http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0706/17/ldtw.01.html
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http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0706/17/ldtw.01.html
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(COMMERCIAL BREAK) DOBBS: Separation of church and state. Discussing now
the issue of God and politics. Tony Perkins, president of the Family
Research Council. Professor Alan Dershowitz, author of the new book
"Blasphemy: How the Religious Right is Hijacking Our Declaration of
Independence."
ALAN DERSHOWITZ, HARVARD LAW: If they try to knock down the wall of
separation, the great experiment that Thomas Jefferson and the founders of
this country bestowed upon us, not only to protect the rights of citizens
but to protect the rights of churches.
Look, we have the largest church attendance in any country in the western
world. More people believe in God in America than in any other country and
it's largely because we have this high wall of separation that keeps the
government out of the church.
DOBBS: You're saying that evangelicals are breaking that wall down?
DERSHOWITZ: They're trying to. In my book, "Blasphemy," I point to case
after case.
TONY PERKINS, FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL: ... on top of the wall throwing
rocks at us standing on the other side of the wall. Actually, Ala, we would
agree.
DOBBS: I love this picture. Behind Tony Perkins is the -- is the book
cover. It says "Blasphemy" right behind you.
PERKINS: That's kind of like lightning striking when Rudy Giuliani talks
about abortion. The issue of the wall of separation of church and state, we
believe separation of church and state is good for the church and for the
state.
DERSHOWITZ: I agree.
PERKINS: But it's to protect the church from the state. And to say that in
-- and this is what I think you imply in the book. Is that somehow people
of religious conviction need to check those credentials at the gate in
order to go on the other side to participate in government and that's
clearly not what the founders intended.
DERSHOWITZ: Well, I think it is what the founders intended. Thomas
Jefferson said that my religion is my business. He wrote a letter to his
nephew saying, "Read the Bible critically. If you end up not believing in
God, that's fine. But don't bring your faith into politics."
Jefferson refused to even tell his own family members what his beliefs
were. Adams was a Unitarian, rejected the divinity of Jesus. Most of the
founders were Deists. Yes, God is in the Declaration, but it's the God of
nature, not the God of the Bible. Jefferson hated the Ten Commandments. He
said they were very un-American because they inflicted the sins of the
parents on the children for three to 1,000 generations. He said we came to
America to avoid the sins of our parents. And he said the Declaration is a
rejection of monkish ignorance and an acceptance of reason. And that's why
faith has to be kept separate.
PERKINS: You know the Old Testament. The Old Testament says the sins of the
father are not passed on to the sons and that's clear in our justice
system.
DERSHOWITZ: Except not in the Ten Commandments. It says the opposite.
PERKINS: And it is our justice system from which we get our principles of
government.
DERSHOWITZ: So do you believe that or not?
PERKINS: I don't know where Thomas Jefferson stood. Who can know a man's
heart?
DERSHOWITZ: He wrote 1,800 letters.
DOBBS: There was the letter of 1802 (ph). Let's get to the issue here. You
have all sorts of -- you have the Catholic Church.
DERSHOWITZ: Right.
DOBBS: Archbishop Mahony, the U.S. Catholic bishops involved in illegal
immigration that's got be hacked off.
DERSHOWITZ: Right, right.
DOBBS: You've got AIPAC, the lobby for Israel.
DERSHOWITZ: Right, right.
DOBBS: The Jewish religion involved in politics up to its ears.
Evangelicals pushing all sorts of things. You know, pick the one you want.
But they're all involved in politics here.
DERSHOWITZ: That's perfect. Everybody should be involved in politics. But
people should not use faith as a criteria for holding office. And people
should not in any way suggest that we're a Christian country. Mention
Catholics. It's very interesting. The founders were virulently
anti-Catholic.
Jefferson ...
DOBBS: You're saying no one should mention we're a Catholic - I mean, a
Christian country?
DERSHOWITZ: No. Of course not. We're not. In fact in the first treaty we
had with the Barbary pirates, Adams, signed by two thirds of the Senate
said, "We are not in any way a Christian nation." I quote that in
"Blasphemy." It was a very explicit thing. Our constitution is a godless
Constitution. There is no mention. Almost every other constitution in the
world mentions God, Jesus, Mohammed, Allah.
PERKINS: In the year of our Lord.
DERSHOWITZ: Of course. Even I write that. I write AD. It's the year of our
Lord. That's just a common way.
DOBBS: You're just showing off, Alan. The idea that -- that this is a
country -- when you say a Christian nation.
DERSHOWITZ: Right.
DOBBS: I don't think there's any doubt that we'd say that we are a culture,
a Judeo-Christian culture. To say that we're not a Christian nation, I'm
not sure if you're implying that ...
DERSHOWITZ: We're a nation of Christians primarily.
DOBBS: OK.
DERSHOWITZ: But we're not a Christian nation. And if we are a Christian
nation, we're a Protestant nation, not a Catholic nation and that's
important to note because our founders were virulently anti- Catholic.
Jefferson and Adams wrote to each other ...
DOBBS: Let me ask you this.
DERSHOWITZ: ... if we could only keep the Jesuits out. Bigotry, the worst
form of bigotry.
DOBBS: Well, the worst form of bigotry, I always find it's supplanted by
another worse form of bigotry.
DERSHOWITZ: Of course you're right.
DOBBS: We'll be back with Alan Dershowitz and Tony Perkins in just one
moment. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DOBBS: We're back with Tony Perkins and Alan Dershowitz addressing the
issue of God and politics and many religious groups of all denominations
believe they're under attack by secularism.
DERSHOWITZ: There is no assault on religion. Religion is the freest that is
in any country in the world. People can choose to go to any church,
synagogue and mosque. We have complete freedom. More Americans go to
church, more Americans believe in God ...
DOBBS: Do you agree with that, Tony?
PERKINS: No, I don't. I agree that you have the right within your church
and within your home, but increasingly we're seeing hostility toward
religion in the public square. Since ...
DOBBS: By the public square do you mean the governmentally operated public
square? PERKINS: We're talking about kids being able to pray over lunch in
their schools.
DOBBS: In the public school?
PERKINS: In the public school. Do they have to check their faith at the
door, that a child can't even pray over their own lunch.
DOBBS: They can pray themselves. But they can't try to convert -- Well,
they should be able to. There's no doubt about that.
PERKINS: But they're not because of those are pushing a radical ...
DOBBS: This is important. You do agree that ...
DERSHOWITZ: They should be able to pray at any time, before an exam you
should be able to pray, but you pray silently. As Jesus said, "The
hypocrites stand up and pray by the doorway and the really religious people
go in the corner and pray by themselves."
That's what you do. You pray by yourself. But don't try to get the
government to enforce your prayer, proselytize others in the public school.
Do it outside the public school.
PERKINS: That's not happening. I mean -- I was a policy maker. I was
elected an office as a religious right person, as you would describe. I
authored the legislation in Louisiana that is in force today at allows
children to have a moment of silent prayer. That's what we're after. We're
not after forcing kids. Conversions by force do not work. I mean, they're
trying that in the Middle East. It doesn't work.
DERSHOWITZ: Why do you need a moment of silent prayer organized by the
school? Why can't kids just before they start to eat say "baruch atah" if
they're Hebrew, "blessed be" if they're Protestant, whatever they want to
themselves and then eat? There's no problem with that.
Why do you need the government to set aside a moment for particularized
prayer? Because you're going to have some kids who don't want to pray. And
the Constitution protects people from religion as well as ...
PERKINS: No, no, no. From the government inducing or establishing a
religion. Allowing a moment of silence for kids to pray or not to pray ...
DERSHOWITZ: It's not allowing, it's mandating.
PERKINS: No, no, no.
DERSHOWITZ: This is now a moment and you will either pray ...
PERKINS: You can meditate, you can pray or just stand there silently.
DERSHOWITZ: Well, I think we might be able to agree about that if it's
limited to that. But in my book, there's instance after instance where
they're trying to impose Christian theology in the school itself through
what's called the Declaration of Independence curriculum, which is pure
proselytization.
If we can agree to keep that out, I'll agree to give you your moment of
prayer, silent prayer, meditation, whatever.
PERKINS: I do not think that we should abandon our history as a nation. I
would agree with you that we were not founded a Christian nation. As -- in
the -- let me define that. We were not founded as, "this is a Christian
nation." We were founded upon biblical principles and we are a nation ...
DERSHOWITZ: Not according to Jefferson. He didn't believe in biblical
principles. How about Thomas Payne? Is he part of our history? Would you
assign the "Age of Reason" to students, a critique of the Bible?
PERKINS: What about "Common Sense" that he wrote, even though he was not a
Christian, he knew he was appealing to Christians so that they may move
forward.
DERSHOWITZ: I would assign "Common Sense," I would assign the "Age of
Reason." And I'll tell you what I'd do. I'd allow to Bible to be assigned
if it were assigned along with the "Age of Reason" so students could do
what Jefferson said to do.
He wrote to his nephew, he said, "Read the Bible but read it critically."
If there seems to be superstition or miracles, don't believe that. In fact,
he wrote his own Bible, as you know, cutting out all of the miracles and
the Jefferson Bible is now the Bible of the Unitarian Church.
PERKINS: Jefferson as the author of the Declaration said, that "We are
endowed by our Creator."
DERSHOWITZ: But the creator was nature's God, the clockwork God, the deist
God. He rejected Jehovah. He rejected Jesus as a God.
PERKINS: And when he later said ...
DOBBS: Can I ask this question?
DERSHOWITZ: Yeah.
DOBBS: The movements to pull religious references, whether it be the Ten
Commandments, whether it be any religious figure, from government
buildings, from "In God We Trust" on our currency?
DERSHOWITZ: There's a difference between "In God We Trust" and the Ten
Commandments. The Ten Commandments, "I am the Lord your God, you shall have
no other God before me.
DOBBS: It's generic because it's been interpreted as that. I understand --
I understand.
DERSHOWITZ: Two mentions of slavery in the Ten Commandments.
DOBBS: I understand. But my point being, Alan, that all of these references
that are part of our history, to what degree should be permit a current, if
you will, impulses and interpretations of our -- of also our law and our
constitution to alter the texture of the very fabric of our culture? Is.
DERSHOWITZ: I have no problem if you teach these things critically and not
as religious documents, not in an attempt to proselytize. I study the New
Testament, I study the Old Testament. It's an important part of my
teaching. I teach a course called "The scriptural sources of justice." But
I approach it from a critical point of view, not from an acceptance that
it's necessarily all of God's word. I think we ...
DOBBS: You struck me somehow as evangelical.
DERSHOWITZ: Well, we're all evangelical. The question is what we're
preaching.
DOBBS: Be careful about that evangelical part.
PERKINS: We'll sign you up.
DOBBS: Tony is ready. We thank you both for being here.
DERSHOWITZ: Thank you.
DOBBS: Thank you very much, Tony.
PERKINS: Thank you.
***************************************************************
You are invited to check out the following:
The Rise of the Theocratic States of America
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocracy.htm
American Theocrats - Past and Present
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/theocrats.htm
The Constitutional Principle: Separation of Church and State
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
HRSepCnS · Historical Reality SepChurch&State
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HRSepCnS/
***************************************************************
.. . . You can't understand a phrase such as "Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment of religion" by syllogistic reasoning. Words
take their meaning from social as well as textual contexts, which is why "a
page of history is worth a volume of logic." New York Trust Co. v. Eisner,
256 U.S. 345, 349, 41 S.Ct. 506, 507, 65 L.Ed. 963 (1921) (Holmes, J.).
Sherman v. Community Consol. Dist. 21, 980 F.2d 437, 445 (7th Cir. 1992)
.. . .
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USAF LT. COL (Ret) Buffman (Glen P. Goffin) wrote
"You pilot always into an unknown future;
facts are your only clue. Get the facts!"
That philosophy 'snipit' helped to get me, and my crew, through a good
many combat missions and far too many scary, inflight, emergencies.
It has also played a significant role in helping me to expose the
plethora of radical Christian propaganda and lies that we find at
almost every media turn.
*****************************************************************
THE CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLE:
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
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