Separation of Church and State gone amok?

[hoops5]

Before this thread, I never thought about Military chaplains and church buildings on bases as an issue with separation of church and state.

I grew up going to a Catholic Mass with a military priest in a chapel on an Army base in Germany. Baptized and all the Sacraments until age 18. Packed to capacity every week with uniforms and families.

As soon as Mass was over, the Protestant worshipers were lined up for the next service in that little non-denominational base chapel.

[True blue (and gold)]

yep, and I would walk miles over hot coals to get into a debate with these chop lickers. My favorite saying..."what if I'm right about Jesus and they are wrong, what happens, and what if they are right and I'm wrong?"

 

Larry, I have to admit that this is my least favorite method that I hear that people use with non-believers. I don't want someone to believe just in case you are right. They should believe BECAUSE they believe, not as security.

Edited April 21, 2012 by True blue (and gold)

[theguru]

Before this thread, I never thought about Military chaplains and church buildings on bases as an issue with separation of church and state.

I grew up going to a Catholic Mass with a military priest in a chapel on an Army base in Germany. Baptized and all the Sacraments until age 18. Packed to capacity every week with uniforms and families.

As soon as Mass was over, the Protestant worshipers were lined up for the next service in that little non-denominational base chapel.

 

I am glad to see you are taking an objective look at the specific issue and hopefully the larger issue.

[Bluegrasscard]

In the military you are limited in your movements - i.e. can not leave base at times. If you can not leave base then your ability to worship is restricted. Would this not violate the 2nd clause of the 1st Amendment - "...or prohibiting the free exercise thereof" ? The 1st Amendment does not at all say 'separate' regardless of how many want to it say that. "Establishment of" and "practice of" are not the same terms.

[mexitucky]

They used to hold mass in the Capital building.

 

The Constitution prohibits establishing a national (mandatory) religion. Nothing more.

 

The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution do draw from natural law. Natural law is higher than positive law. Since an atheist does not believe in natural law then they have no real standing in the US.

 

 

 

OK, I am sure that last statement will not fly with some. But what rights should a self animated blob of flesh and bone have?

 

The 1st Amendment has an Establishment clause. The Government can not create a National religion, but it also can not further interests in a certain religion so as to promote it. "In God we trust" is a Christian motto. Ticky tacky, but it is what it is.

[Lawnboy13]

It's a deal where the majority have to cowtow to the minority. It's happening everywhere in America. A certain group feels that something the majority does offends them, and they site to the Constitution, find a Circuit Court liberal enough to interpet it the way they need...and boom. I could make an argument for why the crosses should come down, but at some point, enough is enough. If a group holds religious beliefs, and you don't hold any, why does the religious group have to change their behavior to fit your contrarion group? Just don't look at the crosses. Most atheists that I know find religious people to be simple minded superstitious individuals. How can such simple people and their symbols offend people to this point?

 

This is it in a "nut-shell"

[Alabama Larry]

Larry, I have to admit that this is my least favorite method that I hear that people use with non-believers. I don't want someone to believe just in case you are right. They should believe BECAUSE they believe, not as security.

But they do not believe and we as Christians are promised security of a heaven. And as a believer of the scriptures I know I am right and its my duty to bring that to their attention, and in doing so they can also see the light.

[Bluegrasscard]

The 1st Amendment has an Establishment clause. The Government can not create a National religion, but it also can not further interests in a certain religion so as to promote it. "In God we trust" is a Christian motto. Ticky tacky, but it is what it is.

 

At times I wonder if we ignore the words of the contitution because we do not want to read them or because we are supposed to accept the 'interpretation' of the words.

 

Here is the first amendment:

 

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.

 

The amendment is directed a specific government body - Congress. Not the state, not the local county court house. I know what you post is what is popular and what some want.

 

Here is a good link that makes the point.

 

Freedom of Speech

 

I know how it has been 'interpreted' but the words are pretty plain. The word 'promote' or 'separate' is not there. And the second part is all to often ignored - "or prohibiting the free exercise thereof".

 

As this case shows - it is impossible to 'separate' government and religion and still not 'prohibit the free exercise thereof'. Words that are not in the Constitution do not trump words that are.

[Habib]

At times I wonder if we ignore the words of the contitution because we do not want to read them or because we are supposed to accept the 'interpretation' of the words.

 

Here is the first amendment:

 

 

 

The amendment is directed a specific government body - Congress. Not the state, not the local county court house. I know what you post is what is popular and what some want.

 

Here is a good link that makes the point.

 

Freedom of Speech

 

I know how it has been 'interpreted' but the words are pretty plain. The word 'promote' or 'separate' is not there. And the second part is all to often ignored - "or prohibiting the free exercise thereof".

 

As this case shows - it is impossible to 'separate' government and religion and still not 'prohibit the free exercise thereof'. Words that are not in the Constitution do not trump words that are.

 

It says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." That sounds much broader that a simple ban of creating an official state religion that you keep saying it means. I think you're doing what you're accusing others of doing.

[Bluegrasscard]

It says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion." That sounds much broader that a simple ban of creating an official state religion that you keep saying it means. I think you're doing what you're accusing others of doing.

 

I guess we will forever have to deal with the blatantly incorrect interpretation Jefferson's letters in 1947.

[Habib]

I guess we will forever have to deal with the blatantly incorrect interpretation Jefferson's letters in 1947.

 

:confused:

[Bluegrasscard]

^

 

Thomas Jefferson's famous writing was thrust into the mainstream for the first time in 1947 in the Everson Supreme Court case.

 

It was a 5-4 opinion and Justice Black wrote - "In the words of Thomas Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect a wall of separation between church and state."

 

And now the Thomas Jefferson's words have been used in ways never intended.

 

Before 1947 the words 'separation of church and state' were not in the political dialog much.

 

The case above was about using public tax monies to support religious non-public schools. The ruling may have been correct, that is not the point. The point is that Justice Black invoked Jefferson out of context to drive home the majority point. And he got the context and intent of Jefferson's word wrong. And even worse - as the online civics test shows - most people believe that the words are in law or the Constitution.

 

Here is a very interesting analysis of the Danbury letter - posted by the Library of Congress based on analysis done by the FBI of the drafts of the Danbury letter. Here.

 

The high court took the same position in widely publicized decisions in 1947 and 1948, asserting in the latter case, McCollum v. Board of Education, that, "in the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect 'a wall of separation between church and state.'" Since McCollum forbade religious instruction in public schools, it appeared that the court had used Jefferson's "wall" metaphor as a sword to sever religion from public life, a result that was and still is intolerable to many Americans.

 

...

 

Given the gravity of the issues involved in the debate over the wall metaphor, it is surprising that so little effort has been made to go behind the printed text of the Danbury Baptist letter to unlock its secrets. Jefferson's handwritten draft of the letter is held by the Library's Manuscript Division.

 

...

 

The unedited draft of the Danbury Baptist letter makes it clear why Jefferson drafted it: He wanted his political partisans to know that he opposed proclaiming fasts and thanksgivings, not because he was irreligious, but because he refused to continue a British practice that was an offense to republicanism. To emphasize his resolve in this matter, Jefferson inserted two phrases with a clenched-teeth, defiant ring: "wall of eternal separation between church and state" and "the duties of my station, which are merely temporal." These last words -- "merely temporal" -- revealed Jefferson's preoccupation with British practice. Temporal, a strong word meaning secular, was a British appellation for the lay members of the House of Lords, the Lords Temporal, as opposed to the ecclesiastical members, the Lords Spiritual. "Eternal separation" and "merely temporal" -- here was language as plain as Jefferson could make it to assure the Republican faithful that their "religious rights shall never be infringed by any act of mine."

 

The foundation of the most strict interpretation of the 'separation of church and state' is an out of context and incorrect usage of a political letter by Justice Black. Jefferson was simply reassuring the Baptists that he, as President, would not establish national days of thanksgiving and prayer that would conflict with their beliefs. Basically showing he would observe a view that limited governments role than his predecessors. But he also used the letter to attack his political opponents by re-enforcing that national days of feast and prayer were a British custom due to its national church.

 

The atheists are way out of bounds on this particular case. For to do what they want would directly conflict with the Free Exercise clause that is often forgotten. And Jefferson did not imply that the functions of government and religion would never interact.

[Habib]

I see, I didn't know where 1947 came from. I think Jefferson's words have resonated the way they have because he was an eloquent writer and "a wall between Church & State" is a pithy expression. I do not think his words are an outlier or a misinterpretation, however. He wrote Virginia's declaration of rights in 1786 that argued much the same point. Madison, who agreed with Jefferson on the matter and held his declaration of rights in high regard, also wrote quite often in affirmation of the same point. It was Madison who wrote the Bill of Rights, after all.

 

James Madison in an 1822 letter:

 

Notwithstanding the general progress made within the two last centuries in favour of this branch of liberty, & the full establishment of it, in some parts of our Country, there remains in others a strong bias towards the old error, that without some sort of alliance or coalition between Govt. & Religion neither can be duly supported. Such indeed is the tendency to such a coalition, and such its corrupting influence on both the parties, that the danger cannot be too carefully guarded agst. And in a Govt. of opinion, like ours, the only effectual guard must be found in the soundness and stability of the general opinion on the subject. 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.

 

Madison again affirming Jefferson's words in Virginia's Statute for Religous Freedom and explaining that the appointment and salary of Congressional chaplains violates the First Amendment:

 

 

The danger of silent accumulations & encroachments by Ecclesiastical Bodies have not sufficiently engaged attention in the U. S. They have the noble merit of first unshackling the conscience from persecuting laws, and of establishing among religious Sects a legal equality. If some of the States have not embraced this just and this truly Xn principle in its proper latitude, all of them present examples by which the most enlightened States of the old world may be instructed; and there is one State at least, Virginia, where religious liberty is placed on its true foundation and is defined in its full latitude. The general principle is contained in her declaration of rights, prefixed to her Constitution: but it is unfolded and defined, in its precise extent, in the act of the Legislature, usually named the Religious Bill, which passed into a law in the year 1786. Here the separation between the authority of human laws, and the natural rights of Man excepted from the grant on which all political authority is founded, is traced as distinctly as words can admit, and the limits to this authority established with as much solemnity as the forms of legislation can express. The law has the further advantage of having been the result of a formal appeal to the sense of the Community and a deliberate sanction of a vast majority, comprizing every sect of Christians in the State. This act is a true standard of Religious liberty: its principle the great barrier agst usurpations on the rights of conscience. As long as it is respected & no longer, these will be safe. Every provision for them short of this principle, will be found to leave crevices at least thro' which bigotry may introduce persecution; a monster, that feeding & thriving on its own venom, gradually swells to a size and strength overwhelming all laws divine & human.

 

Ye States of America, which retain in your Constitutions or Codes, any aberration from the sacred principle of religious liberty, by giving to Caesar what belongs to God, or joining together what God has put asunder, hasten to revise & purify your systems, and make the example of your Country as pure & compleat, in what relates to the freedom of the mind and its allegiance to its maker, as in what belongs to the legitimate objects of political & civil institutions.

 

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. (See the cases in which negatives were put by J. M. on two bills passd by Congs and his signature withheld from another. See also attempt in Kentucky for example, where it was proposed to exempt Houses of Worship from taxes.

 

[…]

 

Is the appointment of Chaplains to the two Houses of Congress consistent with the Constitution, and with the pure principle of religious freedom?

 

In strictness the answer on both points must be in the negative. The Constitution of the U. S. forbids everything like an establishment of a national religion. The law appointing Chaplains establishes a religious worship for the national representatives, to be performed by Ministers of religion, elected by a majority of them; and these are to be paid out of the national taxes. Does not this involve the principle of a national establishment, applicable to a provision for a religious worship for the Constituent as well as of the representative Body, approved by the majority, and conducted by Ministers of religion paid by the entire nation.

 

The establishment of the chaplainship to Congs is a palpable violation of equal rights, as well as of Constitutional principles: The tenets of the chaplains elected [by the majority] shut the door of worship agst the members whose creeds & consciences forbid a participation in that of the majority. To say nothing of other sects, this is the case with that of Roman Catholics & Quakers who have always had members in one or both of the Legislative branches. Could a Catholic clergyman ever hope to be appointed a Chaplain? To say that his religious principles are obnoxious or that his sect is small, is to lift the evil at once and exhibit in its naked deformity the doctrine that religious truth is to be tested by numbers. or that the major sects have a right to govern the minor.

 

Madison again in an 1832 letter:

 

Whilst I thus frankly express my view of the subject presented in your sermon, I must do you the justice to observe that you very ably maintained yours. I must admit moreover that it may not be easy, in every possible case, to trace the line of separation between the rights of religion and the Civil authority with such distinctness as to avoid collisions & doubts on unessential points. The tendency to a usurpation on one side or the other, or to a corrupting coalition or alliance between them, will be best guarded agst. by an entire abstinance of the Govt. from interference in any way whatever, beyond the necessity of preserving public order, & protecting each sect agst. trespasses on its legal rights by others.

 

So, I think it is quite clear from the author of the First Amendment that his and Jefferson's views on the matter are in agreement in that government and religion should be as separate as possible. I also think it is worth noting that neither of them were "attacking" religion (though I believe Jefferson was somewhat hostile despite his beliefs in God), but that they feared a government intermingled with religious activities would violate religious liberty, or the rights of the people to believe and worship how they see fit. A government that promotes or compels a particular religion, whether it be through statutes, proclamations, or taxes used for religious purposes encroaches on the liberty of the citizenry, even if it does not create an "official" religion.

[Bluegrasscard]

What I find interesting is that it is the concern during the time was that that government will intervene into established religion and compel people to support a specific church. Now, the words are used in such a manner to imply that the churches are attacking government and that government functions much be religion free. But that was never the case in the 1700s. I believe that citing and even promoting spiritual expression is not denied by the Constitution as long as a specific denomination is not favored or funded.

 

The classic example the famous (or infamous) 10 Commandments. Regardless of how they are displayed they are non-denominational. They are directions given to a Jewish people that are waived around mostly by Christian sects and probably best followed by those of the Muslim faith. Do the 10 commandment 'promote' a particular religion or sect of Christianity. No. But there is this ongoing need to try to expunge anything 'religious' using, or rather misusing, Jefferson's words.

[Habib]

What I find interesting is that it is the concern during the time was that that government will intervene into established religion and compel people to support a specific church. Now, the words are used in such a manner to imply that the churches are attacking government and that government functions much be religion free. But that was never the case in the 1700s. I believe that citing and even promoting spiritual expression is not denied by the Constitution as long as a specific denomination is not favored or funded.

 

The classic example the famous (or infamous) 10 Commandments. Regardless of how they are displayed they are non-denominational. They are directions given to a Jewish people that are waived around mostly by Christian sects and probably best followed by those of the Muslim faith. Do the 10 commandment 'promote' a particular religion or sect of Christianity. No. But there is this ongoing need to try to expunge anything 'religious' using, or rather misusing, Jefferson's words.

 

I think Madison's words indicate nearly the opposite. He (and Jefferson) feared that religious liberty was threatened when government and religion intermingled, whether it be the government compelling religion or "encroachment by Ecclesiastical Bodies" as Madison put it. This is why Madison said many in government "have lost sight of the equality of all religious sects in the eye of the Constitution" when issuing religious proclamations, as this is government promoting one sect over another. I don't understand why so many feel the need to use the government to promote their particular religious beliefs. As Madison said, it would be "much better proof to their Constituents of their pious feeling if the members had contributed for the purpose, a pittance from their own pockets."