What Does Separation of Church and State Really Mean?
Posted on January 10, 2006
from Part-Time Pundit
The much-bandied about phrase “separation of church and state” means different things to different people. To those from the secular humanist persuasion, it means that the state can make no public acknowledgement of religion, have no religious displays, recognize no tax exemptions for churches, and goes so far to regulate even religious expressions of private individuals in the public arena out of line. One also hears that any attempt by others to “moralize” or use any religious values to argue for a policy should be silenced. On the other hand, there are those who believe the matter is simply that the government should not establish an official state church, or that a church should not be anointing officials in the government. Other than that, people should believe and practice how they see fit. Both sides couch their arguments on constitutional theories, some involving Thomas Jefferson’s wall of separation letter.
To consider this issue, it is important to consider the historical situation of the framers and what they intended. To recap, they were declaring independence from the King of England. There is one important title for the monarch of England that is relevant to this issue, “Supreme Governor of the Church of England”. Not only was the Church of England the official state religion (and still is), but the King himself was the head of that Church. This insured that his political reach not only extended in the public realm, but from the pulpit and even into the confessional. The hierarchy of the church was subservient to the king. This led to abuses in both directions, those by the church and those by the government.
The founders did not declare independence from England because they wanted to set up a secular state. They declared independence because of a long train of abuses and usurpations of government power against its people. They were concerned about matters of tyranny, not theology. The Boston Tea Party was about taxes (and thus enshrined in American tradition the fine art of bitching about taxes) not about Baptists throwing Presbyterian’s Bibles into the Atlantic. The Declaration itself made liberal use of religion in general, as did the Founders in their public statements. Even in Jefferson’s Wall letter, he expresses religious sentiment and asks for prayers. It’s obviously clear; it isn’t religious expression they are worried about.
The choice of phrase is important, “separation of church and state”. Jefferson doesn’t say separation of religion and state. He is talking about institutionalseparation. Ireland’s official church is the Roman Catholic Church, as is Poland’s. In England, it’s the Church of England. These aren’t religions in general but specific religious institutions. No nation has “Christianity” as the official state religion for a very good reason. The reason is that there’s about 50,000 some odd flavors that run the gamut from the Mormons to the Unitarians. Some Christians say Jesus established a hierarchical church, others say he was a social activist, still others say he was an anarchist. Saying Christianity is the official state religion would border on effective meaninglessness. It wasn’t the ideas that the Founders were afraid of which is why they were perfectly free praying together and expressing religious sentiment in public documents and speeches. Institutional corruption and tyranny were there concerns.
The results of institutional-mingling of churches and governments are quite clear in history and it hasn’t been beneficial for the state or the church. However, this is a far cry from divining an intent that projects the idea that “religion is all that’s wrong with the world” upon the Founders. There was a camp among the Founders who believed that a free society required a religious people and yet still continued to allow free association between the various churches.
However, the crowd pushing separation most vigorously also is the crowd that’s trying to regulate certain religious beliefs out of existence. Pharmacists aren’t allowed to express their religious sentiments about abortion and retain their jobs. The argument is that they shouldn’t take the job if they don’t follow a pre-defined ethical construct approved by the government. Catholic hospitals are consistently fighting attempts to force them to provide abortions despite their clear religious teaching. Catholic Charities in California was required to recognize “gay marriage” despite their own beliefs. School children (a.k.a. individual citizens not to be confused with government officials) are told that they aren’t allowed to pray or have bible studies on school property. In one case, school children were threatened with federal prison if they dared utter a prayer on their own volition during a graduation ceremony. The IRS has investigated churches for preaching against abortion. In short, the wall of separation is growing to enforce a certain religious orthodoxy and not protect the free expression of religion that was also mentioned in the First Amendment.
The irony of setting up such a system where beliefs are regulated to some level of appropriate orthodoxy on issues such as abortion is that the sword cuts both ways depending on the whims of government. When right-wing churches complained about IRS harassment, the left-wing told them to stop talking about abortion instead. However, when an antiwar sermon brought the IRS, the left-wing cried foul. The problem with state regulation of religion is that its regulation will serve its own interests, usually on sale to the highest bidder. The Founders were rightly concerned about this abuse, which is why in the same breath of saying the State should establish no official religion; it should also in no way restrict reasonable expressions of religion.
Contrary to the opinion of some, the First Amendment doesn’t require regulating religion into hiding; it requires that they remain institutionally separate. The mere expression of the word “God” in a speech does not a theocracy make.
» Filed Under ACLU, Activist Judges
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21 Responses to “What Does Separation of Church and State Really Mean?”
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Syndicate Me
And with so many people that can be categorized as Founding Fathers, why do we focus this debate on one phrase Thomas Jefferson wrote once? I’m fairly certain that some of those other guys wrote some stuff too.
There are so many examples of the Founders taking actions that are contrary to the current interpretation of the Establishment Clause that many of these debates should have foregone conclusions.
Too true. The only possible violator of the First Amendment is the government, and that is only if it is making or writing religion of some kind into law. Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Ben Franklin, James Maddison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Adams all made public and private statements of Christianity, and even made demonstration of the faith. Jefferson even used tax-dollars to convert Indians to Christianity.
Even Thomas Paine, who was a deist, not a Christian, gave special attention that our Constitution and Bill of Rights were formatted around Christianity. Everyone knows this. That any other interpretation of the establishment clause is even being entertained sickens me.
One other thought: This does not mean we should establish a theocracy. There are many fellow Christians out there making a name for themselves off of battling to get Bibles in public schools, (instead of getting rid of the public schools like they should)and just doing everything to make everyone practice Christianity. Not only is this illegal, Jesus would never O.K. the practice. We’ll have our theocracy when He gets back. If He wanted it now He’d already be here.
Lets be honest. When they established Atheism at the official religion of the United States the so called Justices knew that the Founders had made a general form of Christianity the federal religion and let the states decide what to do for themselves. The Justices at that time were all appointed by Democrats, who also embraced the socialist movement. The government regulates religion in public and opresses those expressing their religious liberty like praying.
Excellent post. I have been wanting to write about this subject for some time, and this is a great help in focusing my point.
PS: Sorry, I missed last week’s blogburst! I’m not dropping out, I just had too much else on my plate that day, and it slipped by me.
PPS: I did write a post along similar lines, though nowhere as good as this one. It’s just another LEAVRANT, at http://leavworld.blogspot.com/2005_06_01_leavworld_archive.html
-It’s old, and I’m lazy, so I didn’t want to use a trackback.
“Pharmacists aren’t allowed to express their religious sentiments about abortion and retain their jobs.”
Not quite. As long as they carry out their job functions, they can go on ad infinitum about their religious convinctions. Women would rather have pharmacists hand out Christian tracts along with their Ortho-Novum and bark about God and sin than quietly deny them their medication.
Excellent. It couldn’t have been written any better.
The best and most balanced treatment of the issue I’ve seen yet. Good work!
In regards to Bibles and prayer in school, I don’t see a problem with general prayers in concept.
However, school classes in Bible studies I’m against for very practical reasons. Who do you think public schools are going to teach it? People sympathetic to Christianity or people opposed?
That and there are 50,000 takes on the Bible, which ones do you emphasize?
Re: Where’s my Haldol?
There are ways to be a jerk in any endeavor. If pharmacists devolve into religious lectures at ever Plan B dispersal, that’s a wholly different consideration than whether they should be forced to or not. Customer service skills and professionalism come to mind.
Saying, “sorry, mam, my conscience does not allow me to fill such perscriptions” is good enough.
“Saying, ’sorry, mam, my conscience does not allow me to fill such perscriptions’ is good enough.”
Provided, of course, the pharmacist in question doesn’t work for one of the major chains like Rite-Aid and CVS that bar their employees from failing to fulfill their duties on the basis of moral or religious convictions. First and foremost, pharmacists who refuse to fill prescriptions for such reasons are obligated to arrange straightaway for the prescription to be filled by another employee. This is only fair; only an idiot would become a pharmacist while knowing full well that he or she would be often hamstrung by dogmatic beliefs.
Your post was fair, but I was merely pointing out that the expressing of opinions regarding abortion per se has, to my knowledge, never been grounds for terminating the employment of a pharmacist.
Except that discrimination on the basis of religion is illegal.
There are thousands of perscriptions that pharmacists fill. We’re talking about maybe 3. Hamstrung is a little excessive.
“Except that discrimination on the basis of religion is illegal.”
Try to convince any court in the United States (excluding Texas, I suppose) that asking a religiously pro-life pharmacist to perform his or her job as plainly spelled out in company policy — and sanctioning hiom or her as a result of failing to do so — is “illegal discrimination.”
What about people whose religion forbids them to work on Mondays? If they take a nine-to-five and then refuse to come to work on Mondays, and wind up getting canned as a result, is this also illegal discrimination? Please.
We aren’t talking about working on mondays we are talking about matters of conscience.
A company cannot force an employee to come in on Sunday, for instance, if their religion prohibits it, yes. If they are hiring for a position that requires Sunday work and don’t hire someone because they can’t work that day, it’s valid.
However, providing death pills to kill babies is a far cry from scheduling.
Death pills to kill babies. That’s a good one.
I particularly enjoy the ‘abortion stops a beating heart bumper stickers’, even though the heart isn’t formed for at least 9 weeks. That’s 2+ months into the pregnancy.
Anyhow, decent post with the exception of the phrasing “expression of religion” referred to many times. The first amendment says “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Is preventing someone from leading a prayer at a high school graduation preventing them from excercising their religion? How would the removal of the ten commandments affect the free exercise of anyone’s religion? What does free mean? You can do it anywhere? Sex is legal, but you can’t do it anywhere…
Well, those “death pills to kill babies” (you don’t have a grasp on physiology, but you’ve got the standard anti-abortion demagoguery down pat) are legal in the United States, so if a pharmacist finds his conscience troubled when filling prescriptions for these “death pills,” he should find a new job. You don’t see people ethically opposed to slaughtering animals for meat working in butcher shops, and there’s a good reason for this.
Something tells me pharmacists are well aware of OCP before gaining licensure and seeking employment. The bottom line is that if someone’s conscience runs afoul of the law, it’s not the law that has the problem.
Sure they are legal, but they aren’t mandatory, and that’s my point. If you are seriously pro-life you want government intervention to limit us from working in entire industries so that an orthodoxy can be enforced.
Preventing someone from leading a prayer at high school is absolutley violating someone’s religious freedom. Yes, freedom means free. The only enforcment went it comes to religion as allowed by the Constitution is regulating the government from making religion law. Period. Your comparison to sex is ridiculous. There is a freedom of religion clause. There is not a freedom of sex clause. We have decency laws prohibiting sex from public places. We have no decency laws prohibiting prayer from public places.
Btwl, abortion can happen 2 months after conception. Ever heard of partial birth abortion?
“Preventing someone from leading a prayer at high school is absolutley violating someone’s religious freedom.”
If someone wants to pray on his or her own in school, and can do so without disrupting anything, that’s fine. But forcing other students to go along with sectarian prayers being “led” by someone else is a clear violation of *their* religious freedom.
A moment of silence to so with as students wish is fine. A group chant to specifically give thanks to Yahweh, God, Allah, Thor or Shiva is not.
“Btwl, abortion can happen 2 months after conception. Ever heard of partial birth abortion?”
I hope you don’t think that an abortion performed at 2 months’ gestation is a partial-birth abortion, but given your whimsical ideas about various aspects of biological science, you probably do.
Partial-birth abortions make up a tiny fraction of all elective abortions and are only performed when the mother’s health is at risk. The hysterical anti-abortion crowd naturally ignores this, along with the fact that about 9 in 10 abortions are performed in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy.
How can you FORCE someone to pray? I am against this. Are they putting guns to people’s heads, or chopping their heads off it they don’t pray to Allah? Who is forcing people to pray. I would like to know.
It certainly isn’t a kid at a graduation ceremony expressing their religion. If you don’t like it, don’t listen. Put your fingers in your ears.
Where’s My Haldol: Yes, I know what partial birth aboriton means.
“Partial birth abortion makes up a tiny fraction…”
Who cares? It shouldn’t happen at all.
“and are only performed when the mother’s health is at risk.”
Oh, so that’s why they crack the back of the child’s head open like an eggshell as it comes out, or stab it in the head with scissors as it makes its way from the womb. Because they can’t save the mother any other way than that, even with all the “genius” biologists we have.
“forcing other students to along with sectarian prayers…”
You’ll have to look up forced in the dictionary for deranged evolutionists I guess. Leading a prayer in school does not force anyone to pray. You pray along if you want to. What students are forced to do is TOLERATE it, the same way we Christians are forced to tolerate everyone else’s nonsense. Tolerate is a word liberals like to use yet never practice. There is nothing in the law preventing a student from leading prayer in school or doing an altar call even. There is law (the Constitution) that says the government (which includes government funded establishments like the DEP) cannot trample someone’s religious expression.
As I said before, this could all be solved by yanking the funding from the DEP, which never should have been there.