encouraged members to take part in the

effort.26 With numerous volunteers in place, Ruhlin and her staffmade contact with every congressional office. In a form letter sentto each representative, Ruhlin presented the issue succinctly bydescribing how the secular forces of our society prohibit ourpublic school children from acknowledging in prayer In God WeTrust. She reminded the congressmen that both Houses of Con-gress opened their respective session with prayer and how the pro-posed amendment sought merely to protect that same right forschool children.27 A number of congressmen had pledged to

Ruhlin the previous year to sign the petition, which they didshortly after Wylie filed it. Those who appeared reluctant or out-right refused to cooperate received phone calls or angry lettersfrom their constituents.

Between April and September 1971, Ruhlin worked feverishly onthe prayer lobbying, dividing her time between visiting congres-sional offices herself and writing volunteers to ask them topressure specific representatives. In a letter to a volunteer fromOklahoma, for example, Ruhlin listed five Oklahoma representa-

tives who had not yet signed the discharge petition. She providedthe addresses of the representatives Washington offices andurged the volunteer to get her friends and relatives to writetheir respective representative in support of the discharge peti-tion. Ruhlin said that if these Representatives realize that theirconstituents know they have not signed this Discharge Petition,favoring prayer in the schools, they might get busy and sign it.She also sent along copies of the proposed amendment and aletter to the editor that Ruhlin had sent out to newspapers

across the country, and suggested that they be used in the mail-ings to the congressmen.28 Ruhlin sent similar letters to volun-teers throughout the country.

Throughout the summer of 1971, the PCC came closer to therequired 218 signatures, but the movement ran into several

25. For example, Celeste Osterle of Citizens for Public Reverence told Ruhlinthat she had 947 women in her group that came from her local parish inPittsburgh, Pennsylvania. See letter, Celeste Osterle to Louise Ruhlin, April 12,

1971, Box 3, Folder 6, MBRF, UAAS.26. See, for example, The Bethany Letter, April 21, 1970, Box 4, Folder 2, MBRF,UAAS


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problems. The first concerned Celler, who by now saw the risingnumber of signatures and feared the discharge petition mightsucceed. To halt Ruhlins momentum, Celler sent every representa-tive a copy of the transcripts from the prayer hearings in 1964 along

with a note urging them not to sign the discharge petition. Heargued that the House had given full weight to all the evidenceand arguments regarding the prayer issue and could not find anyway to restore school prayer without violating First Amendmentrights to freedom of religion.29 Ruhlin objected to Cellers maneuversand told the press that he was using taxpayers money to opposeus.30 Besides Celler, Ruhlin faced another problem. In her visits tothe various congressional offices, several representatives expressedinterest in the prayer amendment, but they did not like the idea of

a discharge petition because they believed in the normal proceduresof the House where bills had to go through the appropriate commit-tees before coming to a full vote. The PCC had to be cautious in pres-suring these traditional-minded representatives for fear they wouldlose their potential votes on the amendment should the dischargepetition work. In the cases of reluctant representatives, all theprayer committee could do was thank them for their promisedsupport but point out that if we wait for the two committees inthe House and the Senate to take action, we may not be around.31

Ruhlin concentrated instead on the still undecided representa-tives, employing more aggressive tactics. Her associate, Mary JaneSertel, for example, wrote to Florida Representative Dante Fascelltrying to win over his support for the discharge petition by under-mining Celler. Sertel made a veiled reference to a letter from

29. Letter, Emanuel Celler to Colleagues of the House of Representatives, July20, 1971, Box 355, Prayer Amendment #2 Folder, The Papers of EmanuelCeller (hereafter cited as PEC), Library of Congress, Washington, DC (hereafter

cited as LOC). Several congressmen responded to Cellers letter and the includedcopies of the 1964 committee hearings. William Hathaway, a representativefrom Maine, said that the hearings transcripts confirmed his continued opposi-tion to the prayer amendment. See letter, William Hathaway to Emanuel Celler,July 20, 1971, Box 355, Prayer Amendment #2 Folder, PEC, LOC. David Dennisof Indiana, on the other hand, argued that there still needed to be additionalhearings because there were few members of Congress still around from 1964and that there was wide public support for the amendment. See letter, DavidDennis to Emanuel Celler, July 21, 1971, Box 355, Prayer Amendment #1Folder, PEC, LOC. Celler responded to Dennis arguing that many of the objec-tions of religious leaders toward the prayer amendment remained unchanged

since 1964 and that Celler himself worried about stirring up religious issuesin these discordant times. See letter, Emanuel Celler to David Dennis, July29 1971 Box 355 Prayer Amendment #1 Folder PEC LOC


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religious leaders circulating to congressmen in mid-Septemberurging them to come out against the prayer amendment. Baptist,Episcopal, Lutheran, and Jewish leaders signed the letter.32 Serteltold Fascell that there [s]eems as if many are wondering how the

Baptist vote could have been secured so quickly; there are mum-blings of Zionismand other speculation which Im sure youmust have heard, too.33 In other cases, the prayer campaign threa-tened the representative themselves. Robert Mauro, who headed theNew Jersey Chapter of Citizens for Prayer, offered a veiled threatwhen he sarcastically told Cornelius Gallagher, a Democrat repre-senting New Jerseys thirteenth district, that he was reluctant towrite letters to the newspapers in the cities of the Thirteenth Dis-trict attacking your failure to sign [the discharge petition], and to

the church groups within said district favoring the prayer amend-ment. Mauro continued that he was also reluctant to seekprimary candidates to run against you in the Thirteenth Districtuntil I hear from you as to whether you are going to sign.34

Ruhlin also engaged in hardball tactics. She recalled years later aconfrontation with Fred Schwengel, a Republican representativefrom Iowa who came out strongly against the prayer amendment.He claimed that nobody in his district wanted prayer. Not believinghim, Ruhlin tracked down a banker in Schwengels district who had

donated to the PCC. The contributor turned out to be Schwengelsbanker, who was very upset and called the representative a liar.35

This confrontational tactic did not persuade Schwengel to supportthe prayer amendment, but it showed the lengths to which Ruhlinwould go to get her way. Along these lines, Ruhlin began takingout advertisements in the home district newspapers of severalcongressmen, including John Rhodes of Arizona and Joe Evins ofTennessee indicating that they had not yet signed the dischargepetition.36 Despite Schwengels and other representatives resist-

ance, on September 21, 1971, the discharge petition received its218th signature. The petition reflected true bi-partisanship with111 Republicans and 107 Democrats signing on.37

Ruhlin had pulled off an improbable victory. It demonstrated thatwith enough determination and hard work, grassroots religious

32. For more on the religious leaders statement against the prayer amendmentsee Congressional Quarterly Almanac 1971, 627.33. Letter, Mary Jane Sertel to Dante Fascell, September 18, 1971, Box 3, Folder

9, MBRF, UAAS.34. Letter, Robert Mauro to Cornelius Gallagher, September 11, 1971, Box 3,Folder 5 MBRF UAAS


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activists could directly influence congressional politics. Neverthe-less, Ruhlin and her supporters had not yet achieved their goal.The full House still had to vote on the amendment. A discharge peti-tion requires only a majority of the House to pass, while a consti-

tutional amendment needs two-thirds. This supermajorityrequirement for constitutional amendments reflected the titanicchallenge faced by prayer supporters because of the Engel andSchempp decisions. Whereas other interest groups needed generallegislation to advance their interests, which required majorities of

both Houses of Congress and a presidential signature, prayer advo-cates required a constitutional amendment to advance their policygoals. On several occasions from the 1960s to the 1980s, a schoolprayer amendment might have been achieved if only a simple

majority was needed. Ruhlin, despite this weighty challenge, didnot give up. She had already overcome the odds once, and sheknew that several congressmen had pledged to support the amend-ment even though they had not signed the discharge petition. More-over, with the issue now scheduled to come to a vote, congressmencould not avoid the issue and would have to cast a vote and face thepotential consequences during election time a year later.

The House of Representatives rules concerning discharged peti-tions slightly curbed the prayer movements momentum. A dis-

charged petition had to wait a minimum of seven days beforebeing presented to the entire House and it could only be consideredon the second or fourth Monday of a month. The House holidayschedule negated any opportunity for it to be heard in October,pushing the date for its consideration back to November 8. Thisgave the opportunity for amendment opponents to rally supportagainst the amendment.

Celler understood that the key to the public relations battle onschool prayer would involve marshalling religious leaders to

oppose the amendment. Indeed, the presence of numerous Protes-tant, Catholic, and Jewish officials in the 1964 House prayer hear-ings had helped blunt the public demand for a school prayeramendment to reverse the Engel and Schempp decisions. As such,on October 4, Celler gathered numerous congressmen and religiousclergy who opposed public school prayer for a press conferencewhere they labeled Wylies amendment a very real threat to reli-gious freedom.38 Cellers group also issued a press releasearguing that the First Amendment already protected religious liber-

ties that Wylies amendment suggested were under attack. More-over, school prayer opponents expressed worry about Wylies call


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possible nor desirable for it would ultimately dilute the power ofprayer. Ultimately, Cellers group asserted that they wanted toprotect religious liberty, whereas to them Wylies amendment threa-tened it.39

Not to be outdone, Ruhlin and her allies did everything they could toexert maximum grassroots pressure on wavering congressmen. Wyliehimself taped an interview for WEEI radio in Boston, Massachusettsmaking his case for the school prayer amendment. The congressmanmaintained that America needed the amendment because theSupreme Court had failed to clarify what sort of religious activitiescould be permitted in public facilities. In response to one caller,Wylie expanded his argument to include his belief that religionhad a place in schools. He remarked: I think we should be

guided throughout the day. This indicates to the young peoplethat we are a democracy, which is founded on recognition of aSupreme Deity.40 The organization, Restore School VoluntaryPrayer (RSVP), which had been active in the prayer battles of the1960s, sent out a letter calling on its members to flood Washingtonwith letters, urging our U.S. Congressmen to support VOLUNTARY,NON-DENOMINATIONAL SCHOOL PRAYER. The letter went on to

blame the rise in crime, violence, and drug use in schools to theabsence of prayer and advised supporters to work quietly (avoiding

publicity which invariably brings out the opposition full force) and toput our trust in God who moves not only mountains but Senators andRepresentatives too!41

Ruhlin, for her part, directly challenged the religious leaders whohad appeared with Celler on October 4. In a letter sent to every con-gressmen, she asserted that the majority of the people of theUnited States favor what we are proposingincluding the churchmembers of the denominational leaders who have spoken in oppo-sition to the non-denominational prayer amendment. She contin-

ued that the denominational leaders were only speaking forthemselves and as such Congress needed to end the influence ofthe church associations that are tax free and imposing their willon government. America is only Great when we, the tax payersvoices, are heard!42 Beyond writing to Congress, Ruhlin organizedgroups of constituents from fourteen different states to come to

39. Press Release, Congressmen and Clergy against Prayer Amendment,October 4, 1971, Box 355, Prayer Amendment #1 Folder, PEC, LOC.

40. Notes from Taped Interview, September 22, 1971, WEEI Radio, October 5,1971, Box 117, Folder 3, CWP, OHS.41 RSVP Newsletter October 7 1971 Box 2 Folder 5 MBRF UAAS (emphasis in


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about who would actually compose the prayer. Echoing prayeropponents from the 1960s debates, Schwengel rejected that anyprayer imposed by officials representing the state could possibly

be voluntary. He said, [h]istory records that people do not

respond to compassion for religion by the State. The whole questionmust be left to the power of the Holy Spirit, the persuasion of love,and the dynamics of personal responsibility.47

Wylie and his allies, who included both Democrats and Republi-cans, drew on many of the previously used arguments advanced

by prayer advocates in the 1960s. Wylie attacked the Engeldecisionfor, among other things, placing the atheist and believer in asupreme deity in the same category in applying the first amend-ment. The result had been a wholesale violation of rights for reli-

gious Americans who could not even engage in voluntary groupprayer.48 Robert Sikes, a Democrat from Florida, blamed atheistsfor creating this issue over school prayer in the first place. He won-dered how his colleagues could answer to their constituencies aftercasting a vote against this amendment. To him, the rank and file ofAmericans know the importance of, appreciate, and want religion intheir lives and in the schools.49

Others expressed concern about the countrys morality withoutfoundational prayer as well as the belief that the American people

demanded the amendment. William Scott, a Republican fromVirginia, wondered if the lack of school prayer contributed to riseof disorder and permissiveness among young people.50 Prayeradvocates would advance Scotts line of argument for many yearsto come. G. V. Montgomery, a Democrat from Mississippi, bestcaptured the sentiments of Ruhlin and her supporters. Afterciting public opinion polls that showed 80 85 percent of Americansfavored a school prayer amendment, he told his colleagues that[m]ost Americans are not interested in the arguments about

whether or not the prayer amendment will change the bill ofRights or weaken the Constitution. What the American people areinterested in is that the Supreme Court has restricted prayer inpublic schools and they do not like it one bit. Like Sikes beforehim, he cautioned his fellow representatives from going against thewill of their constituents. A vote for the proposed amendment isgoing to be a lot easier to explain back home than a vote against it.51

Though Montgomery articulated the grassroots prayer advocatesposition well, neither he nor the other congressmen who favored the

47. Ibid., 39896.48 Ibid 39886


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amendment could get around the general arguments regarding theclause calling for non-denominational prayer. This clause left thepotential for the courts to nullify virtually any prayer by simplydeclaring it sectarian. Moreover, prayer opponents argued that a non-

denominational prayer could not be composed. Sensing that hisamendment might fail, Wylie allowed John Buchanan, a Republicanfrom Alabama, to introduce a proposed amendment to H. J. Res191, which would substitute voluntary prayer and meditation, fornon-denominational.52 Interestingly, this made the language ofthe amendment similar to Dirksens proposal from 1966 (with theexception that it referred to public buildings supported by tax-payerdollars) that the Senate had failed to pass. Dirksen and subsequentlyWylie had gone to nondenominational prayer to avoid the objections

raised before; prayer advocates thus were right back where theystarted. Regardless of the language, prayer opponents still raisedquestions over who could compose these prayers and just howvoluntary they really were. Buchanans amendment passed by avoice vote but it could not provide enough momentum to overcomethe supermajority requirement for constitutional amendmentpassage. The final vote on Wylies amendment, 240168, felltwenty-eight votes short. Republicans cast 138 votes for the amend-ment with the Democrats contributing the other 102.53

The defeat did not stop Louise Ruhlin and her allies from continu-ing their pursuit of a school prayer amendment. In addition totrying to introduce another prayer amendment in Congress thenext year, the PCC attempted to get enough state legislatures topass resolutions calling for a constitutional convention to considera prayer amendment (the other way dictated in Article V of the con-stitution for an amendment to be considered). Ruhlin also felt itnecessary to purge those congressmen that had helped defeatWylies amendment. Emanuel Celler topped her list. Ruhlin had

heard rumors that Celler had hired a lobbyist named StuartJohnson and placed him on the staff of California representativeDon Edwards to lobby against the prayer amendment. She believedthat Johnson was illegally employed at taxpayers expense.54 InApril 1972, she wrote to Melvin Price, the chairman of the Commit-tee on Standards of Official Conduct to present evidence againstCeller and others about Johnsons employment.55 Nothing,however, came of the matter. Celler eventually suffered a surprising

52. Ibid., 39945.53. Congress and the Nation 3:487, 29a.54 Letter Louise Ruhlin to Wayne Hays December 21 1971 Box 4 Folder 21


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defeat in the primaries later that year ending his fifty-year reign inthe House.56 Besides Celler, Ruhlin went after many of the othercongressmen who had voted against the amendment by makinggood on her promise to lease billboards in particular congressional

districts stating that the respective representative had voted againstthe prayer amendment. In all, she erected nearly seventy billboards,which she later claimed contributed to the defeat of at least tencongressmen in the 1972 election. Fred Schwengel was one ofRuhlins targets who lost his reelection bid. To her great dismay,John Seiberling, Ruhlins representative who had opposed theprayer amendment, triumphed in his election.57

Ruhlin continued to lobby Congress and state legislators over thenext five years, but she could never generate the same kind of

momentum for a prayer amendment as she had in 1971. Most con-gressmen who favored the bill had no desire to pursue anotherprayer amendment when it had already gone down to defeat afterthey had expended considerable effort on its behalf. The oldissues of the exact wording of the amendment, as well as oppositionfrom religious leaders still remained and looked to upend anyfuture attempts to secure the amendment. Finally, after 1971 forthe next several years school prayer did not represent the samekind of priority for many conservative Christians because new

issues like abortion and the ERA soon emerged that took their fullattention.

Why did Ruhlin ultimately fail in her bid to secure a school prayeramendment, whereas a decade later Phyllis Schlafly and her STOPERA organization denied final ratification of the ERA? There areseveral explanations. First, Ruhlin faced a much more difficult taskthan Schlafly because she was trying to get an amendment passedand thus had to secure supermajority support from Congress andthe states. It took all of Ruhlins efforts to get a majority of the

House of Representatives to vote for the discharge petition, whichdid not even guarantee that those congressmen would supportthe amendment when it came to a vote before the entire House.Indeed, twenty-nine congressmen (enough to have helped the amend-ment pass) who had signed the discharge petition either voted no orabstained. Some like Democrat Frank Brasco of New York claimedthey had signed the discharge petition because they believed the

bill deserved an up-and-down vote before the entire House, butthat ultimately they did not believe in its merits.58

56 New York Times June 21 1972


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Schlafly, on the other hand, merely had to prevent the requisitenumber of state legislatures from ratifying the ERA. In a sense she

just needed to convince a simple majority of state legislators in ahandful of states to vote against the ERA. This is not to understate

the challenges that Schlafly had to overcome. By the time she beganher quest against the ERA, the amendment had not only passedCongress but had almost been ratified by nearly three-fourths ofthe states. On the surface, ERA supporters had all the momentumand many considered it a done deal. As historian David Kyvigpoints out, however, most of the states that would have beenexpected to ratify the ERA had done so by the time Schlaflyentered the fray. As such, she mostly had to convince more conser-vative state legislators who were probably already inclined to vote

against it.59Ruhlins aggressive tactics also account somewhat for her failure.

To be sure, her dogged pursuit of congressional support securedmany votes for the discharge petition, but her tenacity may alsohave lost her substantial support. As her congressmen, WilliamAyres, explained in a later interview, while Ruhlin was dedicatedto her cause she was somewhat politically nave as to how shecould get members to jump at her every wish. He went on toexplain that she probably alienated a lot of members of Congress

who sort of felt she was wearing out her welcome. She thoughteach one should really get out and thats all he should be doing,

just pushing her amendment. As we all know, they had a lot ofother things to do as well.60 Here again we see substantial differ-ence between Ruhlin and Schlafly. In lobbying state legislators tooppose the ERA, Schlafly instructed her followers to always act aspolite and lady like as possible. These women often greeted legis-lators in modest dress and bearing baked goods. This demureapproach reinforced the larger arguments of ERA opponents that

they sought to preserve traditional values and gender rolesagainst what they saw as a radical feminist agenda.61 Ruhlins hard-

ball tactics, on the other hand, stood in stark relief to what she sawas a seemingly innocuous goal of reinstating the right of children topractice religious observances in schools.

Finally, Ruhlin failed because the overtly religious nature of thearguments put forth by school prayer supporters went contrary tothe emerging secular tide that was engulfing modern American poli-tics. A critical dimension of this secularism was the continuing

59 Kyvig Explicit and Authentic Acts 408 09


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argument by religious leaders that the best way to protect religiousliberty was by keeping it out of the hands of public officials. Indeed,Ruhlins ally in the amendment fight, Celeste Osterle, believedthat the presence of religious leaders who came out against the

amendment helped sway some votes from those who had signedthe discharge petition.62 In arguing that secularism shaped politicaldebate and policy outcomes not only in the 1971 prayer amendment

battle, but throughout recent American history, it is not to say thatthe political system became devoid of religiosity. Indeed, the Repub-lican Party came to dominate the presidency and the Congress from1980 through 2004 in no small part because of the support theyreceived from conservative Christians whose religious ideologyhad led them to align with the GOP. Nevertheless, when conserva-

tive Christians in the 1980s through the early 2000s pushed fortheir national policy agenda of ending abortion and pornography,and restoring school prayer, their overtly religious arguments (andeven some of their secular arguments) carried little weight in thepolicy arena and their proposals mostly went down to defeat.

But would not the example of the ERA suggest the success of con-servative religious arguments in the policy arena? To be sure, Schla-fly generated substantial grassroots support by making direpredictions about the future of morality in the country should the

ERA pass, arguing that it would eradicate all legal distinctionsbetween the sexes. But she also employed largely secular argumentsto tap into a growing anti-statist sentiment that was sweeping thenation during the 1970s. Schlafly repeatedly argued that the ERArepresented a huge power-grab on part of the federal government.This convinced many people who might otherwise have had noobjection to the ERA on moral grounds, to come out against it. Con-servative Christians had a more difficult time of framing schoolprayer and other important social issues their arguments in convin-

cing secular terms that could move the strong majority of the Amer-ican public and ultimately Congress.63

The question remains, however, whether the public policy side ofAmerican politics will ever include religious ideas like it did formost of American history prior to the 1960s. This has an important

bearing on the Christian Rights chances to fulfill some of its orig-inal agenda of returning prayer to schools and overturning Roev. Wade. If Louise Ruhlins struggle for a school prayer amendmentserves as an indication, any future success on the issue will require

62 Letter Celeste Osterle to Louise Ruhlin December 5 1971 Box 3 Folder 6


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either a dramatic reversal in church-state jurisprudence by theSupreme Court or a significant change in the nature of the Americanpopulace. Of the two possibilities, a reversal by the SupremeCourt is more likely because of the ascendance of conservatives

John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Court in previous years.It remains to be seen the extent to which their conservatism is ofa religious nature and whether they can tip the balance of theCourt toward greater church-state interaction. Far less likely is adramatic shift in the American polity away from secularism. Asearly as the 1960s, religious groups differed on school prayer aswell as the broader issues of church-state separation. In the yearssince the passage of the 1965 Immigration Act, Americas religiousdiversity has grown substantially, making the chances of a consensus

among these groups highly remote.64 It might well be that conserva-tive Christians, like other political interest groups, will have to choosetheir battles carefully, biding time on some issues until the rightpolitical environment emerges. For school prayer, conservativeChristians may have a long wait.


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