The Development of Religious Liberty in America
I’ve said a few times that the culture wars have distorted the real story of how we ended up with religious freedom. But except in very broad terms, I haven’t stated what I think did happen. Obviously, that’s what the whole book is about so I can only provide an absurdly truncated history of religious freedom in America. Here goes:
America was settled to be a Christian land. To be more precise, it was settled to be Protestant nation. Inhabitants of most colonies prior to the revolution were not interested in religious pluralism or tolerance. They wanted society based on Protestant principles, with a strong mingling of church and state and vigilant antagonism towards Catholicism. Almost all of the colonies tried some variant of state-supported religion and everyone one of those experiments failed. Perhaps the most important flair-ups of persecution came in a few Virginia counties, as they were witnessed by a thoroughly disgusted young James Madison. He and the other Founders looked at the wreckage of these experiments and concluded that official state religions led to oppression of minority religions and lethargy among the majority religions.
The break from Great Britain had many causes, but the desire for religious freedom was one of them. In one of the little known, and less admirable, aspects of the struggle, rebels exploited fear of Catholics to help fuel antagonism to British rule. The War of Independence further transformed colonial attitudes toward religious freedom. It created from a collection of colonies a single nation -- and forced, for the first time, its leaders to confront the growing religious diversity. George Washington imposed tolerance throughout the Continental Army. Demographic facts and strategic wartime needs coincided with a growing philosophical movement emphasizing individual liberty.
Beginning in 1776 with Virginia and ending with Massachusetts in 1833, all of the new states discontinued the practice of having an official religion. The destruction of these religious establishments began a more subtle and complex debate over the proper relationship between church and state. Many people of good will believed that while official establishments were ill advised, government support of religion was still important and necessary. This view, typified by people like Patrick Henry, ended up eventually losing – thanks to an unusual alliance between enlightenment rationalists and evangelical Christians. They believed that in a free marketplace of ideas and religion, the truth would prevail.
On some fundamental points, a broad consensus developed.
* Government – certainly not the federal government, and probably not the state government -- should never establish an official religion.
* Freedom of conscience was an inalienable right – not a privilege generously offered by those in power.
* Religious diversity and pluralism was one of the most important guarantors of religious freedom.
Most of the Founders would agree with all of these statements. (To reach their actual words on these topics, you might explore Beliefnet's Founding Faith Archive). On other points, the Founders disagreed. Some believed that government could and should gently support religion because a vibrant faith sector was essential to a functioning democracy. Others – most notably James Madison and Thomas Jefferson – believed that government support for religion would invariably harm both and that the wisest route was to always err on the side of strict separation. The U.S. Constitution and the First Amendment did not resolve this disagreement. They were approved with support from people on both sides of that argument, thereby leaving to future generations the battles we fight today.
I don’t mean to sound like I think the Founders merely bequeathed us a legacy of uncertainty and lawsuits. I suspect that if the Founders were to visit us they would mostly be amazed and proud of how well their formula has worked. Compared to our past, and to most other countries, we have relatively little religious conflict and have seen one barrier after another fall. Religious "sects" once persecuted as false and heretical – Quaker, Catholic, Unitarian, Jehovah's Witness and Southern Baptist -- later sent men to the White House. At various points in recent years, we've had five Catholic Supreme Court Justices; five Jewish Cabinet secretaries, and five Mormon U.S. Senators, and stunningly little controversy resulted. We've witnessed a Ramadan dinner at the White House; a Hindu priest opening a session of the House of Representatives; and a Buddhist sworn in as Navy Chaplain.
Yes, we still have battles over the gray areas. But on the whole, the Founders’ strategy – augmented by the hard work of religious freedom advocates over the next two centuries – has more or less worked. Perhaps once a year, we can take a break from fighting over the gray areas – legitimate, important battles – and celebrate the great success that is American religious freedom.
You say:
"I suspect that if the Founders were to visit us they would mostly be amazed and proud of how well their formula has worked. Compared to our past, and to most other countries, we have relatively little religious conflict and have seen one barrier after another fall. Religious "sects" once persecuted as false and heretical – Quaker, Catholic, Unitarian, Jehovah's Witness and Southern Baptist -- later sent men to the White House. At various points in recent years, we've had five Catholic Supreme Court Justices; five Jewish Cabinet secretaries, and five Mormon U.S. Senators, and stunningly little controversy resulted."
How many atheists have we had on the supreme court? How many atheists are in congress? How many atheists have even credibly run for president? We've obviously got a long way to go.
March 14, 2008 1:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think we'll never know how many (closeted) atheists or gay men have held those offices, actually. :)
March 14, 2008 3:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
True enough. Atheists and even agnostics often have to hide their beliefs if they're in public life.
March 14, 2008 5:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
"...often..."? I would say always or they couldn't be in public life in this country.
March 15, 2008 9:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
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August 19, 2010 2:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
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January 10, 2011 8:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
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February 14, 2011 8:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is a much better, more engaging and fascinating post than your others on the topic, Mr. Waldman. It's difficult to do a skillful summation, but you did hit the high points of your argument in a brief passage.
Well done.
March 14, 2008 2:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Everybody knows that atheist are idiots! I mean come on they don't believe in anything! Only christinas and people of faith can make the decisions necessary to hold our nation together.
Just kidding obviously being an atheist and running for congress is about as easy as it is for a minority or a women.
Hey and thank you Mr.Waldman, I think your book will be a perfect gift from me to my grandfather, a baptist, who does believe this is a christian nation, and everyday he worries and prays for me because of my lack of religious zeal and the support or lack there of if his talking pionts toward that end.
March 14, 2008 2:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
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December 16, 2010 5:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
I guess your point is that separation of church and state is good for religion and that some religious groups have argued for it too...
However, it doesn't seem like too many people here agree that the "benefit" to religion is the strongest point to be made in favor of SofCaS. I favor SofCaS because I don't believe the government has any role to play in supporting religion.
I must also take issue with your claim that America was founded in order to promote Protestantism. Perhaps on the part of some of the colonists that may have been one benefit among many, but, America was founded primarily to make money and broke away from England primarily to make more money. Religion in government was a distraction from making money so it was excluded from government based on well thought out principles of enlightenment.
Of course there was still money to be made in religion so you got your Joseph Smiths, Bakers, Falwells and Haggartys, each as contemptible a face for religion as you can find...
It is their followers who want to inject their religion into our Government. Would the FF support their efforts... I think not.
So if you want to point out that some historical debt is owed to Baptists for helping to obtain a more perfect SofCaS, okay. Point noted.
But you appear to be arguing, quite obliquely, for the legitimacy of a role for religion today based on historical evidence that doesn't quite get you there.
March 14, 2008 3:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
hence all the animosity and contempt.
March 14, 2008 3:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
With respect, I do believe Waldman is correct in stating that the colonies were intended to be a bastion of protestantism. The pilgrims of Massachusetts as well as a flood of immigrants to the New World of British North America came for well over a centure seeking the freedom to practice their brand of protestantism. Money was very secondary. It's kind of fun to be snarky about it, but it isn't accurate to say that all the highly committed religious people bringing the many protestant sects to America were interested in money first. They came to follow their conscience freely and without interference from the state. Yes, money could be made in those times... fortunes even, but that was not the driving force behind those who brought all they owned and their families to what was a virtual wilderness for a very, very long time after settlement began.
March 14, 2008 6:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
that is a very fair point. i had intended to imply that yes, many if not most of the immigrants coming to the new world were seeking freedom from religion, but, that the costs of getting to the new world involved business charters and financial backing on the part of Englishman who hoped to get rich investing in the new world.
and yes it is fun to be a little snarky.
March 14, 2008 8:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
This has been a description of how government interacts with religious belief and organizations. From the point of view of how government works to perform its primary job of providing stability to society, we have given government a monopoly on the right to use violent force, then placed oversight over that right.
The separation of church and state, taken together with the fact that we have given government the monopoly on the right to use force, also means that religion has no right to use force. It's only tools are persuasion and group influence techniques. This has created a much more stable society, and one in which personal liberty is a lot more likely to exist.
I'd say that growth of personal liberty in terms of religious beliefs has probably also had a spill-over effect in other aspects of life. When people use the term "personal liberty" they don't usually restrict it to mean simply liberty in terms of religious belief. So we now have a society in which individuals feel less constrained to restrict their public personas to publicly defined views of gender identity, for example. I'm not a sociologist, but I'd bet that the way the concept of religious liberty has been built into the America culture has heavily influence the GLBT movement also. (Clearly the Civil Rights movement and the resulting movement to eliminated restrictions on women are another influence.)
There are probably other areas in which the concept of liberty has been applied in unexpected ways, but this is one I feel reasonably certain of.
Just a thought that got triggered by this post and the discussion.
March 15, 2008 4:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, that Joseph Smith sure was raking in the benjamins: living in poverty, being constantly accused of crimes, being beaten and tarred & feathered, being betrayed by a state government and killed by a mob... living the high life, for sure. Easiest way to make a buck.
March 16, 2008 8:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Steven, if I may ask: where do the particulars of the First Amendment derive from? The Mary Dyer story in Massachusetts in 1657-60 seems a pretty obvious source though now forgotten, but on the whole the expulsion of Quakers from Virginia later on seems to be what historians point to.
March 14, 2008 3:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
The Religion that is afraid of science dishonours God and commits suicide. It acknowledges that it is not equal to the whole of truth, that it legislates, tyrannizes over a village of God’s empires but is not the immutable universal law.
Every influx of atheism, of skepticism is thus made useful as a mercury pill assaulting and removing a diseased religion and making way for truth.
–Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journal entry for March 4, 1831
March 14, 2008 4:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bear with me on this. I am trying to work out the ideas here and present them for criticism.
The problem that I see with every mass religion is that historically they have each become governments at one time or another, or they have become the main support of government as it tries to unify those governed into a single state without major internal conflict.
The Jews of the old testament barely, if at all, distinguished between religion and government. Christianity became the main support of the otherwise failing Roman empire, and when the western empire fell, it because the de facto government. Buddhism became widespread under Emperor Asoka, who used it to unify his realm but did not itself become the government. The same was true of Taoism and especially Confucianism.
This was a conflation of tribalism, religion and government and has been the case since civilization began. But with the advent in Europe of secular governments over much wider areas (tribalism lost its role as one of the major forces competing with government and religion), the religious and government functions severely interfered with each other. That was what the Thirty Years War demonstrated so clearly.
It looks to me as though tribalism got in the way when cities were created, but religion and government grew up with cities. Religion was something that could be adopted while tribe was something one was born with. So religion became the unifying factor in cities, replacing tribe. But then nation states developed, and could no longer afford to demand a single religion.
It occurs to me that in Europe France was the leader in unifying regions into a central nation. It used Catholicism, while allowing a federation of languages until Napoleon became Emperor. His government effectively unified the nation under what is today the French language, but abandoned Catholicism as a cultural unifier. Language was the unifier in the 19th century Europe, as German was created around German, Italy was created around modern Italian, England was unified around English (to the regret of those speaking Welsh and Cornish) and the Austrian Empire collapsed for lack of a common language. The U.S. has grown up around English during the same period (except in the Southwest which remains bilingual.)
Religion remained as a mainstay to support government until the French Revolution and the advent of widespread democracy as the basis for government. That's what the Divine Right of Kings was all about. It was mutually beneficial to King and Church, until it caused social instability - which was bad for business. Democracy replaced religion as an organizing basis for government with the concept that government was based on the will of the people, expressed through elections.
Clearly not all religious leaders have accepted their relegation to non-governmental status. But a nation as large as America cannot demand conformation of religion. It simply will not work. People who live their lives based on their own beliefs, imposed in the face of reality, will not accept that. Most modern Americans, however, segment their lives and have a religious segment, a work segment, a family segment, a personal segment, and probably others. It can be done much as bilingual people segment languages. Frequently, and of necessity, we permit inconsistencies between those segments.
The fundamentalists and Dominionists simply have not come to grips with the way modern life really works, and they are trying to impose a simplified and understandable system on everyone around them. Persuasion hasn't worked - because the simplified system is unworkable and broadly unacceptable to many of us. They will need the government monopoly on the right to use force to enforce their system.
They they think government sponsored force might have the power to enforce such a system is the same delusion that led the NeoCons to propose invading Iraq in order to create a free-market democratic demonstration state in the Middle East that all the people in the Middle East would clamor to emulate. It's pure delusion.
Delusion is another term for beliefs that conflict with reality. Delusion also seems to be the unifying factor in the Republican alliance of free marketers, foreign policy hard liners and social conservatives. They are each attempting to create what Paul Berman called an "Ur-Myth" (each group in the alliance has their own individual Ur-Myth) by using blind force and ignoring all predictions of failure.
This is also based on the related myth that a leader can create his own reality if he is sufficiently steadfast. This view of leadership is in contrast to pragmatism.
The separation of church and state (SoC&S) has clearly demonstrated that it is a practice that works WITH reality. It is a rule based on pragmatism and centuries of experience. The idea that abandoning SoC&S would bring improvement to our society is pure delusion, one that can be sustained only be ignoring history.
That, I think, is a very rough outline of the current problem with religious conservatives.
March 15, 2008 5:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
I still think you are underplaying the importance of the history of the writing and debating and ratification process of the constition. In a sense, it does not matter that the different founding fathers thought. And one can cherry pick quotes endlessly.
What is most important is that in writing the text of constition, it was an active conscious decision to not put god in, to not put Jesus or the Christ in. Appeals to religion, the creator, the divine, god, jesus christ etc were in most such document up to that time (including in the declaration of independence). But they are not in the constitution.
That was a deliberate choice. It was argued over. There were those who wanted such words included, and they fought to have them included... and they lost.
Similarly it was reargued, state-by-state, during the ratification process.
Early on in the process, as part of those arguments and fight to ratify, Amendments 1-10 were added. Separation and non-enstablishment were reinforced. And once again, the absence of any mention of god/divine/creator/religion/jesus christ was reinforced.
All of it was a deliberate conscious choice.
And the states ratifed that document, the constitution, as the initial controlling document for our country.
End of story.
March 14, 2008 4:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Your opening paragraph could describe any number of councils that produced bibles, creeds and religious doctrine.
Thanks for putting it so succinctly.
March 14, 2008 5:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes, exactly. The Constitution unmoored organized religion from state for each to prosper or fail on their merits and service.
I've actually regarded the Bush-Religious Right effort to break down the separation as a symptom of RR religious failure and decline all along. The RR is an alliance of anti-Modern, strongly paganized and occultized belief groups who fight Modernity rather than accept that it will prevail. But real victory is simply not in the cards in the long run.
The other side of the RR is social and economic and political, of course. In aggregate it works as a kind of Affirmative Action program, industry, support group, and social status/career vehicle a subset of Southern whites created for themselves.
All that creating drama in the foreground against a backdrop of broad slow decline and/or slow reshufflings and reformings of organized religion in general in American life. I think the Founders were in essence pragmatic people about organized religion, and I'm sure they'd see its present decline in a pragmatic light as well.
March 14, 2008 6:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Finished the book last night and I would recommend it.
One angle that I found engaging was the amount of negotiation and politicking that brought about freedoms that many today treat as received wisdom. Knowing that there was serious, and sometime raucous, debate explains much about the sometimes nebulous nature of the written words. It makes those who anoint themselves the mediums of the "Founding Fathers" sound all the more ludicrous.
Another take away was the realization that the “process” has changed little. There is give and take, posturing, lecturing, subterfuge and raw politics both in the 18th and 21st century.
On the eve of a sea change moment in our political discourse, I’d like to reread the book 15 years from now and see if this still holds true.
March 14, 2008 5:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is interesting that many early arrivals were trying to escape religious persecution, but instituted their own form of religious intolerance once established. Similarly, the groups today who want to remove the separation and institute theocracy, particularly the Baptists, were the very victims of the hate crimes of that era. Jefferson, one of the strongest advocates of religious freedom, wrote often about how his opinions were colored by witnessing barn burnings and tar and featherings in Virginia.
March 14, 2008 5:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is the Iron Law of Oligarchy at work: that all revolutionaries eventual become the oligarchs they overthrew.
March 14, 2008 6:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
For example, Commissar Washington.
March 16, 2008 7:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
Change?
March 14, 2008 5:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
So that's what's wrong with America! Good to know.
March 14, 2008 6:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
You wrote:
"thanks to an unusual alliance between enlightenment rationalists and evangelical Christians."
Again you use the term "evangelical Christians" as though that is a term that has some meaningful definition. It does not. In fact, as I noted yesterday, this term is so inadequate for the job of describing that broad coalition of religionists at the time who supported separation of church and state that it can be very misleading indeed. The term evangelical has been so warped and perverted in recent times by fundamentalists that I think you need to either define what you mean by it in this context or you should stop using it because it really conveys a meaning that is, to the common reader, completely inappropriate. Additionally, given the perspective of your audience here especially, that term almost certainly conveys a highly negative response and gives the impression that there might be some intellectual or theological connection between those you are labeling 18th Century Evangelicals and the charlatans, liars, crooks and perverts who lead today's fundamentalists who hide behind the less alarming term "evangelical."
March 14, 2008 6:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
you forgot one fundamental point:
March 14, 2008 7:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Like a fish requires a bicycle.
March 16, 2008 7:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ahh the great and wise Eeyore speaks great wisdom once again. And a hybrid like me (Taoist/Wiccan)needs the freedom of this country to just be me.
This is the first discussion that I have followed and I must say thank you to all for a great learning experience. Now let us keep the two darn things seperate. We have enough problems with our Democracy as it is.
March 14, 2008 8:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't mind the separation of church and state - as long as it goes both ways.
But most liberals don't want that. They want the government to use the public schools, government funding, and mandates to actively push secularism on people.
The reason why people don't like the left's version of "separation of church and state" is masterfully explained by Barry Loberfeld here.
March 15, 2008 12:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the link to that Loberfield piece, it was a masterpiece of diatribe and specious reasoning, but it did raise an interesting issue that perhaps would have served Mr. Waldman a bit better than his strawman forays.
Loberfield bemoans the fact that as the power and influence of government grows, its inability to reflect religion consequently diminishes religion's role in our society. In Loberfields mind this equates to godless Communism, but, whereas Communism explicitly stated that there was no god and outlawed churches, the FF imagined a government that took no position on any religion as it was purely the private matter of the people.
Loberfield wails about how government regulation of health insurance forced the Catholic Church to provide health insurance for things like birth control and abortion, without once addressing why the Church was involved in providing health insurance at all. If a church wants to operate like a business, it will be regulated like a business.
Glaivester, I understand the discomfort felt by overtly religious people seeing religion slowly, but surely being weeded out of government. The growth of secular humanism must seem to you to be a scary phenomenon indeed. Millions of people openly disclaiming that religion need not be the sole basis of morality. Shocking!
By and large, liberals are tolerant of your desire to worship and explicitly acknowledge your right to do so. However government support or approval is not part of the bargain.
If this leads to a rise in atheism, secular humanism, buddhism or any other ism is not the concern of government, but the free marketplace of ideas.
A marketplace where admittedly organized religion is woefully inadequate.
March 15, 2008 1:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
No exit,
You are the one using sophistry, not Mr. Loberfeld. If you read a little more about him, you will see that he is not advocating governmental endorsement of religion. He is a libertarian who just wants the government to get out of the way and let people, churches, and businesses make up their own mind as to their policies provided that they are not actively aggressing against someone. (Moreover, if you click to his own website, I do not get the impression that he is religious himself, which you seem to imply).
Loberfield bemoans the fact that as the power and influence of government grows, its inability to reflect religion consequently diminishes religion's role in our society.
You are giving the impression here that as government provides people with what religion used to, a lot of people are deciding that government fills their needs better and are choosing the state instead of God, and that religion's role is being diminished simply by people's personal choices. It isn't. What is happening is that government is forcing religions to adhere to secular morality.
In Loberfields mind this equates to godless Communism, but, whereas Communism explicitly stated that there was no god and outlawed churches, the FF imagined a government that took no position on any religion as it was purely the private matter of the people.
But a government that regulates the church and forces church-run hospitals to provide abortions or that forces the Catholic church to pay for abortion and birth control is certainly taking the position that the Catholic church's beliefs are incorrect.
Loberfield wails about how government regulation of health insurance forced the Catholic Church to provide health insurance for things like birth control and abortion, without once addressing why the Church was involved in providing health insurance at all. If a church wants to operate like a business, it will be regulated like a business.
Translation: the church has to be entirely volunteer run.
You are exactly the sort of atheocrat that Loberfeld is speaking of. You believe that the government has the right to define which doctrines are essential to the religion and which must give way for the secular values the state wishes to impose.
Glaivester, I understand the discomfort felt by overtly religious people seeing religion slowly, but surely being weeded out of government.
No, I am discomforted by government slowly try to weed religion out of society.
By and large, liberals are tolerant of your desire to worship and explicitly acknowledge your right to do so.
Provided that I do not actually try to, you know, practice my religion in my daily life.
However government support or approval is not part of the bargain.
I'm not looking for government support or approval. I am looking for government tolerance, or benign neglect.
If this leads to a rise in atheism, secular humanism, buddhism or any other ism is not the concern of government, but the free marketplace of ideas.
Nice case of misrepresenting my position, and engaging in the type of sophistry that Loberfeld objects to. No one is saying that government should promote religion, just that it ought to tolerate it.
Besides, when the government is telling private businesses who they must insure and how much they must insure, that is not a free market.
March 15, 2008 4:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not true. government simply says that in areas where a religious organization (not the same as a religion) has a monopoly on providing essential services to individuals, it cannot also piggyback enforcement of religious morality as a condition of use of those services.
A religion in America is limited to the use of persuasion to get its message across. Bundling the religious message with needed secular services (and health care is such a secular, non-religious service) does not allow the religious organization to coerce people into obeying its religious precepts.
March 15, 2008 5:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Your objection is that government does not let you enforce your beliefs on others. You are limited to persuasion, not waiting until someone desperately needs some service like health care and then offering it on condition of acceptance of your religious beliefs.
It is your practice of enforcing your morality on others in your daily life that is restricted and against which you are wailing.
March 15, 2008 6:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
On the issue of separation of church and state, the difference between the Founding Fathers and Leftists like noexit is thus:
The Founding Fathers saw the issue as preventing government from imposing religion on people, either by supporting a church or by interfering with a church. They believed that religion should operate in the free marketplace of ideas and that tseparation of church and state should prevent the government from interfering in that, either for or against religion.
noexit, on the other hand, and others of his ilk believe that government should impose a non-theisitc morality on people and that separation of church and state ought to serve to prevent the churches from being exempt. In effect, he believes that secular humanism should be the established religion of the state.
According to the noexits of the world, you should have the right to believe as you wish and to pray, in private, as you wish, as long as it does not affect how you live your daily life in any way that contradicts the state religion of secular humanism.
March 15, 2008 5:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, I believe the same thing you do.
The Founding Fathers saw the issue as preventing government from imposing religion on people, either by supporting a church or by interfering with a church. They believed that religion should operate in the free marketplace of ideas and that t[he] separation of church and state should prevent the government from interfering in that, either for or against religion.
However, this belief, now law, has consequences for the actions of government. honestly, the government is not advancing a secularist ideology, they are providing the services for which we pay taxes, free from religion.
As you admit, I feely acknowledge your right to assmeble for religious purposes, proselytize and moralize. However, legally, the government has determined there are many instances in which these beliefs cannot be forced onto others.
If you don't want an abortion, don't have one.
But you are going to have to learn to share this country with individuals who have a right to expect that their government will obey the first amendment and keep religion out of government.
That religion will not be allowed to dictate their healthcare or their morals.
You have the right to assemble, proselytize and moralize all you want. What more do you want?
March 15, 2008 5:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
If you don't want an abortion, don't have one.
And you should not force me to provide someone who wants an abortion with one.
March 15, 2008 8:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
If you will stop there then I have no argument. Problem is the fanatics want to make life start with conception and make any attempt at reproductive choice (with or without federal support) murder. Then we will go back to the "bad old days" of barbershop abortions. Studies show that the quantity of abortions will not lessen. However what is certain is that deaths and injury of desperate women will increase.
March 16, 2008 12:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
If you will stop there then I have no argument.
But the noexits and the Richardxxs of the world will not stop there. They believe that it is not really pro-choice unless everyone else, from the taxpayer to the hospital to the doctor is required not just to not interfere, but to facilitate the choice to have an abortion.
March 16, 2008 12:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks so much for clearing that up for us Glaivester. We Lefties would have no idea what we believe unless we had you Right Fringies to inform us.
So you don't oppose abortions on moral grounds, according to this last post. You only object to them because they will raise your taxes. I'm sure Jesus loves you for that.
March 16, 2008 7:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks so much for clearing that up for us Glaivester. We Lefties would have no idea what we believe unless we had you Right Fringies to inform us.
No, in this case, I an informing one person, "Scooter Liddy," what two other people, "richardxx," and "noexit," believe.
So you don't oppose abortions on moral grounds, according to this last post. You only object to them because they will raise your taxes. I'm sure Jesus loves you for that.
I love the fact that you deliberately misread what I am writing. No, my objection is that government funding of abortion forces me to give funds to an action that I think is murder. Moreover, my objections are not just to government funding, but to any action that forces an individual or an institution to participate in abortion (for example, requiring any OB-Gyn to perform abortions or requiring hospitals to perform abortions).
March 16, 2008 9:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
No, in this case, I an informing one person, "Scooter Liddy," what two other people, "richardxx," and "noexit," believe.
Even better.
I love the fact that you deliberately misread what I am writing.
I love you, too.
No, my objection is that government funding of abortion forces me to give funds to an action that I think is murder.
That may be. You have a perfect right to be wrong about that, but that's not what you said.
March 16, 2008 7:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
No one has to facilitate the choice to have an abortion. However, anyone who accepts a state license to practice medicine or pharmacy and offers their services to the public at large has no right to refuse standard services that license expects them to provide based on their personal conscience when someone who needs those services has no alternative source to go to.
If your conscience will not allow you to act professionally, then you have no right to publicly practice that profession.
This become especially true when the very definition of what violates the so-called professionals' conscience keeps changing. Back in the 70's I took my wife to a physician in New Orleans to discuss birth control. He proceeded to invite both of us into his office and began literally preaching to us - quite fervently - as though we were in a church listening to a sermon. It was the single most disgusting display of unprofessionalism I have ever witnessed. We were there for medical services from a professional, not religious services from a religious zealot. Under the circumstances he had no right whatsoever to inflict his religious views on us.
His warped conscience - and yours - are not guides to my behavior, thank you, and you have no right to inflict such irrational perversions on the rest of us.
March 16, 2008 2:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
i don't believe that simply because the government should operate in an entirely non-theistic way that it is in any sense mandating non-theistic way.
nor do i want religous beliefs playing a role in establishing such things as standards for hospital.
i agree it is probably embarrassing to learn that church morality is so often at odds with sound medical practice and personal liberty, but that's not my problem, or the government's.
it is not the job of the government to base policy on religous belief, indeed, that is truly one of the strongest possible arguments for the 1st amendment.
March 15, 2008 5:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
The summarization of 150 years of colonization by hundreds of thousands of people leaving Europe, Asia and Africa behind for countless reasons as "America was founded to be a Christian nation" is patently absurd.
State religion was the rule at the time, not so long before, the state had been subordinate (at least nominally) to the church in European culture. To even THINK that state religion could be abolished was a starkly NEW way of thinking. American state religion was a vestigial deformity that had not quite been overcome, nothing more. OF COURSE it was Christian, many Americans were escaping from Christian oppression, but were still acculturated to Christian cultural institutions.
The first amendment provided the device for many to finally overcome Christian oppression, although it was not finalized at the state level until the 14th amendment and although we still feel the vestigial effects through such patently improper laws as special tax treatment for religious property. The struggle goes on, be it will be won.
March 15, 2008 1:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Steven,
I am American. And I enjoyed your blog very much. I had, to my shame, forgotten some things you mention---important things.
One point, though I suppose it's somewhat off-topic. You say that America was, after all, settled to be a Christian nation, specifically a Protestant one.
Yes. It was also settled to be a republic. Now it is a democracy. I wouldn't mind, except that in the last 8 years and under George W. Bush, it has become a kind of democracy that goes around the world shoving democracy---its' own brand of that---down the throats of people who don't understand what has befallen them.
Bring back the republic!!!
March 15, 2008 2:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
The opening statement is a generalization that is over-broad. The various colonies had constituent groups wanting a homeland for themselves. For example, Maryland was founded as a homeland for Roman Catholics, other states for Anglican high church and so on. I would also add that the term evangelical Christian as used today has no real reference for that period, apples and oranges.
March 15, 2008 9:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
To paraphrase someone;
'We're all atheists to the Gods of the past; Odin, Ra, Jupiter, Zeus etc., some of us have simply taken it one God further.'
March 15, 2008 10:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
True, but I would just like to say that if you narrowed the parameters and compared the U.S. to other 'first world' or 'developed' nations, the U.S. record, at present, is rather appalling. Foreign friends who come to visit me are always stunned to see how much religious intolerance still exists in this country.
Oh, and 'atheist' is the new 'gay'.
March 15, 2008 3:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
what kind of religous intolerance?
i think some examples might help.
March 15, 2008 3:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
U.C. Berkeley had a class titled "The Politics and Poetics of the Palestenian Resistance". In this college's effort to be "tolerant" it would allow a course that obviously indoctrinates according to the instructors ideas. Christians were not welcome in this class. This kind of thing discriminates against Christian students and seems common on college campuses these days.
U. of South Carolina had a women's studies seminar that required students to agree to this statement before they could take the class. "racism, classism, sexism, heterosexism, and other institutionalized forms of oppression exist." Students who wish to take issue with these ideas, or even ask for evidence for these propositions are silenced. This is a violation of academic freedom, in the name of political correctness.
We need to be able to have open and mature discussion about differing religious views if there is to be freedom in this country. We have had that in the past. More recently, a move toward believing that there is no objective truth has removed the need for free exchange of ideas and has become more of a power struggle. Instead of working together to discover the truth, we are working against each other in a struggle for power.
March 22, 2008 2:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Coercion is not a proper tool of religion. Just because you provide a meal and bed to someone who is homeless does not give you the right to demand they exchange joining you in prayer for it. When the church has a monopoly providing medical services, it cannot impose its religious morality on those who require its services.
That is not the creation of some mythical secular humanist religion. It is government preventing one person from abusing another by coercion or force. It is no different that preventing muggings and robberies by deploying a police force.
March 15, 2008 6:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just because you provide a meal and bed to someone who is homeless does not give you the right to demand they exchange joining you in prayer for it.
Sure it does. To say otherwise is to imply that the homeless person has the right to force me to provide them a bed and a home.
You are operating under the socialist mindset that other people have a right to lay a claim to my resources.
March 15, 2008 8:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Coerced prayer.
Coerced sex.
Coerced behavior of other kinds.
Coercion is not persuasion, and has no place is a civilized society. You seem to have no faith in the power of persuasion to get others to mouth your creed, which rather clearly demonstrates its falsity. You don't believe it yourself. You just want power over others.
March 15, 2008 9:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
To clarify: it is coercion between individuals that has no place in civilized society. Government has to use some coercion to maintain social stability, but that has to be transparent and under tight control.
Religion never has a right to use coercion on individuals. Only persuasion.
March 15, 2008 10:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Saying that you will not give someone food and shelter unless they pray with you is not coercion, because they have no inherent right to your food or to shelter provided by you.
You seem to have no faith in the power of persuasion to get others to mouth your creed, which rather clearly demonstrates its falsity. You don't believe it yourself. You just want power over others
Listen, I am not arguing that a person running a homeless shelter should demand that everyone at the shelter pray for him. But as long as he is using his own money, and/or money provided by donors, he ought to be able to choose to whom he gives food and shelter.
Listen, if I want to have sex with a woman, and she says she will not have sex with me unless I marry her, she is not "coercing me" to marry her, because I don't have a right to have sex with her and she therefore has a right to set under what conditions she will have sex with me. Likewise, I have the right to determine under what conditions I will give food and shelter to a person.
March 16, 2008 12:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
Coerced prayer.
Coerced sex.
Coerced behavior of other kinds.
I am not arguing for coerced prayer or coerced sex. I am arguing against the government trying to run private hospitals, and against the government trying to run businesses I am very much against coercion, as I tend toward libertarianism.
I think that on issues such as abortion and contraception, hospitals should be run the way that the person who owns the hospital wants them run. As far as prayer in schools, I would like to see schooling privatized much more, so that those who wish to have religious schooling can have it, and those who wish for secular schooling can have it, and those who wish for explicitly anti-theistic schooling can have it, and no one is coerced into paying tuition for the type of schools they do not choose. (Under the current system, if you want a religious education you have to pay for both the religious education you are using and for the secular schooling that you are not.
March 16, 2008 12:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
Strange. My copy of the New Testament clearly states that Christ directs us to provide charity to the poor. Apparently the portion that says I don't have to provide any charity unless they pray as I demand has been left out of my version.
Your money. Your property. That's your power over others, isn't it? Someone who needs help is yours to coerce.
Which verse was that in again?
If that's how your conscience directs you to behave, it may be that your conscience is flawed and needs some repairs.
March 16, 2008 2:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Strange. My copy of the New Testament clearly states that Christ directs us to provide charity to the poor. Apparently the portion that says I don't have to provide any charity unless they pray as I demand has been left out of my version.
You are confusing how we ought to behave with how we have the right to behave. I am not arguing that I should not let an atheist into homeless shelter that I built, just that the government ought not force me to do so. What you have basically said is that the government should have the power to force me to do so.
Your money. Your property. That's your power over others, isn't it? Someone who needs help is yours to coerce.
Which verse was that in again?
Not giving someone my money is no more coercion than a woman deciding that she does not want to have sex with someone.
If that's how your conscience directs you to behave, it may be that your conscience is flawed and needs some repairs.
I never said that my conscience directs me to behave that way. I just said that the government should not have the power to stop me from behaving that way.
Heck, my largest charitable contributions last year were to a website whose most prominent writer is a gay atheist.
March 17, 2008 8:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just because you provide a meal and bed to someone who is homeless does not give you the right to demand they exchange joining you in prayer for it.
Hey, if you don't believe in imposing prayer in a privately run homeless shelter, don't impose it in your privately run homeless shelter.
March 15, 2008 8:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
And if you don't believe in torturing political prisoners, don't torture them in your re-education camps.
These Lefties just don't get it, do they?
March 16, 2008 7:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
And if you don't believe in torturing political prisoners, don't torture them in your re-education camps
I do not believe in re-education camps or in taking political prisoners. My statement: Hey, if you don't believe in imposing prayer in a privately run homeless shelter, don't impose it in your privately run homeless shelter. was meant as a parody of "if you don't believe in abortion, don't have one."
In any case, there is a great difference between opening a shelter that is only open to people willing to join you in prayer, and opening a prison where everyone in the prison is forced to pray, because imprisonment is entirely involuntary.
March 16, 2008 9:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
I do not believe in re-education camps or in taking political prisoners. My statement: Hey, if you don't believe in imposing prayer in a privately run homeless shelter, don't impose it in your privately run homeless shelter. was meant as a parody of "if you don't believe in abortion, don't have one."
No kidding? A parody! That flapping sound you hear is your humor flying right over the head of this stupid Leftie. Boy, you sure put that one over on me.
Just to show you how embarrassed I should be, I now realize that you are the only person in this conversation engaging in parody.
I sure am dumb!
March 16, 2008 7:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
I was, and still am, intrigued by many of the historical points Mr. Waldman shared, and his conclusions are no doubt noteworthy.
But on another level I am concerned about the statement that "America was settled to be a Christian/Protestant land/nation." I don't want to belabor the poor choice of word "settled" because we were in fact originally "settled" via colonization for the prevailing economic/political advantages/competition of the time, and using that word can provoke erroneous arguments if one is inclined to seek justification that the nation from the very beginning was a Christian/Protestant endeavor. It wasn't. Regal world domination was the tune.
But the more I think about this, and digest all of the thoughtful comments made in this blog, I come to the initial suspicion that maybe we are all looking at this from a very limited viewpoint. For example, the main thrust of the debate is to prove yea or nay that the Founders were or were not beholden to some varient of Christian Biblical belief and that somehow all that influenced them to come up with a document that is completely devoid of all references to religion except one, and that was to limit its role in government. Obviously, this was not because of some devine intervention that just happened to strike them when they all decided to sit down and talk about it in the late eighteenth century.
When they proposed this or whatever section of the Constitution, they were of course basing their judgements and opinions on Western themes of history and traditions of what is right and wrong (ethics, morals) in the course of Western human events, as it were. Of course they had no other choice but to follow the moral and ethical cultural standards of the day, regardless of their specific Christian religious belief.
What they were actually doing was setting new limits on how human events should be guided, a new set of laws. One of those laws eliminated state religion because ethically they simply could not justify perpetuating the obvious injustice otherwise as they learned from history, as they experienced it themselves.
So instead of America being "settled to be a Christian/Protestant land/nation," it was most likely instead a great effort to correct the state/church conflict. I think what they were really saying was, "Look folks, we just can't have this church/state thing anymore because it causes too many problems. Just look what they did to those really nice folks in Boston a few years ago just because they wanted to praise God and Jesus in some batshit goofy way. That just ain't right, you know. It's like this really doesn't have anything to do with what church you go to, but instead it's all about that inalienable rights stuff we brought up earlier. You know, like, being free and all. Well, you can't be free to practice what you preach, duh, if some dipshit like Thomas over here is ripping the Bible to shreads and says everybody else has to do the same thing, you know, or else. So, like, we're gonna make real sure that no future Thomas takes over the government, see? In the meantime, feel free to pray or, if your a heathen, not pray and go to Hell. Sheeesh..."
Can it really be anything else? Yes, of course, most of them would say this is the way God meant it to be or some such thing, but their collective action speaks volumes, I think, to something else. And it wasn't because they wanted the country to be Christian. Rather, just the opposit. They didn't think the country could be Christian and be free. And they were right.
Ed Denver
March 16, 2008 12:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think you're mixing a couple of separate ideas.
It is pretty clear that had the people of the time been asked what their expectation was for the new society they were forging, most of them would have viewed the new country as a haven for Protestantism and Protestants beyond the reach of primarily Roman Catholic Europe and the all too close to RC Church of England.
That the new nation would be populated primarily by and dominated culturally speaking by protestants was taken for granted by them and it was a point utterly different than any question relating to the operating principles of government or the actual operations of government.
The most practical and pragmatic approach for government was to be nuetral toward religion. Thus, they would avoid most, if not all, of the problems church/state entanglement produces. They knew this from prior experience in both the old and new worlds. While there were still many who wished to continue with the old world tradition of binding government and religion, the pragmatists won the day and their victory has been to the great benefit of all of us who have come after them.
The failure of some to recognize the tremendous blessing of the separation of church and state for all citizens is sad, but nothing new. The advocates of repeating the mistakes of the old world models have always been around and not just on the question of church/state separation. Look at how our current government has quickly devolved into a tyranny led by a mean-spirited, obstinant dimwit who fancies himself a king. He justifies his usurpation of power and tyrranical rule with a modern day theory akin to the Divine Right of Kings he calls the theory of the unitary executive branch which is obviously and utterly unconstitutional. With a Congress populated by corrupt Republicans, and a variety of political cowards and moral weaklings posing as Democrats, he has effectively turned the constitution on its head in all manner of ways.
What those in the founders' generation realized (and all the others prior to our own) was that the fight to preserve liberty never ends and certainly wouldn't end with the ratification of the Constitution. The fight to preserve the blessings of liberty is something every generation must engage in on all fronts. I don't see how anyone having lived through the past seven years could doubt this.
March 16, 2008 12:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
But most liberals don't want that. They want the government to use the public schools, government funding, and mandates to actively push secularism on people.
You're really too kind, Glaivester. Not only do you inform us about what we believe, but you share your unique insight to what we want as well.
Where would we be without you, Rush, and BillO? We would have no idea about what we want, need, or think. Thank god for Wingnut Neocons!
March 16, 2008 7:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thank god for Wingnut Neocons!
I'm a paleocon, thank you very much. I supported Ron Paul for the GOP nomination, oppose the Iraq War, and read The American Conservative. Please label me correctly.
March 16, 2008 10:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Please label me correctly.
Not in mixed company.
March 17, 2008 7:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
oleeb,
Well, my greater point was that there is no question that Protestants were the majority population, so to state that that was the case is such an overstatement as to be rediculous. There's not a soul on the planet who would question that. It's as if one said, "Yes, and guess what? The German's settled Germany!" Whoop-dee-do. It's not as if England had a choice to send something other than Protestants to plunder the land and rape and kill the natives.
And eventually there was a Revolution and then the chosen reps had to come up with a new government and as far as religion goes, what did they do? As you say, they did the intelligent, pragmatic thing by taking it to another level and clearly said this government will not allow any religion to be sanctioned by the government. Period. So was it and is it a "Christian" nation based on the majority population? Of course. Is the government "Christian?" Thank God, no.
Couldn't agree more with you on your opinions re Bush and gang. However, it seems to me that the Founders did blunder when setting up the Congress and the reason I say that is because of just what happened over the past seven years. Here you have a nutcase president/administration fully supported by a lapdog majority in Congress.
I think where the Founders erred was in mistakenly believing that mostly honorable men would be elected to the Congress, and that the electoral college would filter thru only the best and brightest and honorable for president. Ha. Boy, did they ever screw that up. No doubt they were relying on the belief that since this is a "Christian" nation, elected officials would of course be moral and ethical and God fearing.
You gotta give it to Attwater, Rove, Falwell, Reed, and others. By duping the "Christian" true believer thumpers into thinking that only the Repug party, the Godly Conservatives, can save them and the country from the Satan Liberal Democrats, not to mention eliminating all the fags, abortionists, evolutionists, academia, and science. "And, oh, by the way, while you're at it," the Repugs say to the faithful, "you guys pay way, way too much in taxes, you know? It's almost, well, sinful to be paying so much, so you gotta support tax cuts, okay?"
And that in a nutshell is the entire reason for the Repugs existance-to reduce taxes for the wealthy and reap the savings in the form of campaign donations in order to guarantee election wins. I swear to God, that is the only reason.
Power, baby, is where it's at. The Repugs will do anything, say anything, committ mass murder, anything at all to remain in power, even if it means rewriting history and the Constitution. Distorting history is nothing to them; it's second nature to them now.
And this entire issue of the deliberate distortion of the history of the Constitution is nothing more than another way to cement thumper ignorance. And that, my friend, is why Bush is hyperventilating over the permanent tax cuts.
You may note that I usually put the term "Christian" in quotations because whatever that means now certainly has no resemblance to any religion I've ever known to be termed Christian.
Don't get me started...
Ed Denver
March 16, 2008 7:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
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November 12, 2010 1:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with you that we still have battles over the gray areas. But on the whole, the Founders’ strategy – augmented by the hard work of religious freedom advocates over the next two centuries – has more or less worked. Perhaps once a year, we can take a break from fighting over the gray areas – legitimate, important battles – and celebrate the great success that is American religious freedom.
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December 22, 2010 4:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
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December 28, 2010 10:15 AM | Reply | Permalink