Theophobia, Part 1
By Michael P. Tremoglie (01/06/05)
Just as the civil rights of racial and religious minorities, women, and the poor were the defining legal issues for American government in the 20th century, among the defining issues for the 21st century will be the rights of the unborn child, the rights of gun ownership, the rights of fathers – and the ability to freely express religious beliefs.
There is a continuing campaign by theophobes - who either blatantly hate religion or who are opposed to public displays of religion - to bowdlerize religion from American society. The most recent examples of this crusade are attempts to remove the word God from the Pledge of Allegiance, the Ten Commandments from being displayed at courthouses, and Christmas from the lexicon of public school holidays.
The advocates of this bowdlerization display a clever sophistry. They claim that by segregating religious expression from even the most remote link with government they are merely being faithful to the Constitutional doctrine of separation of church and state. The theophobes routinely refer to a “separation between church and state” as if it were mentioned in the Constitution.
However, there is no mention of such a wall in the Constitution. The phrase, “wall of separation between church and state,” was used by Thomas Jefferson – who was not involved with writing the Constitution. Jefferson wrote this in a letter to Connecticut Baptists while as president in 1802. How his personal correspondence became Constitutional law is not known. If Jefferson’s correspondence is a precept of Constitution law then segregation should be Constitutional as well. Jefferson wrote in a letter to Edward Coles in 1814 that, “ Their (blacks) amalgamation with any other color produces a degradation to which no lover of his country …can innocently consent.” I do not think that anyone would consider this Constitutional.
The theophobic premise that Jefferson’s phrase is the same as constitutional law is a fallacy. Although it must be said that Jefferson’s phrase was used by Justice Black in the 1947 Supreme Court case, "Everson v. Board of Education." Justice Black, who wrote the majority opinion, said, “The First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state.”
Ironically, the majority opinion in this case stated that it was legal to use taxes to provide transportation for students of religious schools. It does the exact opposite of what the theophobes want.
What the theophobes do want is to dictate to the majority of Americans who want references to God included in the public square that they cannot do so. The fact that a majority wants this is irrelevant to them. They will produce the old canard that the majority of Americans once favored slavery. Of course, they never provide proof that this is true. They never cite a source to say that the majority of Americans once favored slavery.
The “majority of Americans once favored slavery” perfidy is used by the theophobes to prove that democracy is illegitimate. It is used by the intelligentsia to prove that - as was once stated by an ACLU attorney – certain issues are too important to be determined by the electorate.
The hypocrisy of those who favor the sagacity of the Supreme Court instead of the citizenry is exhibited by the fact that while theophobes say majority opinion is not good because they claim slavery was favored by the majority, they say the Supreme Court rulings are good because they protect the rights of the minority. However, they neglect to mention it was the Supreme Court that protected the existence of slavery.
How do theophobes reconcile their adherence to the fallibility of the Supreme Court while eschewing majority rule? They cannot. The fact is theophobes are part of the liberal philosophy of vanguardism. The Leninist philosophy of the wisdom of a few elites who can tell the masses what is best for them. They would rather have a government of a few who think their judgment is infallible.
This is even more apparent in the second great fallacy of the theophobes. This specious argument states that an endorsement of religion is the same as an establishment. While the Constitution only prohibits an establishment of religion, the Supreme Court has ruled a Constitutional prohibition against the endorsement of religion.
An example of endorsing religion would be a Christmas tree in the quadrangle of the campus of a publicly funded university. The rationale for this is that the government is implicitly promoting the religion because it is a Christmas tree. Since public funds are used by the school, the public is funding a religion.
This is the absurdity of the evolution of the interpretation of the First Amendment. First, there is the prohibition of the federal government establishing a state religion – most people concur with this. Then there is the application of this prohibition to the states by the Fourteenth Amendment. Next is not only forbidding an establishment of a religion, it is the banning of any reference to a religion by a display or expression on public property.
What is next – mentioning religion in a public building? Thinking about religion?
It is absurd to say that students cannot voluntarily engage in prayer. It is absolutely unconscionable that teachers are told that they cannot wear crucifixes while teaching in public schools. Yet, this is the current state regarding government and religion.
It is time for a change.
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