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Commentary Too - Jul 7, 2008 - Printable Version
- Who's On First?
by S.K. Eleton - Theocracy Watch
“Because the bill vests in the said incorporated church an authority to provide for the support of the poor and the education of poor children of the same, an authority which, being altogether superfluous if the provision is to be the result of pious charity, would be a precedent for giving to religious societies as such a legal agency in carrying into effect a public and civil duty” James Madison
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof”. With these 2 short phrases that begin the First Amendment to the US Constitution, the Continental Congress ushered in a new era. Coupled with Article VI, Section 3 that prohibits a religious test for public office, the founders of the new country known as the United States made it clear that this wasn’t going to be a Christian nation – nor a Muslim nation, a Jewish nation, a Hindu nation, or a Buddhist nation. This was going to be a secular nation, where all people would have the freedom to worship, or not worship, according to their own conscience. In documents written by the founding fathers at the time of debates on the ratification of the Constitution, and in treaties and letters written throughout their remaining lifetime, they continued to reiterate the notion that this nation was totally secular, without religious rules, without mandatory religious obligations, without a national church, and with no taxes or any other government monies to go into the coffers of religious institutions. Other fledgling nations around the world have followed suit, with the notion of freedom of worship, and full rights for non-religious individuals, written into their constitutions. Now, at the dawn of the 21st century, most of these nations, as well as those nations who have had only a perfunctory national church for many decades, are finding their secular governments under relentless attack from religious believers across the spectrum who are convinced the world would be a better place if the world would only operate by the rules laid down by their god or gods. From secular Turkey through nominally religious England, into France and Holland, and all over the United States, religious groups are clamoring for the right to have their religious ideas recognized as the rule of law for all the citizens of the world. Moderate to liberal religious believers point the finger of blame at the religious right fundamentalists, accusing them of trying to make a power grab in the name of their intolerant god(s). In all due respect, however, it appears to me that the biggest danger at this time comes from the moderate believers themselves.
From the beginning, the separation of church and state has run into conflicts with the freedom of worship (see “The First Amendment Paradox”). Many people believe that they are obligated to institute their religious rules as the rule of law for all to follow, and therefore, observation of the separation clause runs headlong into potentially lethal collisions with the freedom to worship clause. This battle has been waged for the past two centuries, with no clear resolution in favor of one clause or the other; the temper of the times seesaws back and forth between ascendancy of separation and ascendancy of freedom to worship. In the background, constant tensions simmer, as believers and non-believers debate the relative merits of their positions, and believers routinely accuse non-believers of evil doings and lack of moral sensibilities. Meanwhile, while the attention of the world was diverted elsewhere, religion has moved in and set up a cozy, intimate relationship with the secular governments.
The religion clause of the First Amendment is not ambiguous; in fact, it is written clearly and to the point. There is, as mentioned above, a large amount of documentation supporting the intent of this clause, and detailing the broad scope. In spite of that, there has been much argument and dispute about the scope of the religious rights that have been reserved to the people. What is to be done when a religious practice runs contrary to established public laws? This has been a case for much head scratching and pontificating from the chattering classes, and has generated high levels of litigation, as people try to sort it out. The courts have in some cases declared that religious practices hold supreme over the law of the land, such as the exceptions to the US drug laws that allow Native American religions to use the illegal drug peyote in their religious ceremonies. Some of these cases are reasonably easy to decide. Most of them, however, are the stuff nightmares are made of.
One clear example of this is the laws against bigamy and polygamy. There are a handful of religions that still consider it appropriate to engage in multiple marriages, and indeed, it is expected that the truly devout will consider it their duty to marry many times. The recent court cases coming out of the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints (FLDS) congregation have brought this issue into the limelight, with the high-profile trial and conviction of FLDS leader Warren Jeffs for child abuse. The recent raids on the Yearning for Zion ranch in Texas have elevated this issue still higher in the public consciousness. The practice of marrying off very young girls to an already frequently married older man has led many to feel a sense of unease and even, for some, disgust, at a religious belief they don’t share. This practice clearly runs counter to the civil laws of the US, which limit marriages to monogamous partnerships, and which set a minimum age for marrying. In addition, there are certain expectations of child rearing that are contravened in the FLDS community, and now the best legal minds in Texas are struggling to accommodate civil law with religious practice.
In other parts of the country, namely Wisconsin and Oregon, religious practice has taken an even darker turn. Once again, faith healing parents have allowed their young children to die of medical conditions that can be treated and, in one case, even cured when proper treatment is sought. Because these parents believe that all healing comes from prayer, and that it is only through faith that you can be cured, they shunned all medical care for their daughters. One of the children, in Wisconsin, died a slow, lingering, almost certainly painful death of juvenile diabetes that could have been controlled with proper medical treatment. In Oregon, a young girl died of a curable infectious illness while her parents prayed day and night for her life. The dilemma faced by government officials at this time is excruciating. Do they charge the parents for reckless endangerment, child abuse and neglect, or even criminal manslaughter? Or do they join the rest of the city with grieving for the loss that the parents have suffered, and give them a free pass under the First Amendment? The answer might surprise you. In the US, 30 states currently have laws protecting parents from criminal prosecution if their children die as a result of withholding medical treatment in favor of prayer. Wisconsin is one of those states; Oregon, to its credit, has recently passed a law that holds parents liable for criminal charges in such situations. This will be the first test of their statute. Common sense tells us that allowing small children to die painfully of a treatable illness is, at best, neglect; common sense also tells us, based on a reading of the First Amendment and case law throughout the history of the United States, that forcing parents to seek medical treatment for their sick child is in violation of their rights to religious freedom. For me, the correct solution would be this: allow the parents to pray for their own health and well-being, and require them to take the child to receive appropriate medical treatment until such time as the child has reached the age where they are legally able to make such decisions for themselves, as reasoning adults. Society long ago decided that human sacrifice was not acceptable, and in spite of the many religions that once engaged in this deplorable practice, rules against human sacrifice have not been overthrown on the altar of religious freedom.
In spite of all the conflicts between secular law and religious freedom, church and state have managed to maintain a somewhat shaky truce for the past couple of centuries, and such cases as those I cited above have been relatively infrequent. Religious institutions have from time to time agitated for a bigger role in government, and have managed to penetrate secular institutions in small ways. Now, we are facing a challenge to secular government that is more threatening and more insidious than before. After eight years of a president who believes he has been “chosen by God”, we find religion insinuating itself into our schools, our prisons, our legislatures, our welfare agencies, and anywhere else they can gain a foothold. Decisions are being made at all levels of government based on the personal religious convictions of the decision maker, often in total disregard of the US constitution or the body of laws that have been painstakingly built up over the course of our history. Religion has been invited to sit at the table in all our secular institutions, and whenever we’ve looked around, we find they’ve stolen the silver and made off with the best china, while we had our heads bowed and our eyes closed in respectful silence. Many people are looking forward to a changing of the guard, assuming that once the Democrats get back into power, things will get better. We’ll get our silverware and our china back, and the religious leaders will sit quietly in their places, adding substantive comments to the conversation, and helping clean up afterward. The only people who believe this, however, are those who haven’t been paying much attention. In fact, I would propose that the religious left at this point in the game poses a far greater threat to our religious liberty than the noisy, hyperactive religious right.
At the very beginning of this election cycle, most of the leading candidates did their best to ingratiate themselves with the religious left. They have uttered “God Bless You” at the end of every stump speech. They have bowed their heads in prayer all over the country. They have spoken movingly and passionately about their personal relationships with their God, and they have shared their favorite Bible verses. They have appeared repeatedly at the Faith Forum to assure the faithful that they are one of them. They have hired religious consultants to make sure they say exactly the right words for each faith that they are courting. One by one, candidates fell by the wayside, until now we are left with the most religiously pious of them all – Barack Obama. Known far and wide for his devoutness, he seems to fairly ooze piety out of every pore. It seems to sit on him with ease, much more so than the somewhat stilted sounding pieties of many of his opponents. Most people don’t really notice the depth of his religious talk all that much, because it comes so naturally to him, and also because very few people seem to actually listen to what he says. They mostly hear rhetoric. The only words they hear are “Hope” and “Change”. They never hear when Obama refers to the Constitution as “an extremist position” or when he promises to be the same as G. W. Bush, only more so.
At a recent Faith Forum, Obama was talking about the various religious beliefs in the country. He took a little time to talk about non-belief, and its role in the country. While most people came away from that hearing him acknowledge the right of non-believers to their non-belief, they didn’t hear the rest of what he said at all. For those who would keep religion totally separate from the public square, he said that they were holding an “extremist position”. Unfortunately for him, this is the exact position taken by the Constitution, and by the men who wrote it. Most of them came from a background where they were aware of the dangers of mixing religion with politics. Most of them belonged to a minority belief system. They were very careful about writing the First Amendment. They didn’t make an accidental omission in leaving God out of the Constitution. It was a very deliberate, very carefully debated act. It was not an extremist position; it was the only position they felt would lead to a healthy, thriving democracy where all rights were respected. Obama has suggested on many occasions that he doesn’t agree with this, and that it is important to have religion, the right kind of religion, involved at the highest levels of government. He has asked us to vote for him for the job of upholding the US Constitution; perhaps its time he takes a few minutes out to actually study the document he wants to protect.
For some time, I have suspected Obama of heading us toward a stealth theocracy. I no longer suspect that this is his motive, since he has totally dropped the stealth act, and has brought his theocratic aims into the full spotlight. This past week, Obama announced that, as president, he will continue the blatantly unconstitutional Faith Based Charities so beloved of the Bush Administration. In fact, he doesn’t plan to just continue it, he plans to expand it. He plans to give it more power and more money and a wider scope. He wants faith-based institutions to have a presence everywhere, and he wants them to have ever larger sums of government money. He does, of course, assure us that this money won’t go for proselytizing, only for charity work, but that is simply a fool’s paradise. First of all, many of the religious individuals who run these charities tend to get a little huffy when you tell them they can’t witness to the people they are helping; most of them are hoping they can help lead these souls to their God, and they are not ready to be told that they can’t do that just because of a little thing like federal law. They are living by a higher law that they do not feel is required to submit to a federal law that is in conflict, and they will do what they feel they must do. In addition, to claim that federal money going to religious institutions for secular purposes is not being used to advance the cause of that religion is just a smoke screen. For every dollar of federal money a church receives, that frees up a dollar of church money to be used for advancing their religion, whether through charitable works or through other church activities. Indirect support for religion is still support for religion. Obama has, as usual, waffled it a little bit by claiming that this faith-based money is used for religious and secular charitable institutions; faith-based, by its very definition, is not going to be available to a secular institution, because a secular institution is not faith-based. Although Obama intends to change the name of the faith-based office, the aim will remain the same – get tax money into the hands of religious institutions.
Theocracy has long been an aim of a small portion of the pious, who have sought for two centuries to have their own religious ideas written into law. They managed to pass anti-obscenity laws which were used to punish blasphemy as often as to punish actual obscenity. They limited access to birth control for many years. They have restricted certain areas of scientific and medical research. For a long time, this was limited to certain fanatical fringe groups, who got most of their fun from denying any laughter or joy to other people. Now, the goal of theocracy has spread, and is moving throughout the ranks of the religious. Conservative religious thinkers, such as Rick Warren, have been joined by liberal religious thinkers, such as Jim Wallis, who also urge the godly to bring God (their God) back into the business of politics. Most people I know seem to think God in government is really only a problem when it is the God of Jerry Falwell or James Dobson; they think if it is the God of Jim Wallis or Barack Obama, well, he’s such a good guy, nothing bad could come of it.
All over the world, governments are passing laws based on the religious ideals of a certain sector of their society. Many of us are aware of these sorts of laws in nations such as Afghanistan or Iran; it comes as a big surprise to many to realize that such laws are also being passed in secular democracies such as England. Laws against discrimination have turned into laws against freedom of thought and speech. Laws against hate have turned into laws against freedom of speech and religion. Many countries have passed laws that incarcerate people for having different, unpopular ideas. Most of these laws are passed in the interest of not offending religious sensibilities. The UN has called upon its member nations to pass laws protecting people from getting their religious feelings hurt. This is bad for secular society. It is also bad for religious society. Many religions are up in arms over these laws, because they prevent them from preaching sermons about what they believe. These laws have not come from some right wing lunatic fringe. These laws have come from the mainstream left.
I believe it would be difficult for the religious right to ever implement a full-fledged theocratic government, because the secular left is going to join with the religious left to prevent it. People are watching closely. It seems self-evident, however, that there is little care being taken to prevent theocracy from moving in out of left field, as we cheer on our more progressive leaders while they blithely inform us of the theocracy they are planning to bring, and we eat it up. We trust them; they wouldn’t hurt us. But theocracy is theocracy, no matter how liberal. And my experience has been that liberal theology is no more tolerant than conservative theology; they are simply intolerant of a different group of people. And just in case you’re still not convinced that Obama’s God or Jim Wallis’s God would be a bad thing in government, just think about this – if this God opens the door to theocracy, there will be nothing at all to prevent the God of George W. Bush or James Dobson from coming in the open door.
The First Amendment was written to protect the rights of the minority from the tyranny of the majority. In this country, where religion is concerned, there is no majority. Although many people point to the fact that 75-80% of the citizens are Christians, that does not constitute a majority, since they are all many different kinds of Christians. Baptists, Catholics, Presbyterians, Methodists, Lutherans, Seventh Day Adventists, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Church of Christ – all of these groups believe in the same god, the god of the Jews – but none of them have a majority. Within these groups, there are schisms and sects and splits, so that even the people who share the same title often do not share the same belief. In this country, we are all members of a minority religious belief, whether we call ourselves Christians, Jews, Wicca, Hindu, Muslim, agnostic, or atheist. It is time we stand up for our right to have a government free from the pervasive influence of religion – whether our own or someone else’s. It is time to stand up for the First Amendment.
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