Many people in this country would like to see the tax-supported little red schoolhouse sprout a steeple. Most of their efforts to build such a structure have run afoul of the Constitution, but there seems to be at least one method which overcomes this obstacle. "Released Time" is its official title, and the Supreme Court declared it legal just last Monday.

Under the released time system, an hour or so per week is carved out of public school schedules and made available to disseminators of religious education (so long as this instruction takes place in private buildings, and is taught by privately paid teachers). No student has to take advantage of this, but he may do so if he or his family wishes. Those who stay in school during this hour or so have nothing more than a study period, for otherwise they might gain too great an academic lead on their more religious schoolmates. This is the steeple that the Supreme Court has legalized, and for all its lawfulness, it still looks very much out of place.

At first sight, released tune does not seem offensive, for, after all, no one is herded willy-nilly into a cloister. But actually, organized religion derives many a benefit from this program. To make this clear, we must examine the various alternatives to released time that church organizations can choose from.

First, they can always campaign for increased enrollments at sectarian private schools. If such a drive were successful, however, each church organization would have to build a large number of new buildings, which many of them cannot afford. Anyway, this is a dubious way to get at the vast majority of school children, who attend America's public schools, and who are organized religion's target.

A more direct approach, and a less controversial one as well, is to hold sectarian classes after public school is out for the day. But this is not enough for religious leaders either, because once the students have fulfilled their legal attendance requirement for a particular day, they are free to do whatever they wish--and religious learning is usually low on their list of preferred after-noon activities. Even if parents order their children to forsake the Louisville slugger or the pool cue, there is no defense against the time-honored tradition of hooky.

Released time is just the device that organized religion needs to solve these problems. Since education stops during the period when religious instruction is available, and since those who care little for the scriptures must remain in school during that time, there is no competition for students' interest such as occurs during the afternoon. And there are few students in high school or grade school who do not welcome a chance to escape school, even if only to take up a different book and listen to a different teacher.

The danger of hooky all but evaporates too, since a truant officer sees to it that students either stay at school or attend sacred studies. A truant officer's badge is more effective than a parental pronunciamento any day. Released time is thus a great aid to a church group in getting future parishioners to attend classes that they otherwise would have ignored. If not, why would America's churches fight so stubbornly for released time programs?

We cannot call juggling a school schedule active coercion, but it represents a partiality for organized religion that is intolerable in a society which has with justice always considered such matters intensely private. By allowing a released time program in their schools, states have encouraged the spread of religion actively, and although there is nothing wrong with religion, it is none of any public agency's business. The form taken by this prodding may be subtler than the stake and tinder box of bygone days, but the invasion of privacy it represents is no less marked, the right of free and unpressured choice it hinders no less violated.

The government's foothold in this area of private decision is very small of course--an hour a week--and it may be difficult to see in it any serious threat to privacy. But the principle of private choice has been breached, and its use as a defense against further attacks has been diminished seriously. Once you have admitted the government's right to influence your decisions on behalf of organized religion, you have little excuse for not admitting its right to pressure you on other matters, now as private as religion once was. Once schools can legally sprout steeples, then, marks distinguishing the power of other pressure groups can be expected to show up in many other spheres of private individual decision.