As is often the case on Sunday mornings, our toddler and my wife were able to get some sleep around the same time Sunday morning, so I caught up on the conversations in some mailing lists. A conversation is raging through one list regarding a judge who secretly installed a two-ton stone Ten Commandments monument in the Alabama State Supreme Court building. Some list members suggested that if the Ten Commandments were an appropriate monument on the property of a government-owned building, perhaps the Wiccan “do what ye will, but harm no one” belief, or the Mormon “Articles of Faith” should also be given government ground. Good old ELC, the raving catholic, chose to speak up:
What you are advocating is separation of RELIGION and state. That is NOT what the First Amendment speaks to. Since neither the Articles of Faith, nor the Koran, nor the sayings of Confucius, etc., could remotely be considered guiding principles and values of our founding fathers, your hypothetical is not at all analogous nor instructive to this present situation. Common sense draws the line. Judeo-Christian values are a bedrock of our Western civilization. Wiccan “values” and Mormon “values” are not … most Americans want their government to acknowledge Judeo-Christian values which give us our identity, direction, and grounding. If the secular lobby triumphs it will be a lot darker than it was when the lights were turned out for a day or so. Now, that is a scary thought.
I see no difference, other than semantic, between “religion”, “church”, and “faith” (as in one’s faith, not the act of having faith). List reader Llona had this to say:
Judeo-Christian values were perfectly comfortable with slavery, public hangings, workhouses for the poor, beating, threatening, and killing those who tried to organize unions, withholding the vote first from non-property holders, then from women and blacks, wiping out millions of Indians, etc.
Do you think any Iraqi constitution should favor Islam and post portions of the Koran around in public places because commmon sense says that is the bedrock of their civilization (which is far, far older than ours)?
Then Eric, another alert list reader, chimed in with some excellent quotes:
I believe that many of the founding fathers were also Mason and anti-religious. Should we not let anyone into government buildings unless they know the secret handshakes?
The religious preferences of the founding fathers have no legal bearing on our societal institutions. If they had wanted to include the ten commandments in government buildings they could have, and would have damn well written it into the constitution. Instead their references to religion are vague: In God we Trust (not Jesus).
The founding fathers were fans of Christianisty? Food for thought:
“Experience witnesseth that ecclesiastical establishments, instead of maintaining the purity and efficacy of religion, have had a contrary operation. During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.”
– James Madison, “A Memorial and Remonstrance”, 1785
“It is not to be understood that I am with him (Jesus Christ) in all his doctrines. I am a Materialist; he takes the side of Spiritualism; he preaches the efficacy of repentence toward forgiveness of sin; I require a counterpoise of good works to redeem it. Among the sayings and discourses imputed to him by his biographers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence; and others, again, of so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same being. I separate, therefore, the gold from the dross; restore him to the former, and leave the latter to the stupidity of some, the roguery of others of his disciples. Of this band of dupes and imposters, Paul was the great Coryphaeus, and the first corruptor of the doctrines of Jesus.”
– Thomas Jefferson to W. Short, 1820
“I think vital religion has always suffered when orthodoxy is more regarded than virtue. The scriptures assure me that at the last day we shall not be examined on what we thought but what we did.”
– Benjamin Franklin letter to his father, 1738
Then Tami chimed in with some helpful URIs:
- http://www.ffrf.org/nontracts/xian.html
- http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/farrell_till/myth.html
- http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/shb/buckner_18_1.html
- http://www.dimensional.com/~randl/founders.htm
- http://ffrf.org/tm.php?tm=http://ffrf.org/issues/secular.html
For obvious and completely selfish reasons, I regard freedom of religion to include freedom from religion as well. The First Amendment is deceptively simple:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Now, we’re in a situation where the first and second phrases of the Bill of Rights seem to be in competition with one another. Does allowing a government official to put up a monument to a particular religion constitute making a law respecting an establishment of religion? And does forcing the official to remove the monument “prohibit the free exercise thereof”?
For my part, I think that the placement of a two-ton monument to any religion on government property amounts to an endorsement of that religion. Judeo-Christian values have nothing to do with this argument; our leaders are specifically instructed by the First Amendment that government must be a secular institution and not dally in religious affairs. If one person is allowed to “exercise” his religion by placing large stone monuments with religious creeds on government property, then others should be allowed to do likewise with no respect towards the religion involved. Such a situation, though, would be ridiculous — although it’s been done before, and if I understand correctly, Ogden Utah’s city hall property is now littered with the screeds of at least three religions.
The U.S. is republic, with some strange ways of electing certain leaders, rather than a true democracy for important reasons, including this one: we must prevent a tyranny of the majority. The electoral college, and “winner takes all” requirements for much of the electorate, force presidential candidates to cater to the needs of minorities and balance them with majority demands in order to win the race. A simple natinoal majority vote would allow the prospective president to simply identify the two or three most popular viewpoints and cater to them, ignoring minority voices. The requirement of a two-thirds Congressional majority for consitutional amendments, plus similar ratification by the states, sets up a situation which is favorable to minority voters having a voice against the majority which would otherwise rob them of their rights.
As a self-selected “minority” now, with a naturalistic rather than supernatural worldview, I find the promotion of any particular “religion” (including state-condoned strong atheism, or the dogmatic assertion of the nonexistence of god) an anathema. There are many other rational, centrist individuals, regardless of religious beliefs, who also agree that we must balance acknowledgement of religion with an even-handed, “blind” approach when dealing with anything but abuses of the law by those religions. By displaying a monument to Christianity’s Commandments in a government building, the government is announcing support for the religions that created them, and making law by tradition disrespecting those who do not share the same view.
Yank it. Hooray to the House of Representatives and Senate for refusing to donate federal funds to the removal of this eyesore. Make the judge or the state that allowed this to happen pay for their own self-righteous mistakes.