I read this article by Ken Paulson, the President of the First Amendment Center and had to respond to almost everything he wrote.
Church, State and the First Amendment: What O’Donnell needs to know
Sometimes political debates generate light as well as heat.
Delaware Republican Senate candidate Christine
O’Donnell’s question "Where in the Constitution is the separation of
church and state?" in an exchange Oct. 19 over teaching creationism in public schools
tells us something about her but also reminds us of how often America’s
bedrock principles on government and religion are misunderstood.
Democratic candidate Chris Coons was quick to tell
O’Donnell that religion and government are kept separate by the First
Amendment.
"You’re telling me that’s in the First Amendment?" she responded.
Indeed it is.
Indeed it is NOT! O’Donnell explicitly asks where in the Constitution the words "separation of church and state" appear and when Coons wrongly asserts it is in the First Amendment she seeks to clarify that he is indeed making the false statement that it is in the First Amendment.
Here’s a quick take on what the First Amendment says — and doesn’t say:
Keeping government out of religion and religion out of government is a core principle of the First Amendment.
The first 16 words say, "Congress shall make no law respecting an
establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
Keeping government out of religion is spelled out in the first 16 words, but what in those words keeps religion out of government and where are the words "separation of church and state" that Coons says can be found there?
That means government can’t limit our personal faith or favor one
religion over others. [Yes] . It also means that creationism cannot be taught in
America’s public schools.
Um, whaaaaaaat??? That is quite a leap! Maybe that part can be found in the mythical version of the Constitution where the words "separation of church and state" appear…
The separation of church and state has been a cornerstone of American ideals for centuries.
As early as 1640, Rhode Island founder and theologian Roger Williams
cited the need for "a hedge or wall of separation between the garden of
the church and the wilderness of the world."
Perhaps a better indication of the cornerstone of American ideals comes from the Declaration of Independence. This non-secular document signed by the Continental Congress acknowledges that our rights are given from God. It also references "Nature’s God," "a firm Reliance on the Protection of divine Providence," and "appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World." Does this sound like the beginnings of a nation that would want to keep church and state separate?
James Madison, the author
of the Bill of Rights, would later explain the need for this separation,
saying, "religion and Govt. will both exist in greater purity, Â the
less they are mixed together."
Madison says church and state are respectively best when their joining is kept to a minimum. That is not the same as saying that there must be a separation of church and state, nor is it saying that that is what was intended in the First Amendment.
Fortunately, there are Congressional transcripts that can tell us what was discussed DURING the drafting of the Bill of Rights:
"Mr. Madison thought, if the word national was inserted before religion, it would satisfy the minds of honorable gentlemen. He believed that the people feared one sect might obtain a pre-eminence, or two combine together, and establish a religion to which they would compel others to conform. He thought if the word national was introduced, it would point the amendment directly to the object it was intended to prevent…"
Clearly Madison’s concern was the establishment of a national religion on the whole country – kind of like how there’s a Church of England – and NOT with abolishing religion from government altogether.
The words "separation of church and state" appear nowhere in the Constitution.
That’s true, [Thank you! ] and O’Donnell’s camp now says that’s what she really
meant.["NOW" says? It was clear from the beginning that was what she meant! ] The phrase stemmed from a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote to the
Danbury Baptist Association in 1802. He cited the language of the First
Amendment and said that it built "a wall of separation between Church
and State." This was not just some poetic flourish. This was one of the
nation’s founders and author of the Declaration of Independence
explaining exactly what the First Amendment means.
At least Paulson is careful here in saying that Jefferson was a founder and author of the Declaration – he was NOT an author of the Constitution. In fact, he was in Europe while it was being drafted and his letter was written 10 years after the First Amendment was ratified. While Jefferson is certainly an important forefather whose opinions are key to our understanding of the founding of our nation, he was not present and did not participate in the debates on the Bill of Rights and thus could not "explain[] exactly what the First Amendment means."
…
Later in the debate, O’Donnell challenged Coons to
name the five freedoms of the First Amendment. He came up four freedoms
short.
Welcome to the club. First Amendment Center surveys show that most
Americans can name just one freedom in the First Amendment and only one
in 25 can name all five — freedom of religion, freedom of speech,
freedom of the press and the rights of petition and assembly.
"Welcome to the club"??!! That’s all he gets for not knowing a basic tenet of the Constitution?! While O’Donnell gets a long lecture despite her being correct that "separation of church and state" is nowhere written in the Constitution and Bill of Rights?!
Obviously this article was not written to inform or correct the record on the First Amendment, but to provide political cover for Coons’ errors and continue the incorrect narrative that O’Donnell didn’t know her Constitution.
.
Crossposted at AlexaShrugged .
Awesome post, Alexa...and reco'd
eburke (Diary) Thursday, October 21st at 3:05PM EST (link)If you’re not an attorney…you should be.
But then again, based on the reaction by Lib Law Profs and their students to Christine’s comments, reading comprehension is not allowed.
“All that need be done for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”
Unified Patriots
Thank you!
AlexaShrugged (Diary) Thursday, October 21st at 3:14PM EST (link)Some days I do really wish I had ended up going to law school. But I don’t think I have the stomach for it. The liberal professors reeducating me on how to think, that is.
AlexaShrugged
Agreed, eburke. Excellent, Alexa.
Loren Heal (Diary) Thursday, October 21st at 5:45PM EST (link)And here we see why liberalism fails. The liberals are so blinded by the religion of liberalism that they cannot even see when they are losing.
–
Join the Concord Project, and follow @lheal, if you dare.
Better still, you should be teaching them.
Vassar Bushmills (Diary) Friday, October 22nd at 6:00AM EST (link)A citizen law-educator, now there’s an idea.
Ouch. :-)
Loren Heal (Diary) Friday, October 22nd at 5:41PM EST (link).
–
Join the Concord Project, and follow @lheal, if you dare.
It is not so much what Coons needs to know -
izoneguy (Diary) Thursday, October 21st at 3:30PM EST (link)But what the voters of Delaware need to know about Coons.
Chris Coons says Obama made the right choice on healthcare, on the stimulus, and the jobs bill.
All of which we should remind the good people of Delaware are utter failures. Failures that will cost everyone real money. Do you want to work more and give even more money to the government?
That is the choice here. Vote for Coons and get more of Barack’s crazy spending.
Or vote for O’Donnell so she can help turn this around.
The point cannot be made often enough: Modern liberalism, as embodied in the Obama presidency, is the defender of the status quo. And the status quo is a road to economic ruin. Political forces cannot redistribute the wealth that the economic system does not produce.
liberals need re-educating
chamberD Thursday, October 21st at 4:14PM EST (link)So let’s give it to them.
Gird your loins with the truth. Go to www.escapetyranny.com and click on the tab that reads: America’s Christian Origins. View all six “lessons,” videos, each about 10 minutes long.
Commit to memory their contents so you can argue effectively with the brainwashed masses, your individual liberal friends, family, and acquaintances who haven’t been taught the truth of our Founding. Recommend they spend some time at escapetyranny.com so they can learn for themselves that they have been cheated and taken for fools too stupid to learn the truth for themselves. Then ask them why it is that our government-controlled and funded schools would want them NOT to know the truth??
I’m not smart enough to click links before I tell people to do research.
As of June 22, 2011 there have been a total 68 VAERS reports of death among those who have received Gardasil® . There were 54 reports among females, 3 were among males, and 11 were reports of unknown gender. Thirty two of the total death reports have been confirmed and 36 remain unconfirmed due to no identifiable patient information in the report such as a name and contact information to confirm the report. A death report is confirmed (verified) after a medical doctor reviews the report and any associated records. In the 32 reports confirmed, there was no unusual pattern or clustering to the deaths that would suggest that they were caused by the vaccine and some reports indicated a cause of death unrelated to vaccination.
Madison Has A Point
Donald Ayotte (Diary) Thursday, October 21st at 4:59PM EST (link)“Madison says church and state are respectively best when their joining is kept to a minimum. That is not the same as saying that there must be a separation of church and state, nor is it saying that that is what was intended in the First Amendment. ”
Madison make a good point. I believe that America has become so polarized by two opposing political ideologies that it is now close to impossible for these two opposing ideologies to compromise and anything.
I also believe that the first amendment does not separate church and state nor is it meant to. Madison’s interpretation or view comes much closer to the intentions of what the founding fathers intended with this amendment than modern day interpretation by the far left socialist movement.
Using the First Amendment to justify the elimination of the teaching of creationism in public schools in not only a far reach, it’s downright laughable.
I read Paulson's piece yesterday
texasgalt (Diary) Thursday, October 21st at 6:10PM EST (link)and it made me want to hurl. Thanks for ripping his nonsense. Good job.
These people like Paulson are about to have the wind taken out of their sails because elections really do matter-especially wave elections.
Sorry to say I am old enough to well remember the immediate aftermath of Reagan sweeping to power. The nutjobs in congress were shutdown for a couple of years and the media became less radical too. It was much the same way after 94, until Newt lost his nerve against Slick.
This doesn’t mean we are not in for some stormy weather. I fully expect the unions and the anarchists to be in the street by spring if the Republicans actually try to do what they MUST do- cut govenrnent and spending.
The Founders' other charter, the NW Ordinance of 1787, which contained a command about religion, morality, "good government" and schools.
ColdWarrior (Diary) Thursday, October 21st at 7:23PM EST (link)The Northwest Ordinance contains this gem in Art. 3: “Art. 3. Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.”
http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=false&doc=8&page=transcript
Also, Article I, Section 7 of the Constitution excepts Sundays from the ten days within which the President may return a bill to the Congress.
Ever wonder why they chose to except Sundays rather than, say, Thursdays? It might have had something to do with this:
For Liberty,
ColdWarrior, PC (that’s “precinct committeeman,” not “political child!”)
Conservatives, UNITE! CHANGE the Republican Party and save the world by UNITING INSIDE the Party as precinct committeemen. NOW! (12 days until Nov. 2 — what are YOU DOING to help get out the vote in your precinct?)
In 2012, will YOU become a “voting member” of the Republican Party in your precinct?
Where it all started. Twitter @kaltkrieger
Unified Patriots.
Learn how to GOTV at The Concord Project and at Procinct and
Hmm...
darcdante (Diary) Friday, October 22nd at 4:01PM EST (link)One thing Glenn Beck is right on is that the Left is attempting to infiltrate our churches and use religion as a means to their communistic ends. In a few years, it wouldn’t surprise me if the Left drops this “separation of church and state” argument if their war on religion succeeds. If we successfully force the Orwellian-worded concept of “social justice” from our churches, then they’ll keep fighting for the “separation of church and state” notion as they continue to make a phrase from Jefferson in a private letter into the law of the land.
The 1st Amendment only addresses Congress making laws. It has nothing to do with public schools. The Left knows it, but they hate God and will continue to hate God until they can dupe people into believing that Jesus was a Marxist and there’s no real point in private charity when the Government can do it all for you.
Jefferson's Draft
DonPMitchell (Diary) Friday, October 22nd at 8:04PM EST (link)Jefferson did make a draft of a constitution which had many similarities to the US Constitution. There was no doubt a lot of discussion among the early founding fathers about the design of government.
Jefferson would be aware of the shortcomings of both the state church (for example, the problems of religious freedom in England) and the restrictions of personal liberty in church states (for example the dictatorship of Calvin in Geneva).
It’s important to make a distiction between christianity itself and people’s personal faith, versus the church as an organization of people. I have no desire to see America ruled by a council of clerics like some Islamic nations. And I have no desire to see the power of the state used to promote and teach a particular sect (e.g., evangelical fundamentalism) to people of other christian and nonchristian faiths. That is key to why many people mistrust the Tea Party. They want a change and they want fiscal conservatism, but it seems hijacked by people who want to undermine secular democracy.
Goldwater: In your heart, you know he’s right
How about using the "power ...
skorrent1 (Diary) Sunday, October 24th at 10:40AM EST (link)Of the state” to promote the “religion” (as recognized by SCOTUS) of atheism or secular humanism by removing all references, even historical references, to God from all public property under the rubric of “separation”? Are you ok with that? How about the government banning the private expression of prayer, or the wearing of religious symbols by anyone on the ever-growing “public” payroll? That’s ok , too? How far can the government go in establishing the religion of secular humanism before you realize that you no longer have the right to the “free exercise of”your own religion?
Biggest Fallacy
lukematthews (Diary) Sunday, October 24th at 1:51PM EST (link)It seems the collectivist left cannot get past the idea that government and society are two quite different and distinct things. The Left cannot comprehend that the reason the Anti-Federalists insisted on a Bill of Rights was to RESTRICT the government from intruding into people’s lives. The Left is caught in this bizarre world where the government or ‘society’, which are one and the same to them, must be protected FROM religion. This is absurd. Religion does not have a monoply on force like government does. Religion is protected from governmental/Congressional establishment, which is unfettered control of a religion, or free exercise, which limits governmental banning of a religion or its practices. Both clauses were intended to be checks on governmental intrusion and not on religion’s intrusion into government.
Congress shall not
morstar150 (Diary) Sunday, October 24th at 8:37PM EST (link)The First Amendment is a limitation on the powers of Congress not on Religious Organizations. Aside from the freedom to exercise religion, is also a right to assemble or organize together.
As an example of how distorted the First Amendment has gotten I review this “news item” that came up for hours of discussion on Headline News, the channel for shallow Hollywood imbiciles.
They were arguing that the Boy Scouts of America should not be allowed to prohibit the gay father of a scout from wearing the scouts uniform.
I don’t even want to waste the time of the Red State reader explaining why this was such a ridiculous argument from the uneducated media but quite frankly, this is an example of how sadly inadequate our educational system has become. What is even more pathetic is that so many of the so called “elites” don’t even understand why you can’t even make the argument. For them he’s a hint, look to one of the five freedoms protected by the First Amendment, and remember there are no Boy Scouts in Congress.
Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil, in its worst, an intolerable one. (Thomas Paine)