Church-state separation is a right
http://www.journal-news.net/columns/articles.asp?articleID=6525
Friday, January 26, 2007— Time:3:43:56 AMEST
Church-state separation is a right
JAY TABOR / Guest Column
Before we can start any discussion about separation of church and state, we
must put to rest the usurpation of America’s founding as it is being
re-imagined and marketed by the theocratic right. America, as it was formed
as a new nation at the start of the American Revolution, was not founded as
a Christian nation for the behalf of free men; it was founded as a free
nation by a group of men who happened to be Christian.
It may seem a minor semantic point, but without this basis, all else fails.
The entire known western world at that time practiced some form of
Christianity, and if the Founding Fathers possessed Christian beliefs, it
would not be surprising. However, they were well aware of differing
religions throughout the world as their former homeland, England, and the
seaports of the colonies were all international crossroads in that era.
What they also saw was the horrendous consequences of religion governing
England and Europe. As each religion’s power ebbed and flowed, persecution
followed, sweeping the country with waves of torture and killings in the
name of the predominant religion. And this was Christian setting upon
Christian, never mind the other religions.
The venture of the pilgrims to North America was set against this terror,
and it was from this backdrop that the notion of church-state separation
was first set in the minds of the Founding Fathers. They were not only
reflecting upon hundreds of years of history, these were still lessons in
current events heard daily.
Thus, their purpose was to see the citizenry governed from the seat of
government, not the currently popular pulpit of choice. To further explore
Jefferson’s writings of the subject, one need only look at his Bill for
Establishing Religious Freedom that he drafted in 1799 for the General
Assembly of Virginia. It stated in part “... that no man shall be compelled
to frequent or support any religious worship, place or ministry whatsoever
....”
Implicit here is the fact that the only power that could persuade a man to
do so would be governmental power.
Jefferson’s belief in this separation is clearly spelled out in his letter
to J. Moor in 1800 in which he says, “The clergy, by getting themselves
established by law and ingrafted into the machine of government, have been
a very formidable engine against the civil and religious rights of man.”
Jefferson’s sense of the history of religion within government comes
through darkly in his letter to H. Spafford in 1814, when he states, “In
every country and every age, the priest has always been hostile to liberty.
He is always in alliance with despot, abetting his abuses in return for
protection of his own.”
Clearly, Jefferson did not want the church in the government nor the
government in the church.
To be in a public meeting intended for government purposes and have it
strewn with any overtly specific religious symbolism in some form through
the direction of the leadership imposes the will of that religion on the
group as a whole.
The Constitution and the Bill of Rights were not built around or for the
power of the majority, but the rights of the minority to live, worship and
prosper as they see fit within custom and law next to the majority. Unless
one is willing to seize land and establish an exclusive sovereignty, any
leadership in this country cannot use the seat of power and the gavel to
preach per their own beliefs or that of the perceived majority.
As the Founding Fathers designed three branches of government, so too did
they base this on the three pillars of regulated society in the form of
three buildings: the home, the meeting hall and the church; each to its own
accord and each to its own rules, none overly bending the other.
As to the ACLU, alarmists may be disturbed to find if they took the time to
study beyond their own pre-ordained ideological mirror, that both states’
courts and the U.S. Supreme Court were examining church-state separation
issues long before the existence of the ACLU, and the conclusions were not
demonstrably different.
Further, the definitive 1971 church-state separation case, Lemon v.
Kurtzman, while assisted by the ACLU, did not have them as a plaintiff. The
8-1 ruling was dominated by a total of seven justices appointed by
Republican Presidents Eisenhower and Nixon with the dissenting vote from
Byron White, who was appointed by Kennedy.
— Jay B. Tabor is a resident of Martinsburg
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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
[and to join the discussion group for the above site and/or Separation of
Church and State in general, listed below]
HRSepCnS · Hampton Roads [Virginia] SepChurch&State
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HRSepCnS/
[Its not just Hampton Roads folks who are members, there are members from
all over the US and a couple from overseas as well]
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.. . . 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.
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THE CONSTITUTIONAL PRINCIPLE:
SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE
http://members.tripod.com/~candst/index.html
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