Separation of Church and State
Left Versus Right
| November 10, 2009
| Tim
Numerous left-leaning friends, associates, and relatives have argued that when religious people legislate or vote from their convictions, it "violates the separation of church and state." In other words, they imply we must get abolish the First Amendment in order to save it.
Apparently this is nothing new. Via the Corner:
It is an attempt to establish a theocracy to take charge of our politics and our legislation. It is an attempt to make the legislative power of this country subordinate to the church. It is not only to unite Church and State, but it is to put the State in subordination to the dictates of the church.
That was Stephen Douglas's argument as to why it was unconstitutional to ban slavery: because his opponents, the Republicans, were acting from their conscience, generally from religious motivations. If my left-leaning friends were consulted, evidently slavery should have continued, on the grounds that religious people provided the most opposition to it.
The spread of the "separation of church and state" meme to the point where people actually seem to believe it is in the Constitution is just plain infuriating. The "establishment" clause relates to a time when you weren't allowed to choose whether to be religious -- rather the state chose your church for you.
So, really the argument is negated there. But, what the first amendment does say, is that the free exercise of religion may not be prohibited. This clearly amounts to nothing more than restricting the free speech of religious peoples.
So -- if you are religious, you are allowed no say in the government, unless you are somehow able to create some split brain theory of "I believe this, but it has nothing to do with my religious convictions!". Which, the pressure that's really being applied is -- "You can not vote your religions convictions unless that happens to coincidentally agree with the popular non-religious view." Sweet. I guess these losers are up a creek, never being able to legislate that which would just happen to coincide with various religious morals.
But, then, which "religion" do we use? Not all are in agreement on each issue! We can get ourselves in a wonderful stalemate on any issue, just by finding some religion that supports that view!
Pro-life! No! That agrees with religion X morals! Dang.
Pro-choice! No! That agrees with religion Y's moral stance! Ha! -- Now what you gonna do?
Good luck! So, if we don't like a particular piece of legislation, all we have to do is find some religious sect that morally supports it, and then we can say that support of that point of view violates separation of church and state.
Actually doesn't sound so bad!
But, we know this doesn't work, because the modern "separation of church and state" really means "separation of christians and state"
Anyway...
It's all just a convenient way of "winning" an argument by disqualfying the other party, instead of discussing the relative merits of the arguments. In other words -- The Ad Hominem logical fallacy.
And of course all of this shows a complete (willful?) misunderstanding of even the intentions and history of both the establishment clause and the so-called "separation of church and state".
But, what the first amendment does say, is that the free exercise of religion may not be prohibited...
When I raise this, one friend pointed out we have a "living, breathing" Constitution. So we have no rights if a group of judges (well, the ones who agree with him, anyway) fail to notice them.
It's all just a convenient way of "winning" an argument by disqualfying the other party, instead of discussing the relative merits of the arguments. In other words -- The Ad Hominem logical fallacy.
No disagreement here. It also constitutes, tellingly, a religious test for office.
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The spread of the "separation of church and state" meme to the point where people actually seem to believe it is in the Constitution is just plain infuriating. The "establishment" clause relates to a time when you weren't allowed to choose whether to be religious -- rather the state chose your church for you.
So, really the argument is negated there. But, what the first amendment does say, is that the free exercise of religion may not be prohibited. This clearly amounts to nothing more than restricting the free speech of religious peoples.
So -- if you are religious, you are allowed no say in the government, unless you are somehow able to create some split brain theory of "I believe this, but it has nothing to do with my religious convictions!". Which, the pressure that's really being applied is -- "You can not vote your religions convictions unless that happens to coincidentally agree with the popular non-religious view." Sweet. I guess these losers are up a creek, never being able to legislate that which would just happen to coincide with various religious morals.
But, then, which "religion" do we use? Not all are in agreement on each issue! We can get ourselves in a wonderful stalemate on any issue, just by finding some religion that supports that view!
Pro-life! No! That agrees with religion X morals! Dang.
Pro-choice! No! That agrees with religion Y's moral stance! Ha! -- Now what you gonna do?
Good luck! So, if we don't like a particular piece of legislation, all we have to do is find some religious sect that morally supports it, and then we can say that support of that point of view violates separation of church and state.
Actually doesn't sound so bad!
But, we know this doesn't work, because the modern "separation of church and state" really means "separation of christians and state"
Anyway...
It's all just a convenient way of "winning" an argument by disqualfying the other party, instead of discussing the relative merits of the arguments. In other words -- The Ad Hominem logical fallacy.
And of course all of this shows a complete (willful?) misunderstanding of even the intentions and history of both the establishment clause and the so-called "separation of church and state".
Posted by: Harry on November 12, 2009 04:10 PM