Thou Shalt Keep Thy Religion To Thyself
In 1802, Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to a group of Baptists in Danbury, Connecticut, saying “…I contemplate with sovereign reverence 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 & State.”
Over 200 years later, this week, the Connecticut state legislature faced a bill aimed at regulating the finances of Roman Catholic churches in the state by turning parishes into corporations. Connecticut State Sen. Andrew McDonald, co-chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said the bill was drafted in response to incidents in Greenwich and Darien, where priests allegedly misappropriated, if not embezzled, parish funds to the tune of $3.5 million. The bill, Raised Bill 1098 (click here to view bill text), was supposed to have a public hearing before going into legislation, but due to pressure from the Catholic Church and Bishop William Lori, the bill has been dropped and called “dead” for the year.
While I commend Bishop Lori and the organized effort to keep the state out of religious affairs, as shown in this incident, it is clear that the Catholic Church only agrees with the separation of church and state when it is convenient.
Bill Donohue, President of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, said “Bishop Lori is correct to say that the bill ‘is a thinly-veiled attempt to silence the Catholic Church on the important issues of the day, such as same-sex marriage.’ Indeed, it is payback: this brutal act of revenge by Lawlor and McDonald, two champions of gay marriage, is designed to muzzle the voice of the Catholic Church.” Keep in mind that Connecticut law upholds the right for couples to get married regardless of their sexual orientation.
By upholding the civil rights of homosexual citizens, by upholding the law of the state, Rep. Michael Lawlor (the other co-chairman of the Judiciary Committee) and Sen. Andrew McDonald have been vilified by a group claiming to defend civil rights; a group that claims to be “motivated by the letter and the spirit of the First Amendment.” What about the right to love who you wish? What about a woman’s right to choose what happens to her body? What about a right to die?
The framers of our Constitution felt so strongly in the right to religious freedom that it was placed in the First Amendment, the first set of rights directly enumerated to the people. Frankly, if the Catholic Church, or any religious organization, wants the state to stop legislating on their affairs, perhaps they should stop trying to legislate their beliefs.
The writer makes some good points. Freedom of religion was indeed important to the founders. But their meaning of religious freedom may not be completely understood today, or may be misinterpreted. Surely they would not have wanted the state (or federal) government to interfere with a church the way this bill proposed. In fact, they made such actions unconstitutional. But they did not intend for our politicians and leaders to keep their faith locked up in church. A great many of our Founding Fathers spoke on the value of Christianity and religion in general to the very survival of our new country. According to this post:
http://churchvstate.blogspot.com/2008/10/charles-carroll-christianity-and-free.html
Charles Carroll was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. He was the longest lived signer of the Declaration of Independence and member of the Continental Congress. Consider his words:
“Without morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time; they therefore who are decrying the Christian religion, whose morality is so sublime and pure…are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the best security for the duration of free governments.” This and many, many other statements make it seem that they did not think religious beliefs/faith shouldn’t be part of the decision-making process in the legislature.
History Matters,
While I thank you for your support, I would respectfully disagree with the notion that the Founding Fathers established this country on the basis of Christian morality.
Christianity at the time of the founding of this country was practiced rather differently than we would see it today (fewer people went to Church, and they went less often). Likewise, they saw, through institutions like the Church of England, that when politics and religion mix, we run the risk of undermining both, with the possibility of pinning liberty underfoot beneath the stances of dogma. Keep in mind the words of our other Founding Fathers:
“Question with boldness even the existence of a god.” – Thomas Jefferson (letter to Peter Carr, 10 August 1787)
“Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon, than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness, that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind.” – Thomas Paine (The Age of Reason, 1794-1795.)
“During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.” – James Madison (Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments, 1785.)
“Twenty times in the course of my late reading, have I been upon the point of breaking out, ‘this would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it.’” – John Adams (letter to Charles Cushing (October 19, 1756)
And, what may be the most succinct:
“The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion.” – Treaty of Tripoli, Article 11, June 7, 1797. The treaty was authored by Joel Barlow and signed by John Adams.
Of course, the First Amendment provides that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” meaning that our government would not, and should not promote the exercise of any particular faith, but neither should it hinder its citizens from practicing their faith in their way – as they tried to do, and (thanks to whatever higher power you wish) failed in Connecticut.
The point, really, is why should religious institutions only invoke the First Amendment when it is in their best interest to do so? If we should not legislate on the practice of a religion, why then should we legislate the doctrines and man-made belief structures thereof? There is obviously a disconnect between the religious arguments to the political issues of, for example, abortion/death penalty/embryonic stem cell research/gay rights/evolution taught in schools/etc. and the protection claimed by the First Amendment by these same religious institutions.
Thanks once again for your continued support of We The People Politics.