separation of church and state

Americans United for the Separation of Church is sounding the alarm on the Republican "faith based" initiatives. This initiative completely violates the Constitution, particularly since to date ONLY Christian organizations have been given money.

There is no ambiguity in the line our Founding Fathers drew separating Church and State. Our Founding Fathers were very outspoken in their ideas. For example, Ben Franklin very specifically gave his opinion of government funding of religious institutions:

"When a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its professors are obliged to call for help of the civil power, 'tis a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one."

— -- Benjamin Franklin, letter to Richard Price, October 9, 1780, quoted from Adrienne Koch, ed., The American Enlightenment: The Shaping of the American Experiment and a Free Society, New York: George Braziller, 1965, p. 93.

So what would Ben Franklin say to our tax money going to Congressional earmarks for: (info from an Americans United letter)

Wednesday, September 19th - 8pm
The Tank @ 279 Church Street www.thetanknyc.org
New York, NY 10013
btw. Franklin & White, below Canal
Tix: $5
www.laughingliberally.com

A political comedy show featuring Katie Halper, Negin Farsad and Lee Camp with a special appearance by your favorite church-state separation advocates, First Freedom First.

These items come from Jews On First, whose motto is:

Jews responding to the Christian right -
because if Jews don't speak out, they'll think we don't mind

I first became aware of Jews on First when they broke the Delaware Pogrom story, an incident where Christian fundamentalists drove a Jewish and a Muslim family out of a Delaware town because they objected to overtly Christian prayer in a local public school.

The death of Jerry Falwell will not be mourned among those who believe strongly in the Constitution because his message of intolerance and hatred and his advocacy of unConstitutional mixing of church and state was about as unAmerican and immoral as you can get. This is the man who blamed 9/11 on American tolerance while the rest of use wree blaming it on religious extremism. It is unclear to me how Jerry Falwell differs all that much from the religious leaders in Iran.

Jerry Falwell's message of hatred, intolerance and unAmerican theocracy will continue to hurt America long after his death. Here are two items from Jews on First that illustrate how far right wing extremists have taken us from the liberal vision our Founding Fathers had for our nation.

Capitol Ministries: Making disciples for Jesus Christ in state legislatures:

My wife and I, thanks to a cancelled political meeting and an already arranged babysitter, recently had a chance to be by ourselves without kids for a couple of hours. This is so rare these days!

We were discussing my article on European headscarf bans and started discussing xenophobe Republican Virgil Goode's fear of incoming Muslim Congressman Keith Ellison's wanting to swear his oath of office on a Q'ran. Honestly, I think Ellison's use of a Q'ran once owned by Thomas Jefferson is about the most American of acts one can imagine, embracing both our tradition and our diversity. But Virgil Goode seems terrified of Muslims.

My wife then shifted the discussion to just what would WE swear our oath of office on. She suggested Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. For me it would have to be something more appropriate. I guess if it was school board, I'd swear on my copy of Darwin's Voyage of the Beagle. If it was another position I'd probably choose the appropriate doncument like the city charter for City Council or state or Federal constitution for those governing bodies.

But let me ask YOU: What would YOU swear your oath of office on? Also, does it HAVE to be a book/document? Could one swear their oath of office on a bottle of Jack Daniels or on a Tom Waits CD? What kind of object is worthy of swearing an oath of office on?

America was founded on a policy of separation of church and state. It is written into our Constitution. And yet, Bush and his supporters are continually mixing Christianity, and a particularly extremist version thereof, with government, routinely violating the Constitution.

"Besides the danger of a direct mixture of religion and civil government, there is an evil which ought to be guarded against in the indefinite accumulation of property from the capacity of holding it in perpetuity by ecclesiastical corporations.

"The establishment of the chaplainship in Congress is a palpable violation of equal rights as well as of Constitutional principles.

"The danger of silent accumulations and encroachments by ecclesiastical bodies has not sufficiently engaged attention in the U.S."

-- James Madison, being outvoted in the bill to establish the office of Congressional Chaplain, from the "Detached Memoranda," Elizabeth Fleet, "Madison's Detached Memoranda." William and Mary Quarterly (1946): 554-62.

Long ago the Halliburton Republicans violated Eisenhower's warning against a military-industrial complex by largely privatizing our military, making the war in Iraq a war that benefits no one except Exxon/Mobil, Bechtel and Halliburton. Under Bush/Cheney, the blurring of the line between our military and American corporations has continued apace, angering anyone who really supports our soldiers or considers themselves a traditional, "Eisenhower Republican." But the line between our military and evangelical Christianity worries me even more. Ever since Bush started calling our wars "Crusades" and invading every Muslim nation he can, justified or not, it has seemed like the rise of the American Taliban has started to determine our foreign policy.