Faith clause not blinding

A schoolteacher in California is prohibited from using the Declaration of Independence in a history lesson because it contains a reference to God. Public school districts are under pressure to leave the word "Christmas" out of school programs featuring music inspired by Christmas and scheduled to take place, not coincidentally, around the time of Christmas.

These examples and many others are supposedly justified by the "separation of church and state" principle set forth by the U.S. Constitution. Here is the exact, and only, language of that document that defines this principle:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

This, the famous "establishment clause," makes it clear that the framers wanted to prohibit Congress from passing legislation declaring one religion or sect as the "official" religion of the United States, and penalizing the "unofficial" religions or sects.

But as anyone can plainly see, there is nothing about the clause that suggests hostility, or even neutrality, to religion. It merely prevents any one religion from being declared the legal and official religion of the country. This is a good thing for many reasons, but today it is being used to push for not just neutrality, but complete government blindness toward faith and religion. In practice, this leads to such situations as schools requiring teachers to pretend in the classroom that religion does not exist.

Those who advocate for this religion blindness pose a false dichotomy: that our choice as a society is to either mandate religion blindness on the part of government (and entities that receive taxpayer money, such as schools), or resign ourselves to some sort of theocracy. But all the evidence indicates that U.S. institutions of government can be distinctly friendly to religion without bringing us one iota closer to a theocracy. This evidence consists of our entire history as a nation, in which government friendliness to religion has been overt, consistent, and carried on side by side with compliance with the establishment clause.

The guiding principle has been, and should remain, that government may reasonably take a positive attitude toward religion in general and even specific religions, to this extent: that their principles, values, and ethics are in concert with common sense and decency, and act to promote an orderly, stable, and generous society in which human development can take place and the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are fostered and guaranteed. In other words, to the extent that they have proven that they contribute overall to the making of a "good society."

Those religions that have persisted over a long time and attracted vast numbers of sincere adherents meet this standard. Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism (the list is not necessarily exhaustive) all have a clear history of inspiring imperfect human beings to try to live good, productive lives, and to contribute to the welfare of society. Government is justified in being friendly to these religions, in the sense of being overtly respectful toward them, benign in policy, and appropriately praising their values. Conversely, there are philosophies, world-views, and cults that might describe themselves as religions but which cannot demonstrate the same large-scale overall benefits to humanity over time. Government is justified in being neutral toward these, or even critical in cases where the values promoted conflict with those of a good society (e.g. the followers of Jim Jones, David Koresh, etc.). To argue against this is to argue that a nation does not have the right to make any value judgments at all, and this would inevitably include valuing its own security and the welfare of its citizens. To maintain that all values must be considered equal contradicts the very meaning of the word "value." And to consider some values as more important to society than others is discernment, not discrimination.

What the government must not do is make any statements of specific doctrinal preference, nor, it should go without saying, legally consider any individual as less than any other based on religious beliefs or their absence.

Luckily, these are precisely what the establishment clause protects us from. What the government may reasonably and constitutionally do is to allow schools to teach history, rather than ignorance, with respect to the Declaration of Independence and other subjects, such as the abolitionists (who fought for the end of slavery largely motivated by their faith), the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (a Christian minister), the oath of office that every American president takes (using the Bible), and even Thomas Jefferson, the most quoted architect of the principle of church/state separation, who gave as a reason for advocating religious freedom, in a draft bill for the state of Virginia, "...that Almighty God hath created the mind free, and manifested his supreme will that free it shall remain..." None of which they could teach, accurately and truthfully, if they were required to be completely blind toward religion.

For the same reasons, it should be clear that the establishment clause does not require schools to pretend that the Christmas season is not about Christmas. Recognition that faith exists, and is overall a good thing, is not the establishment of a state religion. There is no constitutional mandate of religion-blindness. Schools, and the governments that support them, do a much better job when they keep their eyes open.

Keep in mind that the phrase "or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" is about establishments of religion, not individual religious freedom. The straight meaning of the clause is 'no official national church, and no national interference with official state churches'. In Massachussetts, for instance, the Congregational church was the established church until 1833.

So in passing this, the Congress was not hostile to government being involved in religion in principle, only to a federal government church. In fact, since it was meant to protect state churches as much as to prohibit a federal one, it's arguably neutral on government-in-religion so long as it doesn't rise to the level of 'establishing' a federal church.

It appears to me that the recent flaps about Christmas refrences in schools and public areas is in violation of that very same amendment. I note that it is perfectly permissable to refer to Kwanzaa, Chanukka and any Islamic holiday while barring refrence to Christianity. There is a second phrase in this amendment which prohibits the prevention of "the free exercise thereof."
We, however should not require a litmus test (whether blue or red) to being accepted as conservatives. I am not a very religious person, and resent being required to assert a favoritism for "Born Again" Christianity as a measure of patriotism. Jefferson himself was a Deist who said that "whether my neighbor says there are twenty gods or no god neither breaks my leg nor picks my pocket." Like him, I believe in a supreme being, but further beliefs are no one elses business. For further information on Jefferson's beliefs run a search for Danbury Baptists on any good search engine. On the other hand, I have been a staunch Conservative since I voted for Goldwater.

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