Separation of Church and State

I realize that I may not be as deeply schooled in theology as many Religious Right leaders - or even Fox News anchors - but when exactly did prayer become a secular activity?

Occasionally live television provides a vivid display of the mental gymnastics and cognitive dissonance deployed to advance an argument. Take Fox News' Megyn Kelly, who recently asked what was so "promotional about religion" in setting aside a day to celebrate "the role that God has played in the formation of this country and its laws."

Discussing a court ruling that declared national prayer day unconstitutional, Kelly hosted Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. Lynn set forth an argument against the appropriateness of the government setting aside a day to commemorate prayer:

Prayer is religious. It's nothing but that. There is no secular purpose here. This isn't like declaring Christmas a holiday, which the federal government does, because that's got not just religious rituals, but now glommed onto it all secular rituals. National Day of Prayer is only about religion. There is nothing secular about it.

At this point, Kelly jumped in to display an astounding failure to grasp the concept:

Why can't it be a day where people acknowledge not just prayer, but they are encouraged to meditate as well, which is not necessarily prayer? And why can't it be a day where we take a moment and we stop and we acknowledge the role that God has played in the formation of this country and its laws. What's so promotional about religion there?

And it is not just Fox News, as Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council argued made a similar argument to Anderson Cooper, claiming that there is no coercion involved and therefore the National Day of Prayer is constitutional since it has a "secular purpose because it unites the nation, especially in times of trouble, in times of economic downturn, in times of war": 

Yes, the goal of the National Day of Prayer is to unite the nation in prayer ... and, according to the right-wing National Day of Prayer Task Force, unite the nation in Christian prayer:

The National Day of Prayer Task Force’s mission is to communicate with every individual the need for personal repentance and prayer, mobilizing the Christian community to intercede for America and its leadership in the seven centers of power: Government, Military, Media, Business, Education, Church and Family.

In fact, the National Day of Prayer Task Force even explicitly bans non-Christian groups from NPDTF events:

The National Day of Prayer Task Force was a creation of the National Prayer Committee for the expressed purpose of organizing and promoting prayer observances conforming to a Judeo-Christian system of values. People with other theological and philosophical views are, of course, free to organize and participate in activities that are consistent with their own beliefs. This diversity is what Congress intended when it designated the Day of Prayer, not that every faith and creed would be homogenized, but that all who sought to pray for this nation would be encouraged to do so in any way deemed appropriate. It is that broad invitation to the American people that led, in our case, to the creation of the Task Force and the Judeo-Christian principles on which it is based.

Explain again how this is part of a "secular purpose."

The New York Times reports on the changes made to Texas' Social Studies curriculum that have been forced through by the right-wing members of dominate the state Board of Education:

The conservative members maintain that they are trying to correct what they see as a liberal bias among the teachers who proposed the curriculum. To that end, they made dozens of minor changes aimed at calling into question, among other things, concepts like the separation of church and state and the secular nature of the American Revolution.

“I reject the notion by the left of a constitutional separation of church and state,” said David Bradley, a conservative from Beaumont who works in real estate. “I have $1,000 for the charity of your choice if you can find it in the Constitution.”

They also included a plank to ensure that students learn about “the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s, including Phyllis Schalfly, the Contract With America, the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority and the National Rifle Association.”

Dr. McLeroy pushed through a change to the teaching of the civil rights movement to ensure that students study the violent philosophy of the Black Panthers in addition to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s nonviolent approach. He also made sure that textbooks would mention the votes in Congress on civil rights legislation, which Republicans supported.

“Republicans need a little credit for that,” he said. “I think it’s going to surprise some students.”

Mr. Bradley won approval for an amendment saying students should study “the unintended consequences” of the Great Society legislation, affirmative action and Title IX legislation. He also won approval for an amendment stressing that Germans and Italians were interned in the United States as well as the Japanese during World War II, to counter the idea that the internment of Japanese was motivated by racism.

Other changes seem aimed at tamping down criticism of the right. Conservatives passed one amendment, for instance, requiring that the history of McCarthyism include “how the later release of the Venona papers confirmed suspicions of communist infiltration in U.S. government.” The Venona papers were transcripts of some 3,000 communications between the Soviet Union and its agents in the United States.

In economics, the revisions add Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek, two champions of free-market economic theory, among the usual list of economists to be studied, like Adam Smith, Karl Marx and John Maynard Keynes. They also replaced the word “capitalism” throughout their texts with the “free-enterprise system.”

“Let’s face it, capitalism does have a negative connotation,” said one conservative member, Teri Leo. “You know, ‘capitalist pig!’ ”

In the field of sociology, another conservative member, Barbara Cargill, won passage of an amendment requiring the teaching of “the importance of personal responsibility for life choices” in a section on teen suicide, dating violence, sexuality, drug use and eating disorders.

“The topic of sociology tends to blame society for everything,” Ms. Cargill said.

Even the course on World History did not escape the board’s scalpel.

Cynthia Dunbar, a lawyer from Richmond who is a strict constitutionalist and thinks the nation was founded on Christian beliefs, managed to cut Thomas Jefferson from a list of figures whose writings inspired revolutions in the late 18th century and 19th century, replacing him with St. Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and William Blackstone. (Jefferson is not well liked among the conservatives on the board because he coined the term “separation between church and state.”)

“The Enlightenment was not the only philosophy on which these revolutions were based,” Ms. Dunbar said.

Mavis B. Knight, a Democrat from Dallas, introduced an amendment requiring that students study the reasons “the founding fathers protected religious freedom in America by barring the government from promoting or disfavoring any particular religion above all others.”

It was defeated on a party-line vote.

Here is a rather novel argument as to why Don't Ask, Don't Tell cannot be repealed:  doing so would be a violation of the separation of church and state and amount to an establishment of religion.

Even more amazingly, this line of argument is being put forward by the Alliance Defense Fund, the Religious Right legal organization founded by James Dobson, D. James Kennedy, and others, which has traditionally focused its efforts on claiming that there is no separation of church and state and defending government expressions of religion.

But not any more: 

A team of top-drawer civil and religious rights lawyers is accusing President Obama of establishing a religion for the U.S. military through his demand to promote open homosexuality in the ranks.

"If chaplains with beliefs that contradict the proposed policy are kept from roles that are likely to generate conflict – like preaching or counseling – then they, the faith groups the represent, and the soldiers whose religious beliefs they serve will all be marginalized," a letter today from the Alliance Defense Fund to Obama said.

"The military would effectively establish preferred religions or religious beliefs," the letter said. "That is a constitutional offense that carries a very pragmatic consequence: just what will happen to recruiting efforts if Christians become second-class soldiers, sailors, airmen, or Marines."

The letter, addressed to President Obama and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, referenced Obama's campaign to allow open homosexual behavior in the U.S. military. While that behavior is formally forbidden under current law, the military acts under a "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy adopted by President Clinton.

The letter was signed by Gary McCaleb, senior vice president and senior counsel; Jordan Lorence, senior vice president and senior counsel; Austin Nimocks, senior legal counsel; and Kevin Theriot; senior counsel.

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"Military chaplains who have volunteered to defend the liberties protected in our Constitution shouldn't be denied those very same liberties," said Theriot. "Forcing chaplains to deny the teachings of their faith in order to serve in the armed forces is a grave threat to the First Amendment and to the spiritual health of Marines, soldiers, sailors, and airmen who depend on them."

He said if the military is forced to promote homosexual behavior, "for the first time in American history there will be open conflict between the virtues taught by chaplains and the moral message delivered by the military."

"In such a conflict, it's obvious who will win and who will lose. If the state favors the demands of the homosexual activists over the First Amendment, it is only a matter of time before the military censors the religious expression of its chaplains and marginalizes denominations that teach what the Bible says about homosexual behavior," he said.

Last week, the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs announced that it had set aside an outdoor worship area for Pagans, Wiccans, Druids and other believers.

Today, via AU, we see that Robert Jeffress (best known for his militantly anti-Mormon opposition to Mitt Romney) has penned a response for the Washington Post's "On Faith" in which he warns that such accommodation of the "worship of pagan deities is an open invitation for God to send His harshest judgments against our nation":

What we label today as "pluralism," God called "idolatry." The first commandment from God was, "You shall have no other gods before Me." There is no evidence that God has changed His mind on the subject. To openly violate this most basic law is to invite God's judgment upon our nation. God has judged idolatry in the past through military invasions, earthquakes, a flood, and a mixture of fire and brimstone. The book of Revelation prophesies that God will employ the same agents of His wrath during the final seven years of earth's history. There is no reason to think God is on hiatus during this present age.

"But doesn't our Constitution demand that all religions be treated equally?' you might ask.

Since God is not an American, there is no reason to think He has a particular affinity for our ideas about the separation of church and state. Nevertheless, although the First Amendment guarantees the right of every American to worship however they choose, it does not require government to provide a stone monument to facilitate that worship - even if the same government provides a chapel for Christians.

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I don't know the cause of the Haitian earthquake, the Indonesian tsunami or 9/11. But I can say without hesitation that any nation that officially embraces idolatry is openly inviting God's wrath.

This past week government officials testified they are "certain" of another terrorist attempt on our soil within the next three to six months. One would think this would be a good time to seek God's protection rather than kindle His anger.

Last week we mentioned the situation in North Carolina where conservatives are threatening to sue in an effort to keep an atheist out of office, citing the state Constitution:

When Mr. [Cecil] Bothwell was sworn into office on Monday, he used an alternate oath that does not require officials to swear on a Bible or refer to “Almighty God.”

That has riled conservative advocates, who cite a little-noticed quirk in North Carolina’s Constitution that disqualifies officeholders “who shall deny the being of Almighty God.” The provision was included when the document was drafted in 1868 and was not revised when North Carolina amended its Constitution in 1971.

One opponent, H. K. Edgerton, is threatening to file suit against the city to challenge Mr. Bothwell’s swearing in. “My father was a Baptist minister,” Mr. Edgerton said. “I’m a Christian man. I have problems with people who don’t believe in God.” Mr. Edgerton is a local civil rights leader and founder of Southern Heritage 411, an organization that promotes the interests of black Southerners.

David Morgan, the head of a conservative weekly newspaper, The Asheville Tribune, said city officials had shirked their duty to uphold the state’s laws by swearing in Mr. Bothwell.

The Supreme Court already ruled unanimously against such religious test provisions back in 1961 in a case out of Maryland:

We repeat and again reaffirm that neither a State nor the Federal Government can constitutionally force a person "to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion." Neither can constitutionally pass laws or impose requirements which aid all religions as against non-believers, and neither can aid those religions based on a belief in the existence of God as against those religions founded on different beliefs ... This Maryland religious test for public office unconstitutionally invades the appellant's freedom of belief and religion and therefore cannot be enforced against him.

But Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association, while not mentioning the Bothwell case specifically, doesn't seem to a) care or b) be aware of the Court's ruling and says that such restrictions are perfectly constitutional:

Our secular fundamentalist friends are fond of citing Article VI of our Constitution as proof that this foundational document is non-religious in nature. It reads, ""but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."

It's worthy of note that this applies only to federal offices, for the prior clause makes it clear that the Founders were distinguishing between the federal government - "the United States" - and the legislatures of the individual states, which are referred to as "the several State Legislatures." Both are included in the previous phrase, "all executive Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution." (emphasis mine)

This makes it clear that while officers at both the state and federal level were required to support the Constitution, the restriction on the application of a "religious Test" was reserved for officials in the federal government. States were left to apply explicitly religious tests if they chose, and most did.

Almost all states required holders of public office to declare a belief in God, and many went beyond that to require a belief in the inspiration of both the Old and New Testaments, which in effect limited public service to self-professing Christians. This was just fine with the Founders, who wanted the states to have complete liberty in such matters.

But they were also clear that no religious test was to be applied as a condition of public service at the federal level. What the Founders meant by this, however, was this and this alone: an individual did not need to belong to a particular Christian denomination to be eligible for federal office. That's it.

Of course, we already knew that Fisher had some rather unique views regarding the First Amendment and the separation of church and state and doesn't think that Muslims should be allowed to serve in the military.

• The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced it would support proposed city laws that would prohibit discrimination against gays in housing and employment ... and FRC is angry.
• Sen. Lindsey Graham has been censured by the Charleston County Republican Party for being insufficiently conservative.
• In related South Carolina news, a federal district court ruled Tuesday that the "I Believe" license plate approved by the South Carolina Legislature violates the constitutional separation of church and state and cannot be issued.
• The annual Federalist Society conference is underway.
• The George W. Bush Oral History Project?
• Did you know that President Obama despises America? Well, he does.
• Amazingly, there are people running for office who still seek Alan Keyes' endorsement.

Saturday morning’s speech by Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association may be the most valuable moment of this conference. It’s not often that Americans get an unambiguous look at the Religious Right’s extremely dangerous definition of religious liberty.
Religious liberty is of course a core American value, protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution. And it’s the separation of church and state that protects the right of every American to worship or not as they choose, and protects all Americans from the government using its power to coerce religious belief or worship. It’s one of the constitutional principles that define this country.

Fischer basically attributed the idea of church-state separation to Adolf Hitler, who he said was the inspiration for the forces of “secular fundamentalism” who are bent on “castrating” the church and bringing America a “bleak, dark, vicious, tyrannical” future. Invoking Hitler is practically commonplace name-calling from the right these days. But it was not the most important or provocative point of his remarks.

Today Fischer went a good bit further than televangelist Pat Robertson, who notably called church-state separation a “lie of the left.” According to Fischer’s interpretation of the First Amendment, here’s what religious liberty means: Congress has the liberty to promote religion in any way, as long as it does not single out one Christian sect or denomination and make it the nation’s official religion. That’s it.

According to Fischer, “the only entity that is restrained by the First Amendment is the Congress of the United States.” Thus, he says, it is “constitutionally impossible” for governors, mayors, city councilmembers, or school administrators to violate the First Amendment. Fischer said the “incorporation doctrine” – the idea that the Fourteenth Amendment applied First Amendment protections against state governments, is the “most egregious” example of judicial activism.

So by his definition, a state legislature could declare itself an officially Christian state. Or an officially Baptist or Mormon state. Presumably any public school, city council or state government could require students to attend Christian worship or profess certain religious belief.

Fischer isn’t the only Religious Right leader who holds this radically extreme definition of religious liberty. In their 2008 book, “Personal Faith, Public Policy,” Religious Right leaders Tony Perkins and Harry Jackson said that a 1961 Supreme Court decision, which held that the state of Maryland could not require applicants for public office to swear that they believe in the existence of God, one of “the major assaults that have been successfully launched against the Christian faith in the last forty to fifty years.”

So, to these prominent Religious Right leaders, preventing a state from demanding that its employees swear to certain religious beliefs is an attack on Christianity. And any court that tries to stop a state from imposing religious beliefs on its citizens is judicial activism.

It’s disturbing to note that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is among those who believe the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment does not apply to the states. In a 2004 concurring opinion, Thomas wrote:

Quite simply, the Establishment Clause is best understood as a federalism provision — it protects state establishments from federal interference but does not protect any individual rights. . . . .
[E]ven assuming that the Establishment Clause precludes the Federal Government from establishing a national religion, it does not follow that the Clause created or protects any individual right. . . . it is more likely that States and only States were the direct beneficiaries. Moreover, incorporation of this putative individual right leads to a particular outcome: It would prohibit precisely what the Establishment Clause was intended to protect — state establishments of religion.

Americans deserve to know whether the parade of top GOP officials who engaged in this weekend’s mutual love-fest with Religious Right leaders have the same narrow, distorted view of the First Amendment.

Over the weekend, the Washington Post ran an article on the master's thesis written by Robert McDonnell when he was attending Pat Robertson's Regent University back in the last 1980s.  As he is now seeking to become the governor of Virginia by protraying himself as a moderate Republican, McDonnell is wishing this document had never surfaced:

His 1989 thesis -- "The Republican Party's Vision for the Family: The Compelling Issue of The Decade" -- was on the subject he wanted to explore at Regent: the link between Christianity and U.S. law. The document was written to fulfill the requirements of the two degrees he was seeking at Regent, a master of arts in public policy and a juris doctor in law.

The thesis wasn't so much a case against government as a blueprint to change what he saw as a liberal model into one that actively promoted conservative, faith-based principles through tax policy, the public schools, welfare reform and other avenues.

"Leaders must correct the conventional folklore about the separation of church and state," he wrote. "Historically, the religious liberty guarantees of the First Amendment were intended to prevent government encroachment upon the free church, not eliminate the impact of religion on society."

He argued for covenant marriage, a legally distinct type of marriage intended to make it more difficult to obtain a divorce. He advocated character education programs in public schools to teach "traditional Judeo-Christian values" and other principles that he thought many youths were not learning in their homes. He called for less government encroachment on parental authority, for example, redefining child abuse to "exclude parental spanking." He lamented the "purging of religious influence" from public schools. And he criticized federal tax credits for child care expenditures because they encouraged women to enter the workforce.

"Further expenditures would be used to subsidize a dynamic new trend of working women and feminists that is ultimately detrimental to the family by entrenching status-quo of nonparental primary nurture of children," he wrote.

He went on to say feminism is among the "real enemies of the traditional family."

Not surprisingly, McDonnell is now backing away from many of those statements, claiming that his views have changed:

Mr. McDonnell on Monday said he regretted any offensive language.

"Any of the language in there that in any way denigrates the basic dignity or worth of any human being, I very much regret that. It does not at all reflect my views today. I fully believe in equal justice under the law, I believe in civility, and I believe in promoting people based or merit," he said.

"My views on some of these things have changed. There were any number of things in the thesis that the language would be much, much different today. I've been honest with you today that several of those specific points I've repudiated, I feel differently about."

Of course, that effort is now carrying its own risks:

Victoria Cobb is president of The Family Foundation, which once gave McDonnell its "Legislator of the Year" award. Cobb urges McDonnell to be very cautious not to downplay his strong conservative record.

"If he is seen as someone who is flip-flopping on issues or backing away, no matter what the issues are, that is always viewed by the electorate as a negative," she contends. "People want a consistent leader on issues, and they want someone who they knew ten years ago agreed with something and still supports that position. And so, he needs to tread very carefully as he looks at his views."

Cobb says although she understands McDonnell's desire to reach out across the aisle and to other voting blocs, there is no need to distance himself from previous positions.

Earlier this week, I wrote about a series of upcoming "Winning Matters" conferences, a project of the Family Foundation of Virginia and its affiliated Pastors For Family Values, featuring Harry Jackson, Jonathan Falwell, Mat Staver, and Rick Scarborough designed to activate "values voters" in Virginia ahead of the state's off-year elections.

Today we learned that there is another, apparently somewhat affiliated, series of similar rallies taking place featuring many of these same people, but operating under the name Hope for America, which is a project of Jody Hice's Let Freedom Ring Ministries. Several rallies are scheduled for the coming weeks, mostly in Virginia, and likewise featuring Staver, Scarborough, Falwell, and even Zell Miller.

Last night one was held in Roanoke and, judging by the press coverage, it was pretty much what you'd expect for a rally organized by right-wing groups and featuring right-wing speakers like Staver and Scarborough:

The war for the soul and the government of America needs more Christian soldiers.

That was the message delivered Thursday night to about 100 attendees of the "Hope for America Rally" at Penn Forest Worship Center in Southwest Roanoke County.

"America is on the verge of destruction," the Rev. Rick Scarborough told the crowd in a booming Baptist sermon.

"You, beloved, are the hope," he said.

Scarborough is a well-known Texas minister and conservative political activist with ties to the late Rev. Jerry Falwell and several key Republican lawmakers.

In 1992, the firebrand evangelist waged a high-profile battle over sex education in Texas schools and has written several books arguing against the separation of church and state.

Mathew Staver, dean of the Liberty University School of Law, also spoke.

Sponsored by Atlanta, Ga.-based Let Freedom Ring, Thursday's rally was the first of several that are planned across Virginia. Others have been held in or are scheduled to be held in North Carolina and Georgia. Scarborough is expected to speak at many of them.

Let Freedom Ring is affiliated with Jody Hice, a pastor and conservative Christian radio personality in Atlanta and an adherent to the "Christian worldview."

Let Freedom Ring preaches that America was founded by Christian leaders and that the country's freedoms are based on biblical precepts. In its view secular values, such as the separation of church and state, abortion rights, radical feminism and gay rights, have spurred a moral and political decline that Christians must battle, not just in the pews, but in the political sphere.

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Aaron Evans, a former Fox News radio producer from Martinsville, organized the Roanoke rally with help from The Family Foundation and other conservative Christian groups.

Scarborough preached to the crowd about the dangers of loosening sexual mores. He warned that gay rights legislation could be used to silence pastors who preach that homosexuality is a sin.

"In my lifetime, we have gone from 'Ozzie and Harriet' and 'Leave it to Beaver' ... to 'Sex in the City' and 'Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.'

"We've gone from spin the bottle to hooking up in the eighth grade," he said.

But, Scarborugh preached, "this nation can be saved if pastors would just understand how much God wants to save it."

This reminds me a lot of the "70 Weeks to Save America" crusade Scarborugh tried to launch a few years back that never amounted to much after his key partner, Alan Keyes, decided to run for president and Vision America ran into financial trouble. 

Apparently, this time around, Scarborough has realized that if he wants this done right, he should let somebody else organize it.

AU has more on this rally.