December 21, 2014 5:00 AM

Sorry to disappoint y'all...but you can't have a theocracy for Christmas

If you haven’t heard, Satanists will be placing a holiday display in Michigan’s Capitol. This is in response to the decision to permit a Nativity at the statehouse. It was inevitable. If government opens its buildings for displays from some private organizations — including churches — it cannot discriminate against others, even those that we might find reprehensible — that’s the First Amendment’s freedom of speech. If government is putting up a holiday display, it cannot focus exclusively on Christian or Jewish and Christian symbols — that’s the First Amendment’s prohibition on religious establishment.

“America is a Christian nation!” is one of the Religious Right’s favorite mantras. It has to be, because they repeat it incessantly. Unfortunately, parroting a falsehood doesn’t do anything to increase its veracity. In fact, doing so only betrays a distressingly ignorance of American history. The bottom line, of course, is that this land was first settled by those fleeing religious persecution in England. The Founding Fathers understood the folly of creating a system of governance in which the roles of Church and State were intermingled. They knew, in some cases from direct experience, that mixing religion and politics was a recipe for tyranny…and so they decided to create a secular system of governance. In this way, government would have no basis to discriminate based on religious beliefs, nor would it be allowed to advance the interests of one religion over another.

To understand why this strict separation of Church and State has been created a wise and enduring system, one need only look at modern-day examples like Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Somalia, and…well, you get the point. Tyranny is the inevitable result when governance is conflated with theology, and the Founding Fathers were wise enough to give us a system that recognized the importance of religious faith to many without granting it political or legislative power.

This is why the controversy over religious displays on government property is so important. The separation of Church and State is strict and absolute, which is exactly what the Founding Fathers intended…as did religious leaders (yes, even Evangelicals) when they created this country. Now there are those who loudly decry the “fact” that “God has been excluded from government.” Well, duh; that’s the way things were set up. Religious Conservatives may not like it, but then they don’t have to…because the Constitution and history aren’t on their side.

These recurring battles over church/state and the insistence by many that government be enlisted to support their religion — displaying religious symbols or Ten Commandment monuments in courthouses, public schools and parks — tend to miss two important aspects of the history of church/state separation.

First, while Thomas Jefferson and James Madison demanded a strict separation of church and state based upon Enlightenment ideals, they were broadly supported by 18th-Century evangelicals, especially Baptists and Presbyterians….

Second, while Jefferson and Madison and their evangelical allies demanded a secular government, they did not expect nor did they seek a secular society. They expected that people would be religious (although Jefferson rather naively believed that all Americans would become Unitarian), and private individuals were understood to be free to express their religious views, even in public.

Religion in the 18th century was something far more prevalent and mandatory than it is today, yet even then the deeply religious recognized the importance of keeping governance separated from theology. They understood that the introduction of religion into public life represented a slippery slope. They recognized that once they started down that slope, arresting the inexorable downward slide would be difficult and very likely impossible.

This is why religious displays on government property is such an important issue. The 1st Amendment’s Establishment Clause prohibits Congress from passing laws that advance the interests of one religion at the expense of others. The Treaty of Tripoli expressly states that the U.S. is in no way founded on the Christian religion. Thomas Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists echoes this theme as well. With that in mind, it’s not a stretch to view the placement of a Nativity scene on a courthouse lawn as an implicit endorsement of Christianity…which is exactly what it represents. The only way to make placing a Nativity scene on government property pass muster is to open that property to displays from any and all religions, which under the best of circumstances can only be an invitation to chaos.

(Uh, yeah…the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is on line one…something about wanting to install a colander on the courthouse lawn??)

When Satanists demanded that they be allowed to install a holiday display in Michigan’s Capitol building, religious Conservatives in state government had only themselves to blame. By opening the Capitol to a Christian display, they opened the floodgates. While many Michiganders are offended that Satanists will be allowed to install their display, their anger and dismay is misdirected. The Satanists are only exercising their 1st Amendment rights; if Christians are allowed to install a holiday display in the Capitol, than ANY religious group may ask to do the same.

And this is why the separation of Church and State is so crucial. Before Conservatives launch the “But the words ‘separation of Church and State’ aren’t in the Constitution!!” argument at me, let me just end that by agreeing. Those words AREN’T in the Constitution, but the intent of the Founding Fathers is clear, and there’s a preponderance of historical evidence to support that.

If you feel the need to complain about “religious discrimination” this holiday season, just remember to be careful what you ask for…because you just might get it. Along with the accompanying chaos and hurt feelings. Is that REALLY what you’re after?

Sorry, y’all…but you’re not getting a theocracy for Christmas. We’re fresh out.

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on December 21, 2014 5:00 AM.

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