Is Religious Freedom Really Primary?

[cbayer]

http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/26/is-religious-freedom-really-primary/

October 26, 2012, 12:17 AM
By PETER MANSEAU


President Barack Obama, left, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, Mitt Romney and his wife Ann shared laughs at the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation dinner in New York City on Oct. 18, 2012.

Of all the potentially explosive issues of 2012, none has fizzled quite like religion. Mitt Romney’s Mormonism never mattered as much as expected, and questions about Barack Obama’s faith remain relevant only to his most obdurate detractors. Yet there is one way in which religion has been a constant in this campaign, and, surprisingly, it concerns something on which the candidates claim to agree.

At last week’s Alfred E. Smith Memorial Dinner in New York, while Mr. Obama and Mr. Romney used their attempts at stand-up comedy to throw punches disguised as punchlines, it fell to the event’s host, Cardinal Timothy Michael Dolan, to offer words intended to bring both sides together. Addressing the bipartisan, religiously diverse crowd, Dolan greeted them collectively as “people of faith and loyal Americans, loving a country which considers religious liberty our first and most cherished freedom.”

The suggestion that religious liberty is the nation’s “first freedom” has become so commonplace that it seems churlish to question it. Indeed, similar notes have been struck by both sides during the campaign.


Earlier this month, Catholics for Romney released an online ad featuring Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan making an appeal to members of his church. “In America, we consider religious liberty our first freedom,” he said. “That’s because there’s no constitutional guarantee more precious than our right to the free exercise of religion.” Mr. Romney himself has used the term “first freedom” in this context throughout 2012, as he did in a February op-ed in which he claimed to be fighting on behalf of religious organizations “in their strenuous objection” to the Affordable Care Act. He later made it the central theme of a high-profile appeal to evangelicals during his May 12 commencement address at Liberty University. “From the beginning, this nation trusted in God, not man,” he said. “Religious liberty is the first freedom in our Constitution.… Religious freedom opens a door for Americans that is closed to too many others around the world.”

more at link

[pinto]

1. Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1 (1947)

(Side note) Interesting constitutional progression of the government / religion relationship, or lack thereof. It's a Wikipedia piece, but the cited sources seem solid. ~ pinto

Everson v. Board of Education, 330 U.S. 1 (1947)[1][2] was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court which applied the Establishment Clause in the country's Bill of Rights to State law .

Prior to this decision the First Amendment words, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion"[3] imposed limits only on the federal government, while many states continued to grant certain religious denominations legislative or effective privileges.[4]

This was the first Supreme Court case incorporating the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment as binding upon the states through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The decision in Everson marked a turning point in the interpretation and application of disestablishment law in the modern era.[5]

The case was brought by a New Jersey taxpayer against a tax funded school district that provided reimbursement to parents of both public and private schooled children taking the public transportation system to school. The taxpayer contended that reimbursement given for children attending private religious schools violated the constitutional prohibition against state support of religion, and the taking of taxpayers' money to do so violated the constitution's Due Process Clause. The Justices were split over the question whether the New Jersey policy constituted support of religion, with the majority concluding these reimbursements were "separate and so indisputably marked off from the religious function" that they did not violate the constitution.[6]

However both affirming and dissenting Justices were decisive that the Constitution required a sharp separation between government and religion and their strongly worded opinions paved the way to a series of later court decisions that taken together brought about profound changes in legislation, public education, and other policies involving matters of religion.[4] Both Justice Hugo Black's majority opinion and Justice Wiley Rutledge's dissenting opinion defined the First Amendment religious clause in terms of a "wall of separation between church and state".[7][8]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everson_v._Board_of_Education

[cbayer]

3. I think we have lost ground on this over the past 20 years. Time to take it back.

[pinto]

4. Agree. I think such a facile reading of the First Amendment overlooks that the Constitution

is a "living" legal document. The Amendment has been visited, revisited and reinterpreted since its ratification. Statists seem to assume that their interpretation is all there is to say or do on the issue. To overlook the history, as in the 1947 SCOTUS decision, misses that.

Political platitudes play well to some, obviously. We do need to take back the separation issue as a viable, positive approach.

(aside) I told a friend recently that there are a few things I'm adamant about - the death penalty, separation of church & state and my brother showing up at my door at 3 AM...covers a number of bases.

[cbayer]

5. And we are going to get the opportunity to vote on the death penalty, my friend.

We are making progress on the separation issues, I think.

Your brother? Now, there I can't help you.

[beam me up scottie]

2. Religious freedom is only important when yours is either restricted or nonexistent.

The suggestion that religious liberty is the nation’s “first freedom” has become so commonplace that it seems churlish to question it

Religious conservatives don't believe that the right to freedom from religion is freedom of religion.

[dimbear]

6. I'm reinforcing my gates against the rightwing storm after Romney goes down.

Their whining that Romney fell short due to religious prejudice is going to be momentous.

And I'm putting in a supply of caffeine, just in case of disaster.

[cbayer]

7. Caffeine, lol? I might stock up, but it won't be caffeine.

[SarahM32]

8. Religious freedom is one of most essential freedoms, and Romney too threatens it.

The candidacy of Mitt Romney has, admittedly, taken the spotlight off the issue somewhat, but ONLY somewhat -- because during his campaign he has blatantly pandered to the theocratic "religious right."

To those on the "religious right," religious freedom means the freedom to ignore Article 6 and the 1st Amendment of the Constitution so they can try to impose their religious beliefs on the nation, into the public schools, and into the law of the land.

The real meaning of religious freedom, however, means not only freedom of religion, but freedom from religion, and especially freedom from Theocracy.

The Founders wrote Article 6 to prohibit any religious requirement for office, and, as Thomas Jefferson so eloquently wrote, the establishment clause in the First Amendment was intended to "build a wall of separation between church and state."

In spite of that, Mitt Romney identifies with the "religious right" or "Christian Right," which has for 30 years been simply ignoring the Constitution and the intent of the Founders.

The “Religious Right” in America has become misled by Theocrats who believe they are entitled to rule because they are “Christians.” They even have revisionist “historians” like Pat Robertson, and more recent David Barton, who claim that the Founding Fathers wanted America to be “The Land of Jesus.”

Identifying with them, Mitt Romney is like so many other rich corporate-minded Republicans who actually serve Mammon and yet masquerade as Christians.

For example, Mitt Romney has resorted to misleading and hypocritical rhetoric in his campaign, saying: "I don't think we've seen in the history of this country the kind of attack on religious conscience, religious freedom, religious tolerance that we've seen under Barack Obama."

That remark reveals much about Romney, Republicans, and dirty partisan politics in general. But it was merely one inappropriate and hypocritical comment among many Romney has made about religion.

Another example was that in his campaign Romney invoked the Pledge of Allegiance, and in doing so he perverted and distorted the American tradition of secular government and separation of church and state.

In at least one speech Romney did not merely do that, he practically recited the Pledge of Allegiance using specific lines to mislead people about President Obama. Romney said: "The promises that were made in that pledge are promises I plan on keeping if I am president," Romney said. "That pledge says ‘under God,’ and I will not take ‘God' out of the name of our platform."

That was a deliberate appeal to the “Religious Right.” But Romney either forgets of ignores that the "under God" phrase in the pledge was not written by the Founding Fathers. It was added in 1954, imposed by right-wing Republicans during the “Second Red Scare” (1947-1957) when Republicans scapegoated liberals and progressives and accused them of being “Godless” “Socialists” and “Communists” simply because they criticized the rich and advocated for the working poor.

Republicans did that despite the fact that the original Christians followed Jesus’ advice, criticized the rich, cared for the poor, and shared and shared alike communally (for example, read Mark 10:21-22, Acts 2:44-45, Acts 4:34-35, Luke 14:12-14).

Republicans also ignore the fact that in writing the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution the Founders purposely did not used any religious terms specific to any particular religion. Instead, they used the terms like “Creator” and “Nature’s God” and “Divine Providence” to ensure that no certain religion was favored, and that the U.S. Government would be neutral regarding religion and respect all as equal. (See Quotes of the Founding Fathers Regarding Religion.)

Of course, the use of the world God in the pledge of allegiance has been permitted partly because it has become a rather generic term used by many religions. And legally speaking, the “under God” phrase was permitted because it could be dismissed as "ceremonial Deism" consistent with the intent of the Founding Fathers. However, it has been permitted also due to fact that Christianity is the dominant religion in America and there are some very proud and aggressive Christians who are led by Theocrats.

In spite of the facts about the Constitution and the intent of the Founders, the "religious right," including Mr. Romney, a Mormon Christian, has stated: "I will not take God off our coins, and I will not take God out of my heart. We're a nation bestowed by God." And he means Jesus.

That is problematic, because when they Founding Fathers wrote that “we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights,” they were not talking about Jesus. In fact, even though they used generic terms like "Nature's God," they purposely avoided using the name of Jesus, and they avoided using the term Lord. Therefore, the claim that the U.S.A. is a "nation bestowed by God" (meaning Jesus) has no foundation in history or fact.

Romney's campaign continues the steady decline of religious freedom in America, and contributes to the steady increase of political power fought for by the so-called “Religious Right.” That is why it is unacceptable. That is why Abraham Lincoln said about another great president, Thomas Jefferson: “The principles of Jefferson are the axioms of a free society.”

May all Americans learn and remember that.
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