RELIGIOUS FREEDOMS

Among the Bill of Rights, no amendment is more misunderstood than the First: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Probably nowhere is this misunderstanding greater than in the courts. Ever since the 1947 Emerson decision — where Hugo Black distorted the meaning of the phrase, "wall of separation between church and state," that Thomas Jefferson penned in a private 1802 letter to Connecticut Baptists — the courts have essentially turned the First Amendment upside down. Whereas Jefferson believed a wall of separation applied only to the federal government, the courts have sought to apply the wall to the states without any legal precedent. Instead of maintaining Jefferson’s wall of separation — keeping the federal government out of religious matters — the federal courts have interfered in all sorts of religious matters that constitutionally should be adjudicated at the state and local level.

The Supreme Court wrote in its 1892 Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States decision,

If we examine the constitutions of the various states we find in them a constant recognition of religious obligations. Every constitution of every one of the forty-two states contains language which either directly or by clear implication recognizes a profound reverence for religion and an assumption that its influence in all human affairs is essential to the well-being of the community.

The recognition of the importance of religion to education produced the American civilization that has attracted oppressed millions to these shores for centuries.

It was in the 19^th century that America’s Judeo-Christian foundation started to erode. One contributing factor was Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, which began to replace the theory of intelligent design as the accepted explanation for the origin and purpose of the universe and life. America’s intellectual elites concluded that God was a myth and that the universe, life, and society had evolved on their own — a conclusion most Americans dispute. The intelligentsia’s acceptance of this explanation resulted in the replacement of the Judeo-Christian worldview with humanism’s shifting moral and legal standards.

Although the majority of Americans still believe in moral absolutes, the new humanistic worldview is the controlling influence in most of America’s educational and cultural institutions. With the Ten Commandments driven from the public square, the unsavory likes of Jerry Springer, Marilyn Manson, and Basketball Diaries have filled the vacuum.

The Ten Commandments’ timeless principles have benefited American students for centuries, and it makes no sense to withhold them from today’s youth, who are especially threatened by a culture of despair and confusion. Congress and the President should appropriately recognize that the Supreme Court erred in its 1980 Stone v. Graham decision regarding the posting of the Ten Commandments. Recent decisions by the High Court suggest that the current justices may be coming to this realization. Every state should promote the moral development of its students by posting these great principles on classroom walls, and every student has the right to view and reflect upon what may be the most influential document of all time.

An important document that points to the religious basis for American education is the Northwest Ordinance, which designated the procedure and requirements by which territories could become new states in the United States. It was signed into law by President George Washington on August 7, 1789. Article Three of the Northwest Ordinance reveals that Americans believed that religion and morality should be taught in schools and were essential for good government: "Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged."

Society benefited when students were educated within the framework of the Judeo-Christian worldview in at least three ways. Citizens learned that human life is sacred because each person is created in the image of God; that the greatest virtues in life were to love God and to love people selflessly and sacrificially; and that they would be held accountable for their earthly behavior by God in the next world. Most families and communities expected that their children would be taught these and other religious principles, whether they attended public or private schools.

Secular education, conversely, excises God from the classroom and replaces Him with mankind as the measure of all things. There is no universal or authoritative grounds for distinguishing between right and wrong; each individual must ultimately determine this. And there is no real basis for placing special value upon human life, living selflessly for others, or being concerned about a Day of Judgment.

The secular worldview has been for several decades the dominant perspective in America’s schools of education, where all prospective public school teachers are trained, and its influence blankets public education today. In addition, the Supreme Court during the last 50 years has ignored America’s rich religious history and has waged a concerted effort to remove all religious influences from public schools.

The results of secularism in education should not be surprising. Although public school teachers and principals encourage students to be considerate and respectful of others, there is no real authority behind these admonitions — they are simply suggestions from one human being to another. Order is removed from life and the classroom, and what would appear to liberate instead traps students in a world without meaning and hope.

On Nov. 20, U.S. District Court Judge Roslyn Silver granted the ACLU a temporary restraining order prohibiting Gov. Hull from issuing a "Bible Week" proclamation. Earlier that week, Judge Silver had granted an order prohibiting the small town of Gilbert, Ariz., from issuing a similar proclamation. The proclamation states: "The Bible is the foundational document of the Judeo-Christian principles upon which our nation was conceived," and cites the Bible as a "constant source of moral and spiritual guidance for Americans throughout our history."

The governor issues more than 400 proclamations yearly, including one recognizing the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. As well, in 1997, she lit Hanukkah candles as an official act. For some reason, no one has questioned or brought suit against either of these official acts. What the ACLU has called for, and Gov. Hull has now granted, is the allowing of political speech with religious content, unless that speech concerns the Judeo-Christian religious tradition. This is a textbook definition of viewpoint discrimination.

A number of years ago, black Americans were intimidated from taking part in the political process. The Voting Rights Act made this illegal, and its protections extend to people with religious faith. Any attempt to intimidate people of faith from becoming politically active is not only bigotry but is illegal.

A wind of ugly intolerance is blowing across the land, and it is directed against people with religious faith. The Senate of the United States should go on record opposing any efforts to disenfranchise Americans on the basis of their religious belief. The following are some "talking points" to use when defending religious freedom in America.

• If we expel people of faith from the public policy process, we might as well scour our textbooks of the likes of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and every other American president, because all have publicly professed their faith in God and their conviction that this faith has sustained and guided their public policies.

• If the public square is not fit for devout Christians and Jews, then the public square will become an increasingly dangerous place when civility, borne of religion's salutary effect, recedes.

• People of faith not only have the right to participate in the public policy process, they have a duty to do so.

• Grounded in religious faith, America defeated two anti-religious opponents in this century -- Nazism and communism -- which sought to extinguish freedom from the world. It would be a mockery of the previous generations' sacrifice to surrender to homegrown, anti-religious tyrants.

• In 1960, John F. Kennedy laid to rest the idea that religious bigotry could be allowed to bar some people from the democratic political process of the United States. Recent vicious attacks against traditional Catholics, Bible-believing protestants and devout Jews show that this lesson must be relearned in every generation.

• It is alleged that people of faith want to "impose their values" on others. But it is not religious people who are trying to radically alter the nation's core values and to use government power to coerce acceptance of things they regard as immoral.

• People of faith are getting involved in politics because their values are under attack, not because they want to impose values on others. Most of all, they want to be left alone to raise their children as they see fit and to practice their faith.

• It is not "bigotry" to defend religious faiths that go back 3,500 years and have been the foundation for American freedom for more than 200 years.

• To equate Christianity with "bigotry" and "hatred" is to indulge in the very sort of hate crimes that are decried by religion's critics.

• People with religious faith have a right to disagree with political ideas that run counter to their most deeply held beliefs.

• "It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it was by the indulgence of one class of the people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent rights. For, happily, the Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that those who live under its protection should demean themselves as good citizens in giving it, on all occasions, their effectual support."¹

• "God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it."²

• "All men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that it is the mutual duty of all to practise Christian forbearance, love, and charity toward each other."³

• "It is becoming increasingly clear that there exists in this country a system of religious apartheid that denies religious people full participation in their public institutions as effectively as racial apartheid has denied South African blacks full participation in their country. The difference is that while South Africa has taken the first steps toward racial pluralism, secularists in America are continuing their assault...."⁴

---

ENDNOTES

1. George Washington, in a letter to the congregation of Touro Synagogue, Newport, Rhode Island, August 1790. Source: American Quotations by Gorton Carruth and Eugene Ehrlich Avenel, New Jersey: Wings Books, 1988), p. 500.

2. Daniel Webster, in a Jan. 26, 1834 speech to the U.S. Senate. Source: American Quotations by Gorton Carruth and Eugene Ehrlich (Avenel, New Jersey: Wings Books, 1988), p. 339.

3. George Mason, Virginia Declaration of Rights, June 12, 1776. This document heavily influenced the drafting of the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights.

4. Columnist Cal Thomas, "Religious Apartheid in America," in his book Uncommon Sense, (Brentwood, Tennessee: Wolgemuth & Hyatt Publishers, Inc., 1990), p. 121.