What the Right does not want to understand about the Establishment Clause

[Perky]

There are actually democratic underpinnings involved. It a majoritarian view that it should not have to bend to the will of any other belief system held by a small minority.

But that is precisely why the establishment clause exists. The framers recognized that the Pilgrims fled religious tyranny in England foisted on small sects by Canterbury and sought to protect the right of all religious sects against the domination of something akin to the Church of England. In fact, it was something plead for by leading clergy of the day.

Christians as a whole, look at a state demand for religious diversity as undercutting their religious and free speech rights. What they fail to consider is that that was the bargain struck by the founders. The state does not support one religion over another so it may in so doing protecting the religious and free speech rights of every religious minority and in response they are permitted to freely worship as they see fit, privately and publicly.

At the core of the establishment clause is a the idea of tolerance and equality for all religious formulations. None can be sanctioned and none can be cursed by the state.

Religious sentiment ought to be tolerated by all people however majoritarian or minoritarian those sentiments might be.

The Right's objection at is core is a belief that the rights of others are suddenly more important than their own. That belief has it genesis in decades old SCOTUS decisions that they view as stifling, even chilling to the dominant strains of cultural normality. The politicization of religion is the logical conclusion of this notion.

What Christians need to understand about their own faith's is that a religion dependent upon the state for sanction and blessing and authority and as a tool to enforce moral code or to proselytize on its behalf is a very lazy religion.

It is absolutely fine for the Church to rail against injustice and immorality, but it should never be dependent upon the state to enforce it views on its citizens. The obligation of the religious is to follow the dictates of the faith and in so doing persuade individuals to join them.

They believe it is easier and more efficient to pick a fight then to get on their knees and pray for revival.

[no_hypocrisy]

1. The Bill of Rights (the Est. Clause therewithin) was designed to protect any minority group

from the will of and perhaps the persecution of the majority. It restores the balance between the two groups.

[spoony]

45. Er, well, except slaves...and women...native americans...

[Ian David]

2. Market Forces should determine which religions thrive in the marketplace of ideas...

on their own merits, without government interference.

If the snake-handlers can't get enough people joining their churches to replace the ones who have been bitten by rattlers, then the government should not interfere in the marketplace and force people to handle snakes.

[Canuckistanian]

6. Ah, just like the oil companies n/t

[Kansas Wyatt]

3. But the first thing they will say to you is...

'The Founding Fathers intended for and built a Christian Nation.'

No quotes (they'll allege you took them out of context) and no court rulings (they'll allege that liberals only stacked the courts for judicial activism to rule their way) will convince them that they are wrong. Even if they lose the debate, they just claim that liberals have rewritten history for the last century and it is wrong. The Fundies have been disseminating their propaganda for the last decade to all of their followers and recruits, and they are totally convinced that their way is from the Rule of Law granted to them by God, which is the ultimate word.

[Perky]

5. My response is always the same

Whatever sanction God gave us in the creation of this state it was destroyed by the barbarism od slavery and the arrogance of the banishment of native americans... You want God's blessing? heal the damege your forebearers created. Untill you are ready to do that you can not expeect God to Bless ANY of your strident machinations.

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Perky]

9. Contextually there is probably some validity

in the notion that it was meant "at that moment" to protect one form of European religion from dominating all others, but that does not mean that the same pluralism does not apply to all religious creeds.

It certain\ly does not presuppose a Christian Oligarchy was put in place.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

10. However, at the time of the Constitution

there were already other religious minorities here, namely Jews.

Another note: the Christian right wing wants to give the same amount of religious freedom to non-Christians as their forebears gave to the First Americans, who, besides losing their lands, were forbidden to practice their religion. This was not corrected until ca 1970.

[alarimer]

25. Many of them were not exactly Christians themselves

Some were deists, of course. Others were a lot closer to being atheists. Of course the religious right conveniently ignores that aspect of the Founding Fathers.

[Kansas Wyatt]

32. They refuse to accept that any Founding Fathers were not 'Good Christians'

And they will not accept any quotes, because they claim they are taken out of context and there are a lot of other quotes to prove they are right. If still proven wrong, they'll claim that it is still true and either you or the Founding Father must have been confused, because there is no way that the Founding Fathers were not Christians for a Christian Nation.

To top it all off, they'll then claim that you have been spoon-fed propaganda from the liberals who re-wrote history.

[PoiBoy]

4. Separation on Church and State

..guarantee Freedom of Religion.

The above concept makes their heads explode.

Putting the Law of their God above the Law of our Country makes them anti-American, IMO.

[Perky]

7. kicking due to OP edits

[Zhade]

11. Check your history. The Pilgrims fled because they couldn't impose their religion on others.

That whole "fled persecution" shtick isn't really true.

Also,

"Religious sentiment ought to be tolerated by all people however majoritarian or minoritarian those sentiments might be."

No.

People's RIGHT to their religious sentiments are to be tolerated; there is no requirement whatsoever that the sentiments themselves be respected or tolerated.

Otherwise, I mostly agree with your post.

[iverglas]

13. noooo ...

People's RIGHT to their religious sentiments are to be tolerated

That doesn't actually make sense.

The right to hold / express / practice religious beliefs is the form that "tolerance" takes, the rule that is made to enforce tolerance. It isn't the right that is tolerated; the right is recognized and protected, as a constitutional rule, in order to ensure tolerance.

Otherwise, I mostly agree with your post. ;)

[Zhade]

34. Oddly phrased, I'm basically saying "you have the right to believe...

...but I'm not obligated to respect or even tolerate the belief."

E.g., I do not have a problems with Nazis having beliefs. I absolutely do not respect or even tolerate them as ideals, however. Extreme example, but that should help clarify it, I hope.

[Perky]

15. Really?

Do you have some sources for that assertion?

[Zhade]

35. Look below this post, for starters.

NT!

[NashVegas]

27. Correct - Read Up On Roger Williams - co-Founder of Rhode Island

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Williams_%28theologian%29

[Zhade]

33. Exactly, thank you!

Glad to see I'm not the only one who knows the history.

[iverglas]

12. nuances

While it is likely true that your founders & framers had more in mind than just religious freedom within Christianity, your original colonizers didn't have even that in mind, in fact.

The Puritans were not at all concerned about religious freedom in general. They were concerned about *their* religious freedom.

Aha, a US source that says the same thing, in the same words:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/historyofus/web03/segment2.html

The Puritans were seeking freedom, but they didn't understand the idea of toleration. They came to America to find religious freedom—but only for themselves.

... Ministers like the Reverend John Cotton preached that it was wrong to practice any religion other than Puritanism. Those who did would be helping the devil. They believed they followed the only true religion so everyone should be forced to worship as they did. "{Tolerance is} liberty … to tell lies in the name of the Lord," said John Cotton.

I gather they particularly hated the Quakers, in addition to RCers.

Unfortunately, that early Puritanism seems to have had a much stronger influence on contemporary US society than the principles in the constitution that came after them, and is very clearly visible in the political right wing. They are "puritan" not just in their ideas about what other people should do in private, but in the very ideology that underpins the notion that their ideas about such things should influence public policy.

[The Backlash Cometh]

14. Can someone please explain something to me?

What religion had taken over in England back in the 1700s? Obviously there was a religion which the signing fathers were thinking about when they put all the safeguards into our constitution. But, which church was it? And are the roots of that church the same church which is now influencing the right-wingers to turn us into another theocracy?

[Perky]

16. The Church of England was the state religion

[The Backlash Cometh]

18. Bring it down to the lowest level.

Was the Church of England a Protestant branch? Is this the same Protestant branch we think about that makes up the acronym in W.A.S.P.?

[Thothmes]

47. Yes

[iverglas]

17. starting with the 1600s

After the Civil War (in England, that is), the Puritans were actually in power for a bit. And apparently some did return from the US during that period.

A summary timeline:
http://www.victorianweb.org/history/historytl.html
(click to read more after these events)

1649 - Charles I beheaded.

1649-60 - The Interregnum; the Commonwealth established.

1653 - Oliver Cromwell (Puritan) becomes Lord Protector of the Commonwealth.

1658 - Oliver Cromwell dies; his son Richard attempts to succeed him.

1660 - The Restoration. Charles (II—Anglican) returns from France and takes the throne.

1681-5 - Parliament does not meet. Court holds power.

1685 - Charles dies; his brother James (II; Roman Catholic) succeeds him. Threat of "popery."

1688 - James, Prince of Wales born. This means the crown will pass to him, a Roman Catholic, rather than to the King's Anglican siblings.
Glorious (i.e., bloodless) Revolution. James flees to France and is deposed, because his daughter Mary and her husband William, Prince of Orange, have been invited by Parliament to share the crown. Executive power lodged with William. Balance of power shifts finally from Court to Parliament.

1688-1788 - For 100 years, till the death of Bonnie Prince Charlie, England feels the threat of an invasion from France which would restore Stuart (Jacobite), and thus Roman Catholic, rule. In fact, Jacobite risings occur twice during this period, in 1715 and 1745.

1694 - Mary dies; William (III) sole ruler.

1701 - James II dies in France. Act of Settlement directs succession, should Anne die childless, to the (Protestant) House of Hanover--unless "the Old Pretender," James (son of James II) or, later, Bonnie Prince Charlie, "the Young Pretender," would abjure Roman Catholicism. (See the chart of kings and queens.)

At the time of your revolution, the Church of England (Anglican) was the established church in England. And, of course, there was an elected Parliament doing most of the governing.

I suspect that your founders & framers had in mind both the abuses the Puritans had fled in England and the abuses the Puritans had inflicted in the New World. ;)

[The Backlash Cometh]

19. Anglican.

Where are they on the evolutionary scale, compared to the Protestant religion?

[sutz12]

20. IIRC, they were one step removed from Catholicism

Kind of like Lutheranism, but English speaking.

Didn't they emerge from the Henry VIII schism as the 'official' Church of England after Henry took over their assets?

[The Backlash Cometh]

22. That's why I'm confused.

I thought Henry VIII came up with the Protestant religion to get around his little irreconcilable differences.

[PegDAC]

26. More like Episcopalian, I always thought. n/t

[iverglas]

28. uh, they *are* the Protestant religion

The Church of England broke from the RC church and became the first protestant church.

Not much different at the time, except for recognition / nonrecognition of papal authority. The reasons for rejecting it were really political, rather than theological, at the time, of course. That is what distinguishes protestant from Roman Catholic to this day.

At present, most churches within the Anglican communition (in the US, it's the Episcopal Church) are quite progressive. The US and Canadian churches are being threatened with expulsion from the world-wide communion for ordaining a gay bishop (the US) and blessing same-sex unions / performing same-sex marriages (Canada). There are national churches within the Anglican communion that still do not ordain women (African churches); the Black African bishops are commonly extremely theologically conservative and socially right-wing, Tutu of South Africa being a noteworthy exception.

Back when we're talking about, churches and states were very much intertwined, and the state controlled the church as much as vice versa. There just wasn't much distinction between the established church and the state.

[The Backlash Cometh]

30. THAT's What I'm talking about.

Sometimes I get confused because I'm already outside the box and I just can't figure out what everybody on the inside is talking about.

Now, here's how I see the big picture: the original Americans escaped a government and country that was run by a Protestant group in the 1700s, and when those original Americans created the constitution for this new land, they intentionally put wording in the laws to make sure that the same kind of tyranny would not exist here. In other words, that no other elitist Protestant group would be able to form another theocracy. Yet, we have the descendants of those Protestants (Republican Christian Groups) arguing exactly the opposite.

Is that how everybody else is seeing it?

[iverglas]

31. the nuance you need to include

... when those original Americans created the constitution for this new land, they intentionally put wording in the laws to make sure that the same kind of tyranny would not exist here.

The *original* settlers of what became the US -- the Puritans -- actually *practised* that tyranny, to at least the same extent as had been practised against them in England. I would say more. Witch-hunting, and all the other public enforcements of religious rules and punishments for violating them, weren't quite so popular in England, during the same era.

That era was past, in the US, by the time your constitution was written, and the establishment of religion in Britain was really pretty benign at that point.

I think your framers might have been more purely philosophically motivated -- the Enlightenment and all that -- rather than driven by the memory of any particular recent excesses. The Enlightenment had already had its effects; they were just codifying the new rules. ;)

The principles in the US constitution seem, in many ways, not to have imbued the culture to the extent that has happened in some other places. In the case of more modern constitutions, like Canada's in 1982, and South Africa's with guarantees of rights and freedoms that are largely modeled on the Canadian Charter, the process that led to them being adopted was very different, because it happened in a very different time. It wasn't like the élite debating society proceedings that led to the adoption of the US Constitution and Bill of Rights; in the 20th century, there was already representative democracy with universal suffrage, and there were the media, and so there was widespread public discussion and debate, which gave the documents much greater legitimacy in the eyes of the public, and created widespread public adherence to what they said. And access to ways of enforcing the rights in them is much easier in the case of one of the modern constitutions than it was to the general public 200 years and more ago.

In the US, people who assert rights just don't have the legitimacy in the public's mind that they do here in Canada. And I think that's partly because of the hugely greater adherence to the value of equality in countries other than the US. Equality is a value that became widely held in the second half of the 20th century in Canada and Europe, for instance, but that just didn't catch on in the US to that extent.

Here, the whole question of religious tolerance is looked at as an equality issue: everyone has the right to be treated equally, in the public and private sectors, regardless of religion (or sex, or sexual orientation, or ethnicity, etc.). A government doing something that favoured people of one religion over people of another (say, legislating Sunday closing) would be seen as violating the equality rule, not establishing a religion.

I think the remnants of Puritanism -- in the political sense, not just the social or religious sense -- are very strong in the US. People commonly want rights and freedoms for themselves and squawk if they think they're being infringed, but just don't care as much about the rights and freedoms of others.

[The Backlash Cometh]

38. "but just don't care as much about the rights and freedoms of others."

And therein lies the source of the conundrum.

It's all about "INDIVIDUAL Rights," as in "it's all about ME."

[iverglas]

39. you got it!

Well, we got it, heh.

I see it starting with the Puritans, who were concerned about religious freedom for themselves, and continuing down to this day, in the collective USAmerican consciousness, as "all about me", as you say. Skipped right over the fine ideals in that Bill of Rights stuff, and just integrated it all into the "____ for me" mindset.

[sutz12]

21. I just wish they would read Article VI

You know:

"but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States."

[Perky]

29. I think that is a reference to any test administered by the state

[unblock]

23. exactly. american was established as a specifically NON-christian nation

it was established as a nation of religious freedom, made up predominantly OF christians.

these people FLED christian nations, why the hell would they want to turn america into just another one of the kind of nations they risked their lives to flee???

[Perky]

36. Not Non-Christian but certainly non-sectarian.

Saying it was set up as non-christian suggest they were opposed specifically and theologically to oppose Chrisians and Christianity and I think that is a small strecth.

[unblock]

37. i agree, i meant "not a christian nation"

[Nick at Noon]

40. Our Founders were non-sectarian Christians

When 90+ % of the founders of a country are of the same
religious belief,  is it not appropriate to think of that
country as being of that religion ?  Whether it is Islam,
Judaism, Hindu or Christian.   

We know that most of the Founders were not overly religious,  
but they were shaped by the Christian culture that produced
them.   And the country they produced was shaped by them.  

Hence we are -- and have always been -- a non sectarian
Christian nation. 

[Lance_Boyle]

42. Do you have any evidence for your '90+ percent' claim?

My understanding is that the majority of the "founding fathers" were deist, not Christian.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

43. Read the Treaty of Tripoli - 1796

A Peace Treaty between the United States and the Bey and Subjects of Tripoli of Barbary.

Quote from Wikipedia: However it originated, it was undeniably a part of the treaty as approved by President John Adams and Secretary of State Timothy Pickering and ratified by the Senate by a unanimous vote.

Article 11, reads:

"As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."

Unquote.

Treaties are the law of the land, just as much as case law and statute law.

[Odin2005]

46. Why the hell to freeper trolls always post in code?

[Igel]

24. At the time the establishment clause was ratified,

there were official *state* (not federal) religions. The US government wasn't able to force any establishment of religion down their throats. The state I grew up in, IIRC, was officially *Catholic* until years after the Constitution was ratified--and it wasn't unconstitutional. This should give you a clue as to how the clause was interpreted by the founders. Later the Bill of Rights settled down to the state level, but where I grew up there were blue laws (and there still are where I live now).

Jefferson interpreted the separation clause so strictly that he said there was a "wall" between church and the federal government, and without congressional authority--authority that was unconstitutional for Congress to grant--he could not declare a day of thanksgiving; I wonder what he'd think of declaring Xmas a national holiday. Now the clause is interpreted in such a way that Thanksgiving is perfectly constitutional, but other things that were deemed fully constitutional 200 years ago are now considered to have always been unconstitutional.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

44. I remember when the Baptists were screaming about John Kennedy.

The Southern Baptists just KNEW that if John F. Kennedy was elected, the Pope was gonna run the country. Didn't happen. Kennedy TOLD the country it would NOT happen.

The Southern Baptists made real asses of themselves in 1960.

But then they, being white, thought slavery was cool too, because it was sanctioned in the Bible.

[Perky]

41. .