A Letter on Religious Clarification

To whom it may concern:

As a result of hundreds of debates on hundreds of topics, I’ve heard a very common theme during my adult life in the Deep South of the US:

“Blah blah blah. Separation of Church and State is nowhere in the US Constitution. Blah blah blah.”

How can a bleeding.heart.commie.bastard like myself ever argue that point to the holy.rolling.bible.thumpers around me since that above statement is, in fact, true? Budget battles over the funding of Planned Parenthood or court battles over the Ten Commandments displayed in public offices always seem to take the route of the “Christian Principles” that our country’s founders had in mind for the new nation. The argument of separating the ‘will of God’ from ‘American Liberties’ is simply lost in the mix. After all, the Constitution never expressly says “separation of church and state.” This always seemed like a real paradox since, in my opinion, the Constitution is one of the most profoundly ingenious documents ever written.

Then I realized something funny. While nowhere in the Constitution, that phrase actually was first coined by none other than Thomas Jefferson–the walking contradiction that directed the writing of the Constitution. He used that phrase to refer back to what is now known as an “establishment clause” in the First Amendment.

Meaning?

The government will not pick one religion over another.

Ever.

So stop it.

-MDS

The phrase “separation of church and state” is but a metaphor to describe the principle derived from the Constitution (1) establishing a secular government on the power of the people (not a deity), (2) saying nothing to connect that government to god(s) or religion, (3) saying nothing to give that government power over matters of god(s) or religion, and (4), indeed, saying nothing substantive about god(s) or religion at all except in a provision precluding any religious test for public office and the First Amendment where the point is to confirm that each person enjoys religious liberty and that the government is not to take steps to establish religion.

Some try to pass off the Supreme Court’s decision in Everson v. Board of Education as simply a misreading of Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists–as if that is the only basis of the Court’s decision. Instructive as that letter is, it played but a small part in the Court’s decision. Perhaps even more than Jefferson, James Madison influenced the Court’s view. Madison, who had a central role in drafting the Constitution and the First Amendment, confirmed that he understood them to “[s]trongly guard[] . . . the separation between Religion and Government.” Madison, Detached Memoranda (~1820). He made plain, too, that they guarded against more than just laws creating state sponsored churches or imposing a state religion. Mindful that even as new principles are proclaimed, old habits die hard and citizens and politicians could tend to entangle government and religion (e.g., “the appointment of chaplains to the two houses of Congress” and “for the army and navy” and “[r]eligious proclamations by the Executive recommending thanksgivings and fasts”), he considered the question whether these actions were “consistent with the Constitution, and with the pure principle of religious freedom” and responded: “In strictness the answer on both points must be in the negative. The Constitution of the United States forbids everything like an establishment of a national religion.”

During his presidency, Madison also vetoed two bills, neither of which would form a national religion, on the ground that they were contrary to the establishment clause. While some in Congress expressed surprise that the Constitution prohibited Congress from incorporating a church in the town of Alexandria in the District of Columbia or granting land to a church in the Mississippi Territory, Congress upheld both vetoes. He pocket vetoed a third bill that would have exempted from import duties plates to print Bibles.

Wake Forest University recently published a short, objective Q&A primer on the current law of separation of church and state–as applied by the courts rather than as caricatured in the blogosphere. I commend it to you. http://tiny.cc/6nnnx

One comment

Doug Indeap says:

April 12, 2011 at 1:57 am

The phrase “separation of church and state” is but a metaphor to describe the principle derived from the Constitution (1) establishing a secular government on the power of the people (not a deity), (2) saying nothing to connect that government to god(s) or religion, (3) saying nothing to give that government power over matters of god(s) or religion, and (4), indeed, saying nothing substantive about god(s) or religion at all except in a provision precluding any religious test for public office and the First Amendment where the point is to confirm that each person enjoys religious liberty and that the government is not to take steps to establish religion.

Some try to pass off the Supreme Court’s decision in Everson v. Board of Education as simply a misreading of Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists–as if that is the only basis of the Court’s decision. Instructive as that letter is, it played but a small part in the Court’s decision. Perhaps even more than Jefferson, James Madison influenced the Court’s view. Madison, who had a central role in drafting the Constitution and the First Amendment, confirmed that he understood them to “[s]trongly guard[] . . . the separation between Religion and Government.” Madison, Detached Memoranda (~1820). He made plain, too, that they guarded against more than just laws creating state sponsored churches or imposing a state religion. Mindful that even as new principles are proclaimed, old habits die hard and citizens and politicians could tend to entangle government and religion (e.g., “the appointment of chaplains to the two houses of Congress” and “for the army and navy” and “[r]eligious proclamations by the Executive recommending thanksgivings and fasts”), he considered the question whether these actions were “consistent with the Constitution, and with the pure principle of religious freedom” and responded: “In strictness the answer on both points must be in the negative. The Constitution of the United States forbids everything like an establishment of a national religion.”

During his presidency, Madison also vetoed two bills, neither of which would form a national religion, on the ground that they were contrary to the establishment clause. While some in Congress expressed surprise that the Constitution prohibited Congress from incorporating a church in the town of Alexandria in the District of Columbia or granting land to a church in the Mississippi Territory, Congress upheld both vetoes. He pocket vetoed a third bill that would have exempted from import duties plates to print Bibles.

Wake Forest University recently published a short, objective Q&A primer on the current law of separation of church and state–as applied by the courts rather than as caricatured in the blogosphere. I commend it to you. http://tiny.cc/6nnnx

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