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Sunday, October 31, 2010

Is “separation of church and state” a good metaphor for the religious freedom clause of the first amendment?

Following my post The Jefferson and Danbury Baptist Correspondence, I received the following comment from someone with the "blogname" of Doug Indeap. 
The phrase “separation of church and state” is but a metaphor to describe the underlying principle of the First Amendment and the no-religious-test clause of the Constitution. That the phrase does not appear in the text of the Constitution assumes much importance, it seems, only to those who may have once labored under the misimpression it was there and, upon learning they were mistaken, reckon they've discovered the smoking gun solving a Constitutional mystery. To those familiar with the Constitution, the absence of the metaphor commonly used to describe one of its principles is no more consequential than the absence of other phrases (e.g., Bill of Rights, separation of powers, checks and balances, fair trial, religious liberty) used to describe other undoubted Constitutional principles.

Some try to pass off the Supreme Court’s decision in Everson v. Board of Education as simply a misreading of Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists–as if that is the only basis of the Court’s decision. Instructive as that letter is, it played but a small part in the Court’s decision. Perhaps even more than Jefferson, James Madison influenced the Court’s view. Madison, who had a central role in drafting the Constitution and the First Amendment, confirmed that he understood them to “[s]trongly guard[] . . . the separation between Religion and Government.” Madison, Detached Memoranda (~1820). He made plain, too, that they guarded against more than just laws creating state sponsored churches or imposing a state religion. Mindful that even as new principles are proclaimed, old habits die hard and citizens and politicians could tend to entangle government and religion (e.g., “the appointment of chaplains to the two houses of Congress” and “for the army and navy” and “[r]eligious proclamations by the Executive recommending thanksgivings and fasts”), he considered the question whether these actions were “consistent with the Constitution, and with the pure principle of religious freedom” and responded: “In strictness the answer on both points must be in the negative. The Constitution of the United States forbids everything like an establishment of a national religion.”

The First Amendment embodies the simple, just idea that each of us should be free to exercise his or her religious views without expecting that the government will endorse or promote those views and without fearing that the government will endorse or promote the religious views of others. By keeping government and religion separate, the establishment clause serves to protect the freedom of all to exercise their religion. Reasonable people may differ, of course, on how these principles should be applied in particular situations, but the principles are hardly to be doubted. Moreover, they are good, sound principles that should be nurtured and defended, not attacked. Efforts to undercut our secular government by somehow merging or infusing it with religion should be resisted by every patriot.

Wake Forest University recently published a short, objective Q&A primer on the current law of separation of church and state–as applied by the courts rather than as caricatured in the blogosphere. I commend it to you. http://tiny.cc/6nnnx







Here is my reply:

Thank you for your response. It would help if it did not begin with a condescending attitude about those who believe that the Supreme’s decision with regard to religious expression is wrong. You state that “That the phrase does not appear in the text of the Constitution assumes much importance, it seems, only to those who may have once labored under the misimpression it was there…” If I wanted to be as snarky as your beginning, I would say that the people who appeared to believe that included the students at Widener University who reacted with derision when Christine O’Donnell said that the phrase was not in the constitution. So yes, those who may once have labored under the impression that it was there were a room full of law students; but that does not include not me or anyone else that I know.

With that out of the way, let’s get to your points. Despite the fact that you describe Jefferson’s phrase as a metaphor for the entire religious freedom clause of the first amendment, you appear to want to shift the focus of the Supreme’s decision from Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists. I don’t blame you because as I pointed out, it’s a very weak reed indeed. The fact is that Jefferson was not a Christian; in fact he was described as a Deist, someone who believes in a God that created the universe and then abandoned it. So for him to offer to wall religion off from government was no sacrifice on his part.

Madison is a different matter. Keeping in mind that he lived in a time when most nations had established churches that were supported by the government. He was determined that this would not happen in the US. For that reason he was very scrupulous about efforts to provide government financial support to ecclesiastical groups. In the reading you referenced he was concerned not just about having the government pay for chaplains – saying that
If Religion consist in voluntary acts of individuals, singly, or voluntarily associated, and it be proper that public functionaries, as well as their Constituents shd discharge their religious duties, let them like their Constituents, do so at their own expence. How small a contribution from each member of Congs wd suffice for the purpose? How just wd it be in its principle? How noble in its exemplary sacrifice to the genius of the Constitution; and the divine right of conscience? Why should the expence of a religious worship be allowed for the Legislature, be paid by the public, more than that for the Ex. or Judiciary branch of the Govt
Note what he does not say: that there should not be some form if religious observance if members want it, simply that it should not be paid for from the treasury. Need I note that his admonition was not heeded to this day?

And to show how much of a creature of his time he was, let me quote from some more of his writing from the same source:
Could a Catholic clergyman ever hope to be appointed a Chaplain? To say that his religious principles are obnoxious or that his sect is small, is to lift the evil at once and exhibit in its naked deformity…
I repeat, neither the courts nor the congress have followed his advice. At a time when the Supreme Court is composed solely of Catholics and Jews, Madison’s concerns are quaint.

The current House chaplain is Catholic; there are Muslim Congressional Jummah Prayer Services and a Weekly Torah Study. We have gotten far beyond Madison’s concerns and, I repeat, we are still paying for chaplains without becoming a theocracy or having an established church. While I respect Madison’s concerns in view of what he was accustomed to regarding established religions, his concerns were not acted upon by congress and the courts and, despite this, our country did not descend into religious warfare or become a theocracy. Yet somehow, two hundred years later, with established churches in Europe dying for lack of membership, American courts decided that mangers in the public square were a dangerous step on the way to an official “Church of America” paid for by your tax dollars and mine.

You begin your final admonition on a hopeful note
Reasonable people may differ, of course, on how these principles should be applied in particular situations, but the principles are hardly to be doubted.


Ah, there is the rub, isn’t it. What are “these principles?” Let’s look at the first amendment: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;

Can we agree that these are “first principles,” not a metaphor? Can we then go from the general to the specific? For nearly 200 years this amendment was used to insure that the US did not “establish” an official religion in the way that other countries did. It was also used to make sure that no one was prohibited from exercising his right to practice whatever faith he had. Somehow in the middle of the 20th century it was determined by the Supremes that exercising the right to proclaim one’s religion in certain venues of the public sphere was illegal. People who say that the wall of separation between church and state is a metaphor for “congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion” never get around to mentioning that “free exercise” part of the amendment.

Moreover, they are good, sound principles that should be nurtured and defended, not attacked. Efforts to undercut our secular government by somehow merging or infusing it with religion should be resisted by every patriot.
There you go again; now religious people are unpatriotic. I thought that dissent was the highest form of patriotism, or is that only the case when your side is out of power?

I know of no serious political figure one who wishes to undercut our government’s neutrality between religions and to establish a state religion. But just as our government is not supposed to side with one religion over against another, neither is it supposed to side with secularism over against religion. That would not only strike a blow against the plain statement of the first amendment, but it would also put the government at odds with most Americans who profess, in one way or another, a religious faith. It is no more right to make the government act in preference to one particular religious denomination than it is to refuse to act simply because a law is informed by religion. To insist that religion should be excluded from consideration in political issues is unrealistic. Religion forms the ethical basis for a great many people. It is simple religious bigotry to insist that only secular morality is a legitimate basis for law.

If there is one lesson to be learned from the Tea Party movement it’s this: you can only kick the American people to the side so often, deride their beliefs for so long, before they decide that they will not take it anymore. Absurd claims of protecting religious liberty which are used in an Orwellian sense to stifle legitimate and historic religious expression are only going to be ignored for so long. The general population of any country is mostly content to be left alone and avoid political conflict. But when they believe they are being oppressed they will eventually react, first with silent grimness, then with anger. And a ruling class that ignores this anger is in danger of a reaction for which they are not prepared. You may recall another one of Jefferson’s well known comment about watering the tree of liberty, another interesting and memorable metaphor.

12 comments:

Doug Indeap said...

1.

Thank you for the thoughtful response.

Like you, I don't know anyone who has argued that the words "separation of church and state" actually appear in the Constitution. I have, though, encountered hundreds, if not thousands, of people who seem to think they are rebutting an argument by noting the absence of the words. Some get pretty excited, even snarky, about it. My effort to imagine the "logic" of this common rhetoric and expose its silliness can, I suppose, come across as condescending. Sometimes, though, a little embarrassment is warranted and even healthy.

In my comment, I did not seek to shift the focus away from Jefferson's letter for fear it is a weak reed (more about that shortly), but rather I meant to report the fact that the Supreme Court actually said little about the letter in its Everson decision. Indeed, the Court mentioned it only in passing after stating its conclusion based on a lengthy and detailed discussion (encompassing many pages and many footnotes) of the historical context in which the First Amendment was developed. The metaphor "separation of church and state" was but a handy catch phrase to describe the upshot of its conclusion. The notion, often heard, that the Court rested its decision solely or largely on that letter is simply wrong.

But let's examine your claims about Jefferson's letter. As you note, the Danbury Baptists expressed concerns about Connecticut's established religion. They did not, as you assert, ask Jefferson "to end the establishment of Congregationalism in Connecticut." Indeed, they expressly acknowledged that they were "sensible that the President of the United States, is not the national legislator, and also sensible that the national government cannot destroy the Laws of each State." Rather they sought to enlist Jefferson's help in the political disestablishment movement then growing across the country. That movement ultimately succeeded in ending state establishments of religion by the 1830s. Accordingly, they did not ask him for some executive action, but rather for political help.

Doug Indeap said...

2.

Jefferson offered that help by affirming as a general principle "that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions. He then praised "with sovereign reverence" the recent manifestation of the disestablishment movement at the federal level--"that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should 'make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,' thus building a wall of separation between Church and State."

Jefferson's characterization of the First Amendment's religion clauses as "building a wall of separation between Church and State" was plainly intended and understood to pertain to the federal government, not the states. By your suggestion that "modern jurisprudence" has him saying the opposite, I surmise that you have in mind the court decisions ruling that the Fourteenth Amendment, adopted after the Civil War, effectively guarantees that states too must respect the rights set forth in the First Amendment. The courts did not reach that result, though, by reading Jefferson to say anything other than that the First Amendment constrains only the federal government. Indeed, they uniformly acknowledge that is the First Amendment's scope. They observed that Fourteenth Amendment guarantees individual rights against infringement by states, including equal protection and due process of law and the rights and privileges of citizenship, and, in deciding what rights are encompassed by that provision, they have looked to the Bill of Rights, reasoning that there are found the rights we hold most fundamental, and have ruled that at least some of those, including freedom of religion and freedom from government established religion, are protected from state infringement. See, e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_%28Bill_of_Rights%29

The federal government nonetheless has, as you note, taken some actions seemingly at odds with the principle of separation of church and state as Madison viewed it. Madison discussed just that in his Detached Memoranda. As it happens, he not only stated plainly his understanding that the Constitution prohibits the government from promoting religion by such acts as appointing chaplains for the houses of Congress and the army and navy or by issuing proclamations recommending thanksgiving, he also addressed the question of what to make of the government’s actions doing just that. Ever practical, he answered not with a demand these actions inconsistent with the Constitution be undone, but rather with an explanation to circumscribe their ill effect: “Rather than let this step beyond the landmarks of power have the effect of a legitimate precedent, it will be better to apply to it the legal aphorism de minimis non curat lex [i.e., the law does not concern itself with trifles]: or to class it cum maculis quas aut incuria fudit, aut humana parum cavit natura [i.e., faults proceeding either from negligence or from the imperfection of our nature].” Basically, he recognized that because too many people would be upset by reversing these actions, it would be politically difficult and perhaps infeasible to do so in order to adhere to the constitutional principle, and thus he proposed giving these particular missteps a pass, while at the same time assuring they are not regarded as legitimate precedent of what the Constitution means, so they do not influence future actions.

Doug Indeap said...

3.

The views of Madison, commonly lionized as the Father of the Constitution, can hardly be passed off as "quaint." In its jurisprudence, the Supreme Court has, in effect, followed Madison’s advice, though not his suggested legal theories. The Court has confirmed the basic constitutional principle of separation of church and state, while also giving a pass to some governmental statements or actions as ceremonial deism or some such.

While not central to our main points, I think Madison deserves correction of what I think is your misreading of him with respect to his statements about a Catholic clergyman being appointed chaplain. He was not saying that he considered such a clergyman's principles to be obnoxious. Rather he was saying that if the members of Congress refused to elect a Catholic clergyman as chaplain because they considered his religious principles obnoxious or his sect small, that would "lift the evil at once and exhibit in its naked deformity the doctrine that religious truth is to be tested by numbers, or that the major sects have a right to govern the minor."

You also misread me to suggest that "religious people are unpatriotic." Rather, I am saying that the relationship of government and religion provided in the Constitution is part of the bedrock of our nation and should be defended by patriots--religious or otherwise.

Finally, I am not sure what to make of your apparent support of government neutrality between religions, but objection that government should not "side with secularism." As secularism refers to the idea of keeping government and religion separate, it is oxymoronic to treat secularism itself as a religion. Doing so would seem to render the very concept of secularism an impossibility--since keeping government and (real) religion separate would itself be deemed a religion in which the government is somehow joined. I'm picturing a dog chasing its tail. Or a collision of matter and anti-matter.

In any event, separation of church and state does not prevent citizens from making decisions and voicing opinions based on principles derived from their religions. Moreover, the religious beliefs of government officials naturally may inform their decisions on policies. In this context, the principle of separation of church and state merely constrains government officials not to make decisions with the predominant purpose or primary effect of advancing religion; in other words, the predominant purpose and primary effect must be nonreligious or secular in nature. A decision coinciding with religious views is not invalid for that reason as long as it has a secular purpose and effect. The Wake Forest paper does a good job of fleshing that out.

Moneyrunner said...

DI,

Let’s just agree to disagree on this issue. I read the Baptist’s letter as a not-very-veiled request for Jefferson to help them out. Their obsequious letter makes no sense otherwise. In his reply he says he can’t. Yet somehow this brief exchange has become - for people who would prefer to exclude religious people from the public sphere - in your words, not mine – a metaphor for the first amendment.

I refer to Madison’s concerns as quaint because we can observe the arc of history since his time. This country did not establish a national church in the European style. This was real concern for Madison given the time in which he lived and the fact that several states had established churches. At that time paying for a congressional chaplain could conceivably become part of a “slippery slope” leading eventually to the establishment of a national church supported by tax dollars. In our time the only people who voice that fear are a cacophony of loony voices on the Left, some of whom are in academic circles, who warn us that the Christian Identity movement is about to take over the government.

Lastly, secularism rejects or excludes religion from any legitimate philosophical or moral system and excludes religion from public affairs. So yes, for the government to side with secularism and against religion is to take a moral and political position which is inimical to the purposes of the first amendment’s free exercise of religion clause which is, I repeat: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. The American people don’t need a metaphor for this.

Moneyrunner said...

This may be a good place to refer to a column by Frank Fleming.

Election Question: How Can We Tell the Stupid People From the Smart Ones?

It was probably a lot easier back in ancient times to figure out who the stupid people were. They were the ones who did things like taunt the mammoths.
..
How smart do you have to be to tell if someone else is smart? Hopefully not very smart, because a lot of life — and especially politics — involves asking people to separate the bright from the dimwitted. We can’t figure out or do everything ourselves, so we need to know who the smart people are so we know whom to listen to and entrust with important jobs. But if we incorrectly think morons are smart and listen to them and put them in charge, that would be a disaster.

You could also call it election year 2008.

For some reason, many people thought certain other people — who we can now clearly see are idiots — were smart and should be in charge. So how do we prevent such an error from happening again?

Eventually civilization arose, and intelligence became more treasured. Ironically, this created opportunities for morons to thrive. No longer threatened by mammoth crushings, idiots survived and eventually evolved, developing a form of camouflage. Basically, they learned to appear to be smart while in fact being completely useless to society. We know these idiots today as intellectuals.

Now, some people think that the problem many Americans have with intellectuals is that they hate smart people. This is not a correct understanding of the objections (and not correctly understanding things is the sine qua non of stupid people). The problem is that these people just think they’re really smart but are in fact less than useless …. They become things like politicians and get in the way of actual smart people. In fact, they’ve developed a complex network of morons — the media, journalists, academics, NPR — to prop up each other as smart and call everyone who actually does useful things dumb. And if you try to explain how they’re actually just getting in the way, they get angry, since dumb people get angry when you explain things to them that they can’t understand.

...

Though that’s quite an intellectual feat, it’s not exactly… smart. Similarly, there are pundits out there who make complex esoteric arguments that President Obama has done an awesome job. Again, not an easy thing to do, but a pretty silly thing to devote one’s brainpower to. Yet we have entire universities full of people working on similar … feats of intelligence.


For instance, look at Obama. People said he was smart because he sounded smart. That’s stupid. If you actually looked at his past, though, you would notice the lack of accomplishments that would show he knew how to do anything other than pretend to be smart. He was a community organizer — which I’m pretty sure is a made-up job — and then a mediocre legislator. There wasn’t a single useful thing he did, as his only ability seems to be convincing stupid people he’s smart — something he’s gotten a lot worse at since he’s actually tried to do things for the first time in his life.

So, in the future, instead of thinking someone is smart because he has a very interesting-sounding argument that two plus two equals five, look into the person’s background to see if he’s ever actually done anything useful, like run a business or at least once have an actual job that doesn’t have the word “community” in it. Using that method, it doesn’t seem too hard to find the actual smart people; you probably don’t even have to be that smart to do it. But if it is too hard, maybe we can task scientists to resurrect the mammoths so they can hunt down the stupid people and crush their heads again.

Doug Indeap said...

You are, of course, free to disagree all you want. But do you have any basis for doing so?

You seemed to place a lot of stock in reading Jefferson to say he could not help the Danbury Baptists end Connecticut's establishment of religion and supposing that "modern jurisprudence" somehow comes to its conclusions about church-state issues by reading him differently. I pointed out that no court has read Jefferson to say that the First Amendment itself constrains the states. It is the Fourteenth Amendment that the courts decades later determined extended the First Amendment constraints to the states. Your point about Jefferson's letter, thus, rebuts an argument that no one makes--a rhetorical technique commonly called strawman argument (i.e., set up a dummy argument and knock it down).

You casually characterize those upholding the constitutional principle of separation of church and state as "people who would prefer to exclude religious people from the public sphere." Really? Can you discuss this without such gross distortion? Much of our discussion is wasted correcting such nonsense and trying to bring the discussion back to some semblance of reality. When discussing separation of church and state, it is critical to distinguish between the “public sphere” and “government.” The principle of separation of church and state does not purge religion from the public sphere–far from it. Indeed, the First Amendment’s “free exercise” clause assures that each individual is free to exercise and express his or her religious views–publicly as well as privately. The Amendment constrains only the government not to promote or otherwise take steps toward establishment of religion.

Notwithstanding sometimes lofty rhetoric about an "absolute" or "high and impregnable" wall, courts and commentators have developed various limitations and exceptions to the principle of separation of church and state (more, I suspect, than many of the founders, particularly Madison, would approve). Again, I commend the Wake Forest paper to you. You may find the so-called wall, as maintained by the courts, is lower and leakier than you realized and thus perhaps more to your liking.

Doug Indeap said...

You are, of course, free to disagree all you want. But do you have any basis for doing so?

You seemed to place a lot of stock in reading Jefferson to say he could not help the Danbury Baptists end Connecticut's establishment of religion and supposing that "modern jurisprudence" somehow comes to its conclusions about church-state issues by reading him differently. I pointed out that no court has read Jefferson to say that the First Amendment itself constrains the states. It is the Fourteenth Amendment that the courts decades later determined extended the First Amendment constraints to the states. Your point about Jefferson's letter, thus, rebuts an argument that no one makes--a rhetorical technique commonly called strawman argument (i.e., set up a dummy argument and knock it down).

You casually characterize those upholding the constitutional principle of separation of church and state as "people who would prefer to exclude religious people from the public sphere." Really? Can you discuss this without such gross distortion? Much of our discussion is wasted correcting such nonsense and trying to bring the discussion back to some semblance of reality. When discussing separation of church and state, it is critical to distinguish between the “public sphere” and “government.” The principle of separation of church and state does not purge religion from the public sphere–far from it. Indeed, the First Amendment’s “free exercise” clause assures that each individual is free to exercise and express his or her religious views–publicly as well as privately. The Amendment constrains only the government not to promote or otherwise take steps toward establishment of religion.

Notwithstanding sometimes lofty rhetoric about an "absolute" or "high and impregnable" wall, courts and commentators have developed various limitations and exceptions to the principle of separation of church and state (more, I suspect, than many of the founders, particularly Madison, would approve). Again, I commend the Wake Forest paper to you. You may find the so-called wall, as maintained by the courts, is lower and leakier than you realized and thus perhaps more to your liking.

Moneyrunner said...

DI,

You are of course free to misinterpret what I am saying and to gloss over the ways in which the courts and administrative officials at all levels of government have inhibited the free exercise of religious expression, but your unreasonable defense of secularism uber alles is really rather bizarre. I refer you to a more recent post.

http://moneyrunner.blogspot.com/2010/11/hatred-left-has-of-christians.html

And please stop flogging the Wake Forest paper. I really don’t care to be lectured to by smug sophomores, piled higher and deeper.

Doug Indeap said...

I gather you now feel misinterpreted, but how I don't know, as you don't say.

Speaking of misinterpretation, we may use the term "secularism" differently. I use it in the common sense of the political doctrine calling for separation of religion and government. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secularism I may quit using it, though, as some, including you, sometimes interpret it to mean rejection of religion in all or many other aspects of life. That certainly is not what I--or the courts--mean by separation of church and state.

And speaking further of misinterpretation, contrary to your suppositions, the Wake Forest paper was written by scholars, not sophomores, representing the full spectrum of opinion on the subject, and it does not lecture or argue for any particular view of history or law, rather it simply describes what the law is today. Those in the diverse group of drafters often disagree on how the law "should" handle church-state issues, but they can at least agree on what the law "is" today, and thus provide a sound foundation for dialogue.

Moneyrunner said...

DI,

My friend and you are my friend; you and I both know what the law “is” today. It’s what secularist says it is. I’m sorry that you feel that you feel compelled to avoid the term “secular.” Do you think it’s the reason many people are shying away from the term “liberal?” I really don’t care – and the average person doesn’t give a shit – what you label your ideology. They know what the practical effect is. No crèches in public parks and no mention of Christ in valedictorian speeches because that will be the beginning of the establishment of the Church of America. That’s what “courts” require – or is the ACLU kidding me? That will breach the “wall of separation” between church and state (your words) as the metaphor for the first amendment. Is that a big deal? Only if you think that preventing you from running a campaign ad just before an election is a repudiation of the first amendment. Lots of people do, but then, they don’t do read metaphors instead of the actual constitution. Stupid hicks, what do they know. Shouldn’t be allowed the vote; especially when it comes to matters of the law. By the way, did you read about the awful drubbing the serfs gave to the solons of the Iowa court?

http://volokh.com/2010/11/03/three-iowa-justices-defeated-for-same-sex-marriage-ruling/

Perhaps you are not aware of the term: “piled Higher and deeper.” Think about it. Hint: write the first letters of the words on a piece of paper.

Doug Indeap said...

Well, well, we legal whiz kids already know what the law is, so we sure don't need to read anything about it, and, moreover, we should refrain from doing so lest we disturb the already perfect state of our knowledge. Neat!

Moneyrunner said...

Well, well, we finally agree. We know the effect of the legal interpretations of the Orwellian inversion of the first amendment as it applies to religion – with the exception of the Muslim faith, which appears to be exempt from the usual legal prohibitions and taboos. My friend, I am immersed in your cultural and legal world while you appear to explore mine like Europeans once explored Africa, the unknown continent. I know your arguments while you fail to even acknowledge mine as legitimate. I am not a student in your class, required to parrot back your biases to get a passing grade and get away. Goodbye.