Let me see if I’m understanding how this “separation between church and state” works. To keep matters simple, we’ll first suspend belief for a moment and pretend that the magic words actually appear in our constitution.
-Public displays of manger scenes, funded with tax payer dollars are unconstitutional.
-Public displays such as a crucifix in urine or a crucifix run over by ants, provided by the National Endowment For the Arts, funded with tax payer dollars, are constitutional.
-A High School teacher or college professor at state funded schools must not teach Creation, Intelligent Design, or the Bible, because that would be unconstitutional.
-Those very same teachers, offering evolution theories, or Bible As Literature courses proving the book’s “historical inaccuracies,” or anti-Christian melodies singing about how “churches are responsible for most of the evil in history,” are within their legal rights to freedom of speech, even though these teachings also stay afloat with our tax dollars.
-Speaking positively about the Koran in our public schools does not violate the First Amendment.
-Speaking negatively about the Koran in our public schools is “hate speech.”
-Speaking negatively about the Bible is not “hate speech.”
-The Koran’s disparaging statements about Christians and Jews are not “hate speech.”
-University shrines to Aztec sun gods are not unconstitutional.
-University manger scenes are…Oh, never mind. You get the idea.
Let’s be honest: “Separation between church and state” is merely a convenient cliche’ for an anti-Christian agenda, not even an anti-religious agenda, just anti-Christian. I urge my fellow Christians to stop falling for this unjust, hypocritical nonsense. Jesus once lamented that the people of this world are often shrewder than the people of light (Luke 16). Jesus was right about this one. But then, Jesus was right about all of them. I may as well point that out while it’s still legal.
Bob Siegel is a weekend radio talk show host on KCBQ and columnist. Details of his show can be found at www.bobsiegel.net.. Comments to posts are discussed by Bob over the air where anyone is free to call in and respond/debate. Call in toll free number: 1-888-344-1170
Comments 2
The phrase “separation of church and state” is but a metaphor to describe the underlying principle of the First Amendment and the no-religious-test clause of the Constitution. That the phrase does not appear in the text of the Constitution assumes much importance, it seems, only to those who may have once labored under the misimpression it was there and, upon learning they were mistaken, reckon they’ve discovered the smoking gun solving a Constitutional mystery. To those familiar with the Constitution, the absence of the metaphor commonly used to describe one of its principles is no more consequential than the absence of other phrases (e.g., Bill of Rights, separation of powers, checks and balances, fair trial, religious liberty) used to describe other undoubted Constitutional principles.
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.”
The First Amendment embodies the simple, just idea that each of us should be free to exercise his or her religious views without expecting that the government will endorse or promote those views and without fearing that the government will endorse or promote the religious views of others. By keeping government and religion separate, the establishment clause serves to protect the freedom of all to exercise their religion. Reasonable people may differ, of course, on how these principles should be applied in particular situations, but the principles are hardly to be doubted. Moreover, they are good, sound principles that should be nurtured and defended, not attacked. Efforts to undercut our secular government by somehow merging or infusing it with religion should be resisted by every patriot.
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
There is an odd “blind spot” for those who oppose
a role for Religious believers in the public square.
Somehow they just CAN’T SEE the 2nd clause in
the 1st Amendment language on Religion. After
saying Congress shall make no law respecting
an establishment of Religion, the Amendment
adds this memorable phrase:
“Nor restricting the free exercise thereof.”
Those often-neglected words deserve the respect and
obedience of our Court system. The many specific
examples cited by Bob Siegel above prove there is
a long way to go to reach that worthy goal.