Pleasant day today, warm and sunny. We did a half-hour walk along Robinson to Skyline and back to Crestmont. I read 150 pages of the popular Mary Robinette Kowal novel, the one that won the big awards. Of my collected web links from the past few days, the one I began with took my allotted hour.
Salon, Jacques Berlinerblau, 12 Feb 2022: Separation of church and state? Let’s get real — that’s over. So what do we do now?, subtitled, “Jefferson’s ‘wall of separation’ is history. There are other, better ways to fight the Christian right’s onslaught.”
My comment: For all that conservatives insist on literal reading of the Constitution on certain matters (like the clause in the Ninth Amendment that was taken to justify the right of privacy, and of abortion, but which conservatives insist does not), they are remarkably casual about other readings that favor their worldview. Never mind “well regulated Milita”; everyone should be able to own however many guns — or grenades, or nuclear bombs (cf. David Barton) — as they want.
And of course the “separation of church and state,” a phrase not actually in the Constitution, but derived from the First Amendment, which states “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”; the “separation” phrase was actually used by Thomas Jefferson, and there are any number of conservative/right-wing sites (having just done a Google search on the phrase) to explain that that’s not what the First Amendment actually meant, to justify their inclination to impose Christian values on the US government.
The article:
During oral arguments in the case of Shurtleff v. City of Boston, Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch made a pointed reference to “so-called separation of church and state.” What precisely this aside was meant to convey is unclear. Yet Gorsuch’s dismissive comment laid bare what many have known for some time: “Separationism,” as a judicial and legislative doctrine, is on life support. Courtesy of the Christian right, it languishes in a theologically-induced coma.
The many Americans who yearn for secular governance, believers and nonbelievers alike, must confront this truth, accept it and innovate accordingly. They need to do so expeditiously, given the Supreme Court’s hard pro-religion turn — a turn that advantages a white conservative Christian majority at the expense of religious moderates, religious minorities and nonbelievers.
This issue is nonpartisan. The US is saturated in Christian ideology, to the point where, like fish in water, we barely realize it. Politicians risk losing elections unless they pander to the Christian faithful.
If we really had a “wall of separation,” the Supreme Court wouldn’t appear receptive, as it does in Carson v. Makin, to affirming “a religious right to government funds” for schools that teach a “biblical worldview.” Huge Christian crosses honoring fallen soldiers wouldn’t sit on state property (American Legion v. American Humanist Association). The recently re-established White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships would not exist. Symbolically, Christmas videos from the Trump White House wouldn’t be permitted, nor would Joseph Biden’s shout-outs to St. Augustine on Inauguration Day.
Comment: My bottom line about religious influences on US laws is to wonder, why not allow the standards of, say, Islam reign? All the conservatives who want prayer back in public schools mean only Christian prayer, of course, and would throw hissy-fits if schools allowed Muslim children to pray to Mecca twice a day (the two of the five times a day that occur during school hours). In fact, conservatives Christians rail about the threat of Sharia law, which to non-religious folk seems not much different than Christian Biblically based law (and science). In the US, despite the Constitution, despite Thomas Jefferson, it’s only Christianity that matters.
The article goes on to discuss secularism, and how this has been handled in other countries — India, France — and what American might do. The article ends:
Borrowing from laïcité, American secularists might emphasize how privileging the rights of a few religious groups threatens order. When worshipers congregate during a pandemic, that’s not free exercise, but reckless endangerment. When extremists storm the U.S. Capitol, that’s not protected free speech, but sedition. Even colonial-era constitutions stipulated what the First Amendment somehow never mentioned: Your free exercise can’t threaten public safety. American secularists should demand equal protection, literally.
Enough with walls. This rigid (and illiberal) metaphor undersells the complex task secularism performs in multicultural societies. Instead, secular legal and cultural activism should focus on the lawlessness and inequality that arise when LGBTQ persons, nonbelievers, religious minorities and religious moderates are forced to live under one particular religious conception of God.
L&Qs&Cs: Separation of Church and State
Pleasant day today, warm and sunny. We did a half-hour walk along Robinson to Skyline and back to Crestmont. I read 150 pages of the popular Mary Robinette Kowal novel, the one that won the big awards. Of my collected web links from the past few days, the one I began with took my allotted hour.
Salon, Jacques Berlinerblau, 12 Feb 2022: Separation of church and state? Let’s get real — that’s over. So what do we do now?, subtitled, “Jefferson’s ‘wall of separation’ is history. There are other, better ways to fight the Christian right’s onslaught.”
My comment: For all that conservatives insist on literal reading of the Constitution on certain matters (like the clause in the Ninth Amendment that was taken to justify the right of privacy, and of abortion, but which conservatives insist does not), they are remarkably casual about other readings that favor their worldview. Never mind “well regulated Milita”; everyone should be able to own however many guns — or grenades, or nuclear bombs (cf. David Barton) — as they want.
And of course the “separation of church and state,” a phrase not actually in the Constitution, but derived from the First Amendment, which states “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”; the “separation” phrase was actually used by Thomas Jefferson, and there are any number of conservative/right-wing sites (having just done a Google search on the phrase) to explain that that’s not what the First Amendment actually meant, to justify their inclination to impose Christian values on the US government.
The article:
This issue is nonpartisan. The US is saturated in Christian ideology, to the point where, like fish in water, we barely realize it. Politicians risk losing elections unless they pander to the Christian faithful.
Comment: My bottom line about religious influences on US laws is to wonder, why not allow the standards of, say, Islam reign? All the conservatives who want prayer back in public schools mean only Christian prayer, of course, and would throw hissy-fits if schools allowed Muslim children to pray to Mecca twice a day (the two of the five times a day that occur during school hours). In fact, conservatives Christians rail about the threat of Sharia law, which to non-religious folk seems not much different than Christian Biblically based law (and science). In the US, despite the Constitution, despite Thomas Jefferson, it’s only Christianity that matters.
The article goes on to discuss secularism, and how this has been handled in other countries — India, France — and what American might do. The article ends: