The Role of Religion in the Public Square

I tripped over an article written by James K. Fitzpatrick about Sam Harris’ “End of Faith.” The article was originally printed in the Wanderer and reprinted by permission in The Catholic Exchange where I actually read it.

Harris is most definitely in what I call the Militant Secular camp. He describes faith as a species of evil and takes the position that religion and religious faith are dangerous in the modern world. This is something of an extreme position and Mr. Fitzpatrick takes exception to it. Allow me to quote from the article.

“They will treat us civilly and let us pray our rosaries, as long as we keep quiet about matters like abortion and gay marriage. When we speak out on those issues we become religious fanatics and a threat to American values.”

This is a serious question. One cannot expect people of faith to leave their religious beliefs at the door when they enter the political arena. What then is the proper balance of politics and religion?

Needless to say, I disagree with Mr. Fitzpatrick’s assessment of the situation.

Under the twin First Amendment guarantees of freedom of speech and freedom of expression folks can “speak out” upon any issues that they wish. To imply that anyone is trying to deny the faithful that right is, at best, misleading and, at worst, dishonest. The question becomes whether someone is stepping over the line when they attempt to ratify, by law, a moral view which is based upon religion.

When, even with the best of intentions, someone tries to impose their religious morality upon the nation as a whole, they are striking at one of the fundamental foundations of American Democracy. The primary concern is that is precisely what is being advocated by leaders of the so-called Religious Right.

The founding fathers were smart enough to understand that the best way to safeguard both the state and religion was to keep them separate and not allow the imposition of one religion’s morality upon everyone else. Allow me to quote James Madison.

“I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in shewing (sic) that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity the less they are mixed together.” – James Madison

Mr. Fitzpatrick doesn’t have a problem with imposing Christian viewpoints on non-Christians.

“Does not the First Amendment, at the very least, require that our government be genuinely neutral toward all forms of religious belief? Do we think that Christianity is different? Yes, we do think Christianity is different. The problem is how to say that, while at the same time paying respect to the First Amendment and without being ill-mannered toward our fellow citizens who are not Christian. Christian scholars and journalists have shown us how to do it. Robert Bork and Father Richard John Neuhaus come to mind. They have demonstrated in scholarly language that the First Amendment was not written to remove religion from the ‘public square’…”

The problem is you can’t take the position that “Christianity is different” without effectively destroying the foundation of the Establishment Clause in the First Amendment. The Establishment Clause does require that the “government be genuinely neutral toward all forms of religious belief.”

Not only must it be genuinely neutral with respect to different religions, it must be genuinely neutral with respect to religion versus no religion. Neither can the government be hostile toward religion in general nor any one religion in particular. As soon as the government steps away from genuine neutrality it creates a division in society. Adherents of the religion recognized as special become insiders with full privileges while others become outsiders relegated to a form of second class citizenship. Allow me to suggest that a reading of the Fourteenth Amendment might be beneficial at this point (By the way, I find it amusing that Mr. Fitzpatrick is more concerned with being "ill-mannered" than with scuttling the First Amendment and imposing Christianity on non-Christians).

This position is not new and has been repeatedly affirmed, and reaffirmed, by the Supreme Court on numerous occasions. This is the law of the land and enough support for this position is easily found in the writings of the authors of the constitution to satisfy the most ardent “originalist.”

“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 and State.” - Thomas Jefferson

The wall of separation wouldn’t be very effective if we allowed the government to accept the proposition that “Christianity is different” now would it?

As for Bork and Neuhaus, you will excuse me if I prefer the opinions of Madison and Jefferson. Bork is no friend of the First Amendment and would cheerfully scuttle not only the accepted meaning of the Establishment Clause but also Freedom of Speech. In December 2005, Bork wrote an article in the National Review calling for government censorship of popular culture, including television, film and music. In a wonderful application of the principle of “newspeak” Bork declared that "liberty in America can be enhanced by reinstating, legislatively, restraints upon the direction of our culture and morality.”

One has to wonder what Bork’s definition of “liberty” is when censorship is going to enhance it. Allow me to suggest that to Bork “liberty” means agreeing with Robert Bork.

Father John Neuhaus evolved from an anti-war advocate during Vietnam to a neoconservative supporter of Bush’s military escapade in Iraq. Neuhaus has described the war on terrorism as part of a “clash of civilizations.” According to Neuhaus, “the West is now being compelled to recognize itself more clearly for what most Muslims perceive it to be—the Christian West, or Christendom.”

Neuhaus should try taking a trip through most of Western Europe and then tell me the West is “Christendom.” If anything, Neuhaus is more dangerous than Bork, and not only clearly rejects the spirit of the First Amendment, but lines up with the most extreme of the Muslim Fundamentalists by using the language of religious warfare to describe the current unfortunate events in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Keeping religion in the “public square” simply recognizes that religion is going to influence public policy and that there is nothing wrong with this reality if for no other reason than religion has as much a stake in society as anyone else. The issue is now, and always has been, where is the line between influencing public policy and imposing one religion’s view upon society as a whole. I contend that when any religious group engages in a concerted effort to convert its moral opinion into law, it has crossed over that line and discarded the intent of the Establishment Clause and the principle of the separation of church and state.

Many honest men, as fully committed to upholding the First Amendment and the separation of church and state as I am, might challange me on that contention and insist that the line be drawn either to the right, or to the left, of where I'm attempting to put it. Once we have established our points of disagreement, we can then proceed to discuss the question. However with men like Bork and Neuhaus, who would prefer to impose Christianity upon the nation and twist the intent of the First Amendment in order to make that feasible, there is no basis for discussion.

Present day Christians in this country have lost sight of the basic wisdom behind separating church and state. They have lost sight of this wisdom because they have been deceived by demagogues looking to enhance their own political power into believing that there is some sort of nefarious conspiracy against Christianity.

When even a small number of members of a group that comprises some 70% of the population allows itself to be convinced that it is being persecuted, it’s time to raise an eyebrow, and consider circling the wagons. This is a form of paranoia, a very dangerous form of paranoia, and Mr. Fitzpatrick doesn’t help any when he says “there is no question that the mainstream American secularizers are seeking to isolate traditional Christianity onto the periphery of societal life.”

Aside from the fact that this would be impossible when 70% of the population professes to be at least nominally Christian, and us mainstream secularizers are smart enough to realize that, it’s simply not true. What is being questioned is the codification of the Christian moral viewpoint being advocated by the demagogues of the Religious Right.

To my mind several of the fronts in the culture war, including the two areas in the first quote, abortion and gay marriage, are essentially conflicts between a religious viewpoint, which accepts the existence of absolute morality, and a secular viewpoint that rejects the concept of absolute morality.

Let’s consider the question of abortion. That life begins at conception is fundamentally a religious view. Even if one were to accept that position as scientifically valid, there is still the ethical morass associated with balancing the needs of the unborn child’s life with the needs of the mother’s life. If there exists an absolute morality dictated by God, then resolving this issue requires discovering what that absolute morality requires in any situation. If you are convinced you know God’s law, this is easy; if you’re less certain, then it’s not so easy. As a side note, I find it absolutely appalling that so many people accept the idea that the idiots yelling at them from the pulpit or the television screen about “moral values” speak for God.

If one rejects absolute morality then one must conclude that ultimately it is the responsibility of those involved to resolve questions of morality to the best of their ethical ability. There is nothing that gives Christianity, the legislature, or anyone else for that matter, the right, through the auspices of the law, to impose a personal moral view as to the proper resolution of any ethical question upon everyone. It would certainly be proper to use whatever means of verbal, moral, or other legal forms of persuasion are available to convince those in need of a resolution (in other words pregnant women and their advisors) to adhere to a particular moral position, however the idea that anyone has the right to force a moral viewpoint upon others through law must be rejected.

As for gay marriage, while one might argue that opposition to abortion is in fact more than a religious issue, opposition to gay marriage seems to me clearly derived from a number of questionable translations of the Hebrew Bible and some equally questionable interpretations of neologisms in the Epistles.

Again, anyone is free to express their opinion about the morality of the gay lifestyle, gay unions and gay sex, and anyone is free to bring whatever legal means of persuasion they possess to convince folks to abstain from such endeavors. Again, the question becomes whether denying certain citizens of the United States, citizens entitled to equal protection under the law, the financial and emotional benefits of marriage because of a religious issue with what they do in the privacy of the bedroom is stepping over the line.

The proper role of religion in the public arena may well be the single most divisive issue that this country will face in the immediate future. To my mind the Christian faithful are being led down a perilous path by individuals whose primary concern is their own personal benefit.

Only a secular society can guarantee the adherence to democratic principles. Ironically, even Freedom of Religion can only be protected in a society that promotes secular principles above all religions and recognizes that Freedom of Religion includes Freedom from Religion. The mainstream secularizers that Mr. Fitzpatrick frets about are in fact the greatest protectors of Mr. Kilpatrick’s right to practice his religion as he sees fit. In contrast, the folks pushing for the conversion of Christian moral opinions into law represent the greatest danger to Mr. Fitzpatrick’s right to practice his religion as he sees fit. What is frightening is that Mr. Fitzpatrick, among others, seems to believe that it’s just the reverse.