Separation Anxiety
Ever since the Supreme Court's Ten Commandments decision on Monday (no-go on public display, sort of), the usual suspects have come out to whine that "separation of church and state" is not in the First Amendment, but comes from a letter written by Jefferson in 1802.
I'm perfectly satisfied that separation is an important part of the First Amendment (it's a good historical and logical reading of the two religion clauses), and the main question today should be how to apply it, not whether it exists.
But I'm not writing this post to make that claim--too many others have done it already (some of the arguments: "separation of powers" and "checks and balances" don't appear in the Constitution either; the idea of separation, or a metaphorical wall, between religion and government goes back before the Constitution and is a tradition the Founding Fathers drew upon; the man more responsible for the Constitution than anyone else, Madison, used very similar phrases to Jefferson's a number of times).
Still, here's what gets me. A lot of anti-separationists act as if Jefferson tossed off this letter: "Having lovely time in Bahamas. Wish you were here. We need a wall of separation between church and state. Best Wishes, T. J."
In fact, Jefferson spent a lot of time on this letter, conferred with others, and understood it was a major public statement on the First Amendment. Which leads me to a question: if he was so obviously wrong, how come (as far as I know) we have no record of a bunch of other Founding Fathers writing Jefferson to the effect "you screwed up, Tom."
By the way, looking over various websites, I found a long and confusing webpage that discusses the claim in yesterday's post regarding the Declaration Of Independence as part of U. S. law.
Columbus Guy says: We're all Googlers now. I found the same web page, but ended up not finding it satisfying, probably for its lack of focus and clarity. But it is worth a link.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:45 AM
2 Comments:
Is it a strawman to say that those who disagree with the current separation interpretation belittle Jefferson's thoughts on same in the aforementioned letter? Does your idea of separation comply with Jefferson's. At the time (before and after Jefferson's letter) several states had their own state religions. At the time qualifications for office in several states was membership in a church or ascribing to a creed. All of this with TJ's awareness and not specifically with his condemnation. His idea of separation did not include scratching the Ten Commandments from the walls or habing the Supremes do interior design for every federal building in the country. There evidence points in another direction.
Thanks for your comments.
1) I'm hardly making a strawman argument when a good portion of those who talk about Jefferson's letter are quite insistent that separation of church and state has nothing to do with the First Amendment, and is basically a phantom legal argument.
2) There may be evidence in both directions, but it seems to me it's often distorted by the anti-separationists to make their point. In fact, Jefferson and Madison wrote quite a bit about religion and government, and much of it is sterner than anyone accepts today. They (individually or both) had trouble with goverments (federal and state--though Jefferson was enough of a politician to leave the states alone--that's an incorporation question anyway) observing religious holidays; oppposed chaplains in government and proclamations of days of prayer; felt the First Amendment should prevent anyone from being forced to pray, or to have someone pray on their behalf, or to be taxed so that the money would be spent in tribute to a religion they didn't believe in--even opposed forced contributions to one's own religion; in discussing religious liberty (another phrase not found in the First Amendment) referred to religions other than Christianity or Judaism, and even lack of religion; questioned the miracles in the Bible and thought it could be rewritten; explicity wrote religion is a matter of conscience between a man and his beliefs, and government shouldn't intermeddle.
(A lot of people also think the wall of separation only goes in one direction. Since you don't seem to be making this argument, I won't try to show how this wouldn't really work.)
Separation of church and state is a central doctrine of our society. The idea was around before Jefferson, but the phrase he wrote to crystallize it was picked up and used throughout the 19th century before being adopted by the Supreme Court.
I was taught about the religion clauses of the First Amendment by a man who is presently on the short list for the Supreme Court. He is a conservative, but I think he'd make a fine justice, because he was honest enough (if I recall)to see that the idea of separation is an important part of the First Amendment and has to be dealt with, interpreted, and not treated as if it's some dishonest inconvenience made up by modern religion-haters.
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