-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) sees a war on religion being waged by the elitist, secular Left. Paul claims the “separation of church and state” is a phrase taken out of context from Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists. According to Paul, courts have misread and distorted the meaning of the first amendment so that children are banned from praying in school, courthouses are prohibited from displaying the Ten Commandments, and citizens are prevented from praying before football games.
From Paul’s congressional website, he claims that the “separation” doctrine is based upon a phrase taken out of context from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Baptists on January 1, 1802.” Taking a phrase out of context from a letter containing only five sentences is going to be a tough argument to support. Jefferson wrote:
… I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.
This seems straightforward and self-contained. Jefferson is saying that the establishment and free exercise clauses build a wall of separation. The “taken out of context” argument is not supported. The “taken out of context” argument is simply a dismissive, throw-away line to a devastatingly inconvenient historical fact.
In The War on Religion, Paul writes:
The notion of a rigid separation between church and state has no basis in either the text of the Constitution or the writings of our Founding Fathers.
Besides Jefferson, the writings of other founding fathers have expressed similar sentiments regarding the separation of church and state. In Detached Memoranda, James Madison wrote:
Strongly guarded as is the separation between Religion & Govt in the Constitution of the United States the danger of encroachment by Ecclesiastical Bodies, may be illustrated by precedents already furnished in their short history.
In a letter to Edward Livingston, Madison wrote:
Every new & successful example therefore of a perfect separation between ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance. And I have no doubt that every new example, will succeed, as every past one has done, in shewing that religion & Govt. will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together.
In The War on Religion, Paul continues:
Certainly the drafters of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, both replete with references to God, would be aghast at the federal government’s hostility to religion.
The number of references to God in the Constitution: zero. Paul must use a different definition of “replete.” The references to “Nature’s God” and “their Creator” in the Declaration of Independence appeal to Deists, Unitarians, as well as Christians.
In The War on Religion, Paul also writes:
Throughout our nation’s history, churches have done what no government can ever do, namely teach morality and civility.
The moral support of slavery, provided by Southern churches, gives lie to this statement. Churches don’t teach morality, they exist to support their parishioners who, in turn, support the church.
In 1773, Rev. Isaac Backus, a Baptist preacher and leading orator of the American Revolution, advocated for the separation of church and state by saying:
And where these two kinds of government [ecclesiastical and civil], and the weapons which belong to them, are well distinguished. and improved according to the true nature and end of their institution. the effects are happy, and they do not at all interfere with each other: but where they have been confounded together, no tongue nor pen can fully describe the mischiefs that have ensued;
There is a war, but it is not a war on religion, it is a war on the separation of church and state. Those who want to impose religious law, be it sharia or Mosaic, on all citizens must first tear down the wall of separation. They are chipping away bit by bit at our nation’s heritage of separation.
While Glenn Greenwald highlights several admirable Paul policy positions and, while any candidate is a compromise with our own personal policy concepts, the separation of church and state is up near the top of my can’t-compromise list. Religion limits civil liberties for imaginary reasons. The surest way to lose many of our cherished civil liberties is to end the separation of church and state and let religious leaders determine the rules.
H/T: Theocracy Watch.
Ken C., your lack of understanding of two hundred years of Constitutional law and case law following is most impressive.
Dominionism = Christian Taliban.
The intention of the founders for separation of Church and State was reiterated again by Adams in the Treaty of Tripoli.
Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, Monroe – all left extensive writings on this subject. As did the Virginia legislature.
There is simply no foundation for these Dominionist lies.
Since the First Amendment prevents congress from doing anything at all concerning religion, it follows that, under the Tenth Amendment, such matters are left to the people and the states.
If people are offended by school prayer, they should take it up with the school board, not the federal courts.
By the way, letters to Baptists do not have force of law.
Mike S.
I’m going to take you on about your statement here while first complimenting Nal and others who will state what Paul is saying is not a correct understanding of the Constitution.
You write: “When will people understand that under our current system of campaigning for office, no politician is heroic, since they all have to make deals, to get money, to even run in the first place. We have allowed a system of legal bribery to take effect in this country and we have become no different from the countries we decry where “baksheesh” is how you get things done.” I for one do not expect my politicians to be heroic. I do expect them to refrain for illegalities that undermine my system of govt. and that cause immense harm to other human beings. You write about anyone criticizing Obama, “don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good”. You need to explain how you think Obama is the good. He isn’t.
I am going to ask you to watch this video of a man whom our govt. decided by executive fiat, was a terrorist. They arrested this man and rendered him via the CIA to a prison in Afghanistan where he was tortured. They let him rot there for months, even when they had discovered within a few days that he was entirely innocent. Your “good” guy Obama has never allowed this man his day in court. Your “good’ guy Obama has now signed into law, his own contention that he may do this to anyone at anytime on his say so.
If you can watch this video. If you can countenance the power to indefinitely or even for a short term imprison another human being without trial, then you must explain how you have come to believe these are “good” things and that Obama is a “good” man for taking up these “powers”.
IMO no person should ever give their consent to the imprisonment of others without trial. I cannot see why that is less bad than anything Ron Paul would do to our Constitution and other human beings. I will search to find this video and ask that you watch it. In it, you will see what the NADA law just codified against other human beings.
http://docuvideop.blogspot.com/2011/09/wikileaks-and-el-masri-case-innocent.html
I will add one more example-a boy. Tell me how Obama is “good”. (from andy worthington “This Christmas, when so many of us spend time with our families, my thoughts are with Omar Khadr, a scapegoat in the “war on terror” for two countries — not just the United States, which has held him at Guantánamo for over nine years, but also Canada, his home.
Seized at the age of 15 in Afghanistan, where he had been taken by his father, who was allegedly a fundraiser for al-Qaeda, Omar was abused by the US authorities at Bagram and then Guantánamo, and was then put forward for a war crimes trial, and he has also been neglected throughout his long ordeal by the Canadian government. Neither country cared that he was a juvenile prisoner when seized, and should have been rehabilitated rather then punished, as stipulated in the UN Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict, even though Canada, in particular, has stood up for the rights of child soldiers in other countries.
In October 2010, the Obama administration reached a particularly low point in its respect for the law, when Omar was obliged to agree to a plea deal in his trial by Military Commission in exchange for a promise that, as a result, he would serve an eight-year sentence, with just one more year at Guantánamo followed by seven years back in Canada.
In the plea deal, Omar accepted that he had thrown a grenade that killed a US soldier during the firefight that led to his capture in July 2002 (even though that may not have been true), and also agreed that he was an “alien unprivileged enemy belligerent,” who was guilty of war crimes because he was not entitled, under any circumstances, to be engaged in a combat situation with US forces, even though he was captured in a war zone in a country in which the US was at war.
This whole saga is disgraceful, but for the last two months what has been particularly distressing and disturbing is that Omar is still held at Guantánamo, even though, according to the terms of the plea deal, he was supposed to have been transferred to Canadian custody.
As the Globe and Mail reported this week, John Norris, a member of Omar’s Canadian legal team, said of his client, “He’s frustrated, he wants to get on with his life.” The article also noted that both the US and Canadian governments are still claiming, as they did when the deadline passed on October 31, that “the delays are just part of a complicated process, that there is no willful foot-dragging,” as though they haven’t had a year to prepare.
Pentagon spokesperson Lt. Col. Todd Breasseale pointed out that, due to legislation passed by Congress, one problem is that the US defence secretary Leon Panetta “must ‘certify’ to Congress that Canada is a fit place to send a convicted terrorist, a nation not likely to permit him to attack the United States, and one that has control of its prisons.” The Globe and Mail added, “That hasn’t happened and Mr. Khadr can’t go anywhere until it does.” Lt. Col. Breasseale also explained that the Congressional imposition “restricts our ability to transfer detainees from GTMO for 30 days after we inform Congress of our intent to transfer the individual, but levies no requirements after the 30 days.”
This is a ridiculous situation, of course, as Canada can hardly be regarded as an unsafe country by all but the most paranoid and unhinged members of Congress, but the Globe and Mail claimed that this might be embarrassing for Leon Panetta, and described “the odd, and potentially embarrassing, requirement of formally certifying to Congress that a close ally could be trusted not to allow a convicted terrorist to attack American again.”
Ironically, the new National Defence Authorization Act, which has caused great consternation because of its deranged provision for the mandatory military custody of all terror suspects, “allows for transfers without certification in cases where a pre-trial agreement was signed,” as the Globe and Mail explained.
In the most alarming passage in the article, it was claimed that Omar’s plea deal “allowed for repatriation to Canada but didn’t explicitly guarantee it” — which strikes me as a rather casual revisionism, when the whole purpose of the plea deal was to guarantee Omar’s return to Canada — and this was followed by a quote from an unnamed US official, who stated bluntly, “Your country doesn’t want him back.”
Sadly, Omar’s lawyers are in the dark about his future. “I wish I knew, I wish they would tell us,” John Norris said. “So far we have received no word about a transfer date.”
Jill,
I’m glad you don’t have political heroes, though you misunderstood the way I was using the term. I’m sorry if my imprecision misled you only. thoughts. My meaning is that given the corruption of the system by money, no politician can be trusted to always do the right thing. As to
Obama’ s bad policies wouldn’t you guess from my own copious commentary on them that I’m fully aware of his misdeeds? If not you do me a disservice.
Where I stand on this coming election is that I won’t waste my vote on someone without a reasonable chance of victory. I get it that you believe both parties are the same in that they both answer to their corporate masters. I believe that is true also, but they are different corporate masters, with different agendas. The Republican masters are commited to a feudalist corporate setup, using religious fear and oppression, to control the 99% as serfs. The Democratic masters understand that the 99% needs some benefits to keep America as a consumer society, supporting a military/commercial empire.
Both are bad choices, but until the aspirations energized by OWS reach the next level of fighting the corporate encroachments I’ll use my vote and my voice to stave off a totally repressive society. That society will come about if any of the present Republican field takes power along with congressional control this year. If that happens we will see repression that many of us have never dreamed possible. As bad as these past 3 years have been, my guess is we wouldn’t have been able to be writing now had McCain won in 2008.
John said “This is a good point to bring up, but the article cuts the issue short. Once everybody is going to public schools, living in public housing, and working at public jobs, “separation of church and state” is going to be the slogan used for “sorry you can’t do that anymore–so put away that Bible, take down that Christmas tree, and get rid of that cross around your neck.”.”
John’s example is a wonderful summation of what is happening now, that Christianity is supposed to be the predominant religion and that it is christians who now face the most discrimination. John, This is America, where freedom of religion means any and all, whether it is yours or not.
BettyKath, We had a mandated prayer where a kid stood in front of the class and read from the Bible (years ago but was school Bible (public school btw). Each day different kid, including me and my Jewish buddies (since school was probably 60 – 70% Jewish) What is did for me was make the Bible and religion no different then the world news, read by the kid standing next to the one with the Bible or school news and announcements, rwead by the kid standing next to the kid reading the news. The result was Faith and religion became meaningless for me for many years. Compulsory prayer became nothing more then another boring waste of my time.
No surprise about Paul. He will say whatever he thinks will get the right on his side, liberty from the federal government but invade a woman’s body and her doctors office. No dissonance there. (Then there is the religion question – is this stance because of his religious beliefs, further bringing them into the behavior of the state and ultimately the federal government from which he believes we should be liberated?) At the end of the day a polititcian is a politician is a politician and staunchly held beliefs be damned.
I, too, has to endure the lord’s prayer every day in the ’50s. I didn’t say the prayer nor make a big deal of it, but I did feel alienated from my classmates.
Students or others displaying words from their religion in opposition to a death penalty case have every right to express their views. If the powers that be were chase them away, they would be suppressing the students right of free speech and their right to make religious speech in the public arena. Actually, I use many of those religious references in my own activism in hopes of making contact with those making the decisions.
Paul may be good on foreign policy (no wars) and the fed, but he would be a disaster on so many domestic issues.
Blouise,
I think you are right that Rep. Paul is doing and saying these things to get the backing of the religious right.
Nal … a superb post … thank you
Therein lies the rub … “let their disdain for Obama, over rule their common sense” (Mike S)
“For in that sleep of death we know not what dreams may come….” (Shakespeare – Hamlet)
Let us not forget that membership within the different organized, and even disorganized, religions is declining and thus losing political power. Those religious leaders and the politicians like Paul who have long been their partners are desperate to regain that which they’ve lost.
That scrap of paper we call the Constitution means little to these politicians in the battle they are now waging. They’d burn it in a minute if it meant 2, 4, or 6 more years in office.
Paul’s pretense of “misread and distorted” is simply camouflage disguising his willingness to say or do whatever it takes to gain the support of the desperately religious in order to advance his never ending quest for power and a seat at the desk in the Oval Office.
OOPS, mangled sentence. Should read:
“The separation of church and state also provides for the unconditional non-discrimination and protection from those who would try to suppress the religion of others.”
One other thing. The separation of church and state also provides for the unconditional non-discrimination against those who would try to suppress the religion of others. We have seen that in the recent attempts by so-called Christians to prevent Muslims from building mosques. At the same time, they do not see anything wrong with building mega-churches in the middle of predominately Jewish, Muslim or Native American areas.
Gotta spread the Word of the Lord to the infidels, y’know. Nothing wrong with that. Just as long as the infidels don’t try to spread THEIR word.
Well said Gene, Mike S. and OS.
Bob,Esq.
I loved your short and concise response!
“The Constitution of the U. S. forbids everything like an establishment of a national religion.”
— James Madison, ‘Detached Memoranda’
The foregoing concept necessitates complete separation between religion and state.
OS,
Thank you for the DailyKos article by Adama Brown, which is a concise refutation of the work of Greenwald and others progressives, who have let their disdain for Obama, over rule their common sense. When will people understand that under our current system of campaigning for office, no politician is heroic, since they all have to make deals, to get money, to even run in the first place. We have allowed a system of legal bribery to take effect in this country and we have become no different from the countries we decry where “baksheesh” is how you get things done.
Politics, like most human endeavors where power is the goal, has no room for “holier than thou attitudes”. While in times past the race to be on the top of the power structure was always about weaponry/troops, today money represents a “cleaner” form of deadly warfare. In war one is forced to make choices between possible allies who may be distasteful in some aspects and that is the difference between winning and losing. Unfortunately, too many on the Progressive side put purity and adherence to their particular party line over pragmatism and then claim to have been “cheated” when they lose. We have a battle going on for the welfare/rights/lives of the 99% and frankly I have little patience with those who ca’t find a hero to save them. There are o and never have been heroes. That some people at times behave heroically is a fact, but all of us humans have as many faults as we have goodness.
Paul has shown himself to be more lacking than others in his belief system and to think that somehow all of his nasty deficits are erased by his putative beliefs about war and civil liberties is a naivete unsupported by the facts.
From everything we are learning about him, now that the spotlight shines, we can see a pathology that is only hinted at by the “craziness” in his eyes.
“The framers of the Constitution never in their worst nightmares imagined that the words, ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech …..’ would be used to ban children from praying in school, prohibit courthouses from displaying the Ten Commandments, or prevent citizens from praying before football games.”
Every time I hear crap like this I try to get a picture of some 18 year old high school senior quietly praying in class, or a football fan praying before a game, and getting arrested because of “courts that misread and distort the First Amendment”. Or a class full of kids being given lessons and homework on how Monsanto makes the best food and Citi-Bank is the best credit card. Are these people serious? They never seem to understand even what it is they’re whining about.
Courts have decided corporations are individuals and handed over to them all the rights of real individuals. IANAL; are religions legally considered individuals who pay no taxes?
Our Founders were educated English subjects certainly well versed in the damage done to England and the Crown through persecutions, civil wars, etal., as a result of religion being associated with the state. To suggest they did not intend and design a distinct seperation is pure wishful revisionism and total bunk to be ignored.
“Would you argue that the Catholic Church, say, has less right to be concerned with public policy than say Monsanto or Citi Bank? And if so, on what grounds?”
Martin,
Yes I would argue that. The right of the Catholic Church, a money making organization, is deemed by the Government to be able to operate tax free.
It follows that because of this status the RCC has been able to build up huge funds with which to influence the governance in this country by funding projects simply concerned with promoting Catholic religious beliefs, while at the same time being able to suppress for many decades felony sexual abuse within its’ ranks. It helped defeat Proposition 8 in California and today continues (with other Christian denominations) to finance the fight against abortion, with tax free dollars.
Now as far as Monsanto and Citibank goes you bring up another issue of equal importance the buying of government by the wealthy. This make reformation of campaign finance a primary issue. Mr. Paul of course equates wealth with “free speech” and is therefore against any restriction of campaign financing. Another reason he is not the “savior” of our civil liberties some make him out to be.
“The issue is mandatory prayer, and the mandate coming from the state, from people acting under the mantle of the state.”
Nicely framed for your purposes but incorrect. The issue is coercion, which can either be mandatory or voluntary, the distinction is merely verbiage. When I was in Public School in NYC in the 50’s there were no laws making prayer in school mandatory, just as there were no laws banning it. As a seven year old Jewish kid, in a school that had about 50% Jewish student, with a Christian faculty of about 80% we had Christian prayers daily. Now a Jewish student could refuse to participate, but if that student did he/she would be marked as a troublemaker. The celebration of Christmas, exchange of gifts and singing of Carols was also voluntary, but a the peril of
the young Jewish students and the opprobrium of the faculty.
John sez: “Once everybody is going to public schools, living in public housing, and working at public jobs, “separation of church and state” is going to be the slogan used for “sorry you can’t do that anymore–so put away that Bible, take down that Christmas tree, and get rid of that cross around your neck.”.”
******************************************
I am not sure if this is snark or if John actually believes this. I will go on the basis of the latter, since this is the meme being pushed by the religious right wing.
What is there about “wall of separation” these people do not understand? If there is a firewall against government sponsorship of a religion, they apparently do not understand that all firewalls have two sides. If the government cannot promote it, then neither can it prevent it. You can wear whatever icon you want and engage in all the personal prayer you wish. Did you know that Native Americans, for example, are exempt from the prohibition against owing or displaying eagle feathers, since that is part of their own religious heritage?
I found it amusing, in a sick kind of way, that the same types of persons who were so incredibly outraged at the art display of a crucifix in a container of urine, saw nothing wrong with the public desecration and burning of copies of the Qur’an.
David,
A brilliant post and it highlights the problem with Paul that is ignored by many, including Glenn Greenwald.at their peril. This is a very, radical conservative whose support for certain policies make him attractive to civil libertarians, even though his true stated beliefs fall far short of the mark of a protector of civil liberties.
Abortion – It is easy for some to dismiss this anti-libertarian aberration of Paul’s simply because it does reflect his religious beliefs, but Paul should not be allowed to get away with this. The intrusion into the choices a female makes with her body violates the most personal of civil liberties. It allows the state to define at best, months of a females life and how they should be spent. It also can guarantee for many females a single parenthood that statistics show is marginal economically.
Religion – His view as shown in this is not only incorrect, it is dishonest. By throwing it to a State level, he is in truth stating the the individual states can impose beliefs antithetical to those of a minority (possibly a large one) of its citizens. Raff and AY addressed this well.
These are civil liberties issues that are equally important as any others because their range can subsume the other issues such as selective detention. Jim Crow, justified by Southern Baptist preaching, enabled the Southern States to limit the Constitutional freedoms of black people. It was a form of selective detention and was enforced as such. It was justified by church teachings. The powers that be in Utah speciously deny any hold LDS has upon the governance of that state, yet given the obedience expected by LDS of its members, this is mere posturing. The Catholic Church has shown what is possible in lands where their members predominate. A struggle has arisen in Israel by the attempts there of religious extremists to impose their will and the difficulty their government has with assuring the rights of all. Shall I add the governments of Saudi Arabia and Iran to the mix in the repression of women and non-muslims?
Paul is a dominionist and represents a greater danger to us than much of those anti-civil liberties actions of Bush and Obama. This is true simply because the fear of God is not only a powerful motivator, but it represents a belief that of necessity demonizes non-believers and in the process limits their ability to speak out.
Now We could put a couple of more articles of faith and fact into the scenario where school kids are carrying signs which say: Thou Shalt Not Kill on the courthouse square where there is a jury trial going on. Lets put the trial in Texas and the state is trying to convict a man for arson and killing his wife in the fire in their home and wants the death penalty. Rick and Ron perk up its your home state. Where do the candidates stand on the killing of the guy by the people for allegedly killing his wife by fire? Now what if the trial was about a defendant doctor charged with killing one month old fetus by an abortion procedure and the state did want the death penalty. Whose ox is gored.
I should point out that Rick Perry as Governor said yes to killing a man for arson where it is proven that the fire was an accident not arson. Rick was off at his N —lodge killing innocent birds and didnt stay the execution.
Makes for some hair splitting on the issues of killing, limits on powers of states, children and the right to protest and express freedom of religion, and abortion.
If you folks up in Iowa could corner the candidates and posit these questions we all would enjoy the show.