Posted on 07/06/2004 4:59:49 PM PDT by Kerberos
What is the separation of church and state?: That is a very good question - the separation of church and state is perhaps one of the most misunderstood, misrepresented and maligned concepts in today's political, legal and religious debates. Everyone has an opinion, but unfortunately, many of those opinions are woefully misinformed. That is one of the primary purposes of this FAQ: to provide as much information as possible in order to better inform people about this debate.
After all, the separation of church and state is not only misunderstood, it is also exceedingly important. That is probably one of the few points on which everyone on all sides of the debate can readily agree upon - their reasons for agreeing may differ, but they do concur that the separation of church and state is one of the key constitutional principles in American history.
Understanding the separation of church and state is complicated by the fact that we are using such a simplified phrase. There is, after all, no single "church." There are many religious organizations in the United States taking different names - church, synagogue, temple, Kingdom Hall and more. In addition, there are many corporate bodies which do not adopt any such religious titles but which are nevertheless controlled by religious organizations - for example, Catholic hospitals.
Also, there is no single "state." Instead, there are multiple levels of government at the federal, state, regional and local level. There is also a great variety of government organizations - commissions, departments, agencies and more. These can all have different levels of involvement and different relationships with the aforementioned religious organizations.
This is vitally important, because it underscores the fact that, in the "separation of church and state," we cannot be talking about a single, literal church and a single, literal state. Those terms are instead metaphors, meant to point to something else, something larger. As a strict separationist, I have very definite ideas about what those metaphors point towards.
I believe, and will support via the documents in this FAQ, that "church" should be construed as any organized religious body with its doctrines/dogmas, and "state" should be construed as any governmental body, any government-run organization or any government-sponsored event. As a result, a more accurate phrase than "separation of church and state" might be something like "separation of organized religion and civil authority," because religious and civil authorities are not and should not be invested in the same people or organizations.
In practice, this means that civil authority cannot dictate to or control organized religious bodies. The state cannot tell religious bodies what to preach, how to preach or when to preach. Civil authority must exercise a "hands off" approach, neither helping nor hindering religion in society. This is a key issue to understand, because any time the state assumes the power to either help or hinder, the state also acquires the power to do the other.
Separation of church and state is a two-way street, however. It isn't just about restricting what the government can do with religion, but also what religious bodies can do with the government. As a consequence, religious groups cannot dictate to or control the government. They cannot cause the government to adopt their particular doctrines as policy for everyone, they cannot cause the government to restrict other groups, etc.
This last issue is vital because it is important to remember that the biggest threat to religious freedom is not the government - or at least, not the government acting alone. We very rarely have a situation where secular government officials act to repress any particular religion or religion in general. More common are private religious organizations acting *through the government* by having their own doctrines and beliefs codified into law or policy.
Thus, the separation of church and state ensures that private citizens, when acting in the role of some government official, cannot have any aspect of their private religious beliefs imposed upon everyone else. School teachers cannot promote their religion to other people's children. Local officials cannot require certain religious beliefs on the part of government employees. Government leaders cannot make members of other religions feel like they are unwanted or are second-class citizens by using their position to promote particular religious beliefs - for example, through sectarian prayers or scriptural readings.
This enforces a certain moral self-restraint on government officials, and even to a degree on private citizens - a self-restraint which is necessary for a religiously pluralistic society to survive without descending into religious civil war. It ensures that the government remains the government of all citizens, not the government of one denomination or one religious tradition. It ensures that political divisions not be drawn along religious lines, with Protestants battling Catholics or Christians battling Muslims for "their share" of the public purse.
The separation of church and state is one of the key constitutional liberties which protects the American public from tyranny. It protects all people from the religious tyranny of any one religious group or tradition, and it protects all people from a government intent on tyrannizing some or any religious groups. We need the separation of church and state as much as we need any of the liberties guaranteed in the American Constitution.
Nice to see your medical advice is as about as deep and clever as your Constitutional "knowledge." At least you’re consistent, buddy.
"Please, show us the reference in the Constitution where it says "separation of church and state"."
It's in the establishment cause of the Constitution. Oh, wait a minute, I see, you are having some difficulty grasping this point because it doesn't actually spell out separation of church and state.
Well yes, apparently the founders assumed, and you know what happens when one assumes, that those who would actually be reading this document would be well educated enough, and familiar enough with world history, law, and politics, that there would be no need to incorporate a simpletons checklist.
Just shows you how wrong one can be about predicting the future.
"Nice to see your medical advice is as about as deep and clever as your Constitutional "knowledge"
And just what medical advice would that be that you are refering too?
You need to go back and do some more research. For instancce, try actually reading the First Amendment. There is NO "two-way street". You might also discover that the concept is found nowhere in the Constitution. And your exposition of it is WAY off base.
How could they possibly have assumed such a thing when the states had established religions?
One can only conclude that you know little about the founders, little about the Constitutional Convention and little about, well hell, anything.
We do know that you have an animus toward all things religious. Why is that?
"We do know that you have an animus toward all things religious. Why is that?"
Oh, so you are going to try and portray me, once again, as a Christian hater. Well it shows how little you really do know. But I understand when one cannot come up with anything substantive then they then must resort to, well, other means.
LOL, whining doesn't become you. Try addressing the staements I made and the questions I posed.
I never said you were a "Christian Hater". You made that up. I simply asked where your animus toward religion comes from. Look up the word animus Kerberos, it is not defined as "Christian Hater".
"...They cannot cause the government to adopt their particular doctrines as policy for everyone, they cannot cause the government to restrict other groups, etc. "
We are a lost cause if we elect leaders with no moral compass. The fact that John Kerry can say he believes life begins at conception, and then say he cannot make his views the law because he doesn't want to 'impose' his religious views, and the fact that he hasn't been forced out of running for any public office, plainly demonstrates how absurd things have become.
I want EVERY candidate to explain where their moral compass comes from, whether it be the Bible, the Torah, the Koran, Nietzche, the Humanist Manifesto, or Oprah Winfrey. I also want to hear it from every judge.
No one has anything to fear from a true Christian. Also, I wouldn't rule out voting for someone from another faith, or an atheist, but I DO want to know what their moral or value system is. Because I do expect them to use it in making law.
By default, our present values were well articulated by F. Schaefer. Our secular society prizes personal comfort and security above all else, which will lead to total breakdown if left unchecked.
My two cents,
-- Joe
P.S. There IS no wall of separation between church and state, other than not to create a state religion. 'nuff said.
Hopefully your feeble rhetorical world is beginning to crumble now.
There are roughly 30 Supreme Court cases which make reference to the wall separating church and state. The first case in 1878 defended the federal government's preference for monogamy over polygamy in marriage disputes in the territory of Utah. Not until 1947 did the Court begin taking up your preferred metaphor with regularity. The metaphor reached its peak of control in the 1960s.
Currently, the Court prefers not to use the metaphor and recognizes its use as inherently hostile to religion. Justice Thomas noted in the recent Newdow decision that he is highly interested in reconsidering the recent Court history with the establishment clause. Some lower courts, ACLU and the media continue to promote your view (Kerberos), but the Supreme Court (with the exception of Stevens) is decidedly against your view.
"Just thought you might best the historians that claim that this phrase first
appeared in a letter from President Jefferson to the Danbury Baptists...to assure them
that religious freedom was being protected FROM government.
Yes that is one of the ancillary documents that the actual phrase appears in. However, as I pointed out in one of my other post, and is reflected in Jefferson's letter, there were some assumptions made on the founders part that precluded the necessitates of spelling it out for the ignorant. Apparently, as is clearly demonstrated on this site, that was on oversight on their part.
And you are correct it works both ways.
"The first case in 1878 defended the federal government's preference for monogamy over polygamy in marriage disputes in the territory of Utah"
And that is an excellent example of places where the government has no business intruding in. But I suppose you are of the bent that it is the government’s responsibility to dictate the mores of society to the people also?
And wasn't polygamy part of the Mormons religious values. Where is your defense of “freedom of religion” principle in this matter?
And what was the very first thing Congress did after completing the final wording of the 1st Amendment?
A resolution calling for a national day of Prayer:
RESOLVED, That a joint committee of both Houses be directed to wait upon the President of the United States, to request that he would recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging, with grateful hearts, that many signal favors of almighty God, especially by affording them the opportunity peaceably to establish a Constitution of government for their safety and happiness.
US Congress, 25 Sep 1789
"Yes that is one of the ancillary documents that the actual phrase appears in."
I am loving the increasing academic pretense of your posts, so I must continue.
The separation phrase most assuredly does start with Jefferson's Danbury letter of 1802. The idea that various other documents might contain the theme is nonsense. The closest notion of the period is baptist Roger Williams who envisioned a civic hedge protecting believers from non-believers. The similarities between shrubbery and a wall are a stretch.
In fact, if one looks at Madison's various draftings of the first amendment that were rejected, it becomes rather apparent that your historical guise in this debate is a blatant intellectual scam.
You would do better to pretend as most liberal scholars do that the constitution is organic and can be re-created at will in the present day. At least then your manufactured notions would not be so glaring. You have no hope in the historian role.
Church, state 'wall' not idea of Jefferson
Larry Witham
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published 8/5/2002
New research on Thomas Jefferson's "wall of separation" between church and state shows that Jefferson never intended it to be the iron curtain of today, which instead was built on anti-Catholic legal views in the 1940s.
Though the new scholarship has received good reviews for exploding a "Jeffersonian myth" about a wall against religion, others say it is too late to tear down a barrier that Americans feel comfortable with.
"What we have today is not really Jefferson's wall, but Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black's wall," said American University professor Daniel Dreisbach, whose forthcoming book explores how Jefferson coined the "wall" metaphor.
Mr. Dreisbach's arguments parallel those of University of Chicago law professor Philip Hamburger, whose new book also says Justice Black's anti-Catholicism — learned in the Ku Klux Klan — influenced his 1947 ruling that the First Amendment created a "high and impregnable" wall between religion and government.
The two authors say the Founders did no such thing and that the "wall of separation" has become a "lazy slogan" for judges and politicians.
In the Supreme Court's 1947 Everson decision — forbidding New Jersey to spend state education funds for religious education — Justice Black cited the phrase "wall of separation between Church & State," from Jefferson's Jan. 1, 1802, letter to a group of Baptists in Massachusetts.
The new scholarship argues that the Virginian used that metaphor in hopes of winning support in New England — then a stronghold of the rival Federalists — rather than as the definitive interpretation of the First Amendment.
"Jefferson worked with his New England political advisers on the letter," said Mr. Dreisbach, who five years ago began looking at Jefferson's original draft, the political advice and the electoral setting of the period.
The letter actually "backfired" by alienating the Baptists, he said. "The Baptists advocated disestablishment of the Congregationalists in New England, but they were not for separation of religion from public life."
This political interpretation of Jefferson's "wall" caused a national stir when it was part of a 1998 Library of Congress exhibit, to which Mr. Dreisbach contributed.
Historian Robert Alley, who argues that Jefferson wanted a secular public square, rallied other scholars in protest, saying the exhibit "ignores the past 60 years of Supreme Court opinions that analyzed Jefferson's phrase."
With the new books, more emphasis is being thrown on Justice Black's use of Jefferson's phrase.
"You can't understand the period when Justice Black was on the court without understanding the fear American elites had of Catholic influence and power," said Mr. Dreisbach, who is not a Catholic.
Alan Wolfe, director of the Boisi Center for Religion and Public Life at Boston College, is impressed by the new findings but doubts they can make a difference.
"I think it is terrific scholarship, but I don't think it can change anything," said Mr. Wolfe, who reviewed the Hamburger book and has surveyed public opinion on politics and religion.
"The 'wall' idea has taken on a life of its own and is part of our custom and law," Mr. Wolfe said. "Americans love God and hate politics, so they ask, 'Why mix the two?'"
He said Catholics today are comfortable with church-state separation, as every religion must be in the United States. "One day, a group of [U.S.] Muslim thinkers will come up with an idea of 'separation' that works for them."
Stanley Katz, a Princeton scholar, said the new data on the "Jeffersonian myth" will have a "profound impact on the current law and politics of church and state."
In the past two years, Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia both have argued that modern anti-Catholicism produced the idea that "sectarian" groups create conflict and must be walled off from public support.
"It was an open secret that 'sectarian' was a code for 'Catholic,'" Justice Thomas wrote in a concurring opinion two years ago. "This doctrine, born of bigotry, should be buried now."
The term "sectarian" was first used in a federal ruling on church-state issues in 1948.
Mr. Dreisbach said public debate on the new scholarship may help reverse the conventional wisdom that society must be secular and religion confined to private opinion.
"Religious citizens should be able to compete in the marketplace of ideas on equal terms to other groups," he said.
Show us, please! It's not there, moron! You are talking about an INTERPRETATION of the Constitution. What YOU don't get is that we believe in the literal words, as written -- not as some a--hole liberal judge THINKS it should say.
Okay, now I will try to be nice.
The point here is using the separation metaphor did not accomplish your political goal. In 1878 the Court viewed monogamy as a valuable religious establishment that the wall protected. This demonstrates how terribly wrong the metaphor can go.
Apart from that, I appreciate your appeal to my free exercise argument. It is desirable and I probably would have improved upon the 1878 Court's reasoning. That is not hard to do given the various failures of 19th century courts.
It seems that the territory status of Utah prevented your good point from becoming the law. Utah as a state may well have become a Mormon establishment of religion. My own personal view is that religious people should be able to participate equally in all government realms whether occupying government jobs, seeking grants, expressing a view within government space etc.
Given grand powers, I think I could reconcile all the historical decisions of the Court to this standard but I think this is expecting too much.
Soviet Constitution
Adopted on: 7 Oct 1977
Article 52 [Religion]
(1) Citizens of the USSR are guaranteed freedom of conscience, that is, the right to profess or not to profess any religion, and to conduct religious worship or atheistic propaganda. Incitement of hostility or hatred on religious grounds is prohibited.
(2) In the USSR, the church is separated from the state, and the school from the church.
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