I have always been interested in how the Separation of Church and State seems to come up so often in a country founded by religious people. The Ten Commandments debate in Alabama made me look at the actual constitution again. Here is what 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.
It says pretty plainly that Congress cannot establish a religion. It doesn’t say that Alabama cannot. It also says that they cannot prohibit the free exercise thereof. Does anyone think that means that the Supreme Court was designed to do whatever it wants, but Congress is limited? Nowhere in the document are the words, “separation of church and state” used. That was a 1960s idea put forward by the Supreme Court led by Earl Warren.
What did Jefferson say about God in the Declaration of Independence?
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--
Jefferson’s words "endowed by their creator" are the essence of why the United States exists. Before America, your rights were something given to you by a king or pope. The king throughout history was thought to be God’s vessel and his decisions were sanctioned by God. This is why Henry VIII broke away from the Roman Catholic Church. By being the head of his own church he could not be questioned on any matter religious or public.
During the age of enlightenment, philosophers re-examined the relationship between ruler and ruled. The idea of Natural Law came into the consciousness. Natural Law states that human beings have rights separate from the will of popes and kings. This is the foundation of how America could come into being. Once rights were understood to have come from God and not kings, then they were “unalienable” as Jefferson would say.
Our founders believed that England was infringing on the rights of free men and started the revolution. The Constitution of the United States took this idea further by spelling out a Bill of Rights that the government couldn’t infringe upon. The founders were worried that future leaders would try to become kings and rule by fiat. This couldn’t be done if the Bill of Rights protected specific rights.
Alexander Hamilton was actually against the Bill of Rights. He thought that you couldn’t list every single right in a document and that someday the government would infringe on understood rights that weren’t spelled out in the writing. Madison won out and we have a Bill of Rights, but Hamilton’s fear was incorporated into the 9th amendment. The 10th Amendment leaves everything not spelled out as a Federal issue to state governments. Between the two, the Federal Government was left powerless to decide local issues.
So enter Earl Warren and his take on the Supreme Court’s place in society. His belief that any mention of God was contrary to the Constitution was not backed up by the Bill of Rights, but invented in order to push forward other social policy. Once the Supreme Court denied the presence of God in public life, people forgot the importance of God in political life. I don’t mean in the religious sense, but the philosophical sense. These mentions of God were throughout society not only for worship, but to justify Natural Rights. So long as God is recognized the idea that our rights derive from him can live. You don’t have to be a Christian to respect the importance of that. Thomas Jefferson himself was not sure of Christ’s divinity, he thought of Christ as more of a philosopher than a God. But he invoked God into the document because it is the key component of Natural Rights.
When Natural Rights are taken out of public life, where do our rights come from? A king, of course. Who has become the king? The Supreme Court. The court has jumped and decided a number of questions that were really the province of the legislative branch. They now write laws by ruling on cases finding phantom constitutional rights in some place while denying actual constitutional rights in other places.
We can’t even put people on the federal bench, because the court has become so important that Democrats mostly, but even Republicans have won decisions there that they cannot win inside the halls of Congress. The judges have become so important that we fear the addition of a few new ones will change the whole structure of a “progressive” society.
In the past, important questions were decided by the legislative branch, because it was closest to the people. Groups may win or lose a law, but they always knew that an election could turn that law around. That is why we have elections. The people debate and vote and the law is decided. The court is there to obey the rule of law and brings justice accordingly. Instead, the court is becoming a place where politicians get what they want independently from what the people want.
Our rights are no longer protected by the Constitution when the Constitution can mean whatever the judges want it to mean. Natural Rights are not even talked about anymore. The judges are usurping the power that was hard won by a revolution and a civil war. They did it by convincing Jews, Muslims, Druids, Witches, Atheists, Agnostics and other non-Christians that the dominant religion wasn’t inclusive enough, therefore invalid. The judges divided the people by their own prejudices and then conquered the constitution that was limiting their power. They didn’t explain to non-Christians that the recognition of God was protecting their rights. They used the example of religious zealots to scare non-believers.
By eliminating God have we entered into a new age of enlightenment based on reason alone? No, now we worship religions like diversity and multi-lateralism, and other fads that depend on faith. We transfer our belief in the divine to a belief in equality. We trade the idea of heaven for the idea of heaven on Earth. Who will provide that new heaven? The King, of course. Thus, the confirmation of judges is becoming the coronation of kings.
That's the real issue in Alabama. The courts have done everything to stamp out the public acknowledgement of the one thing more powerful than they are. Aside form the speculation of whether Judge Moore is a devout Christian or a political opportunist, the debate has been a religious one. The speculation that the court might be ruling to protect its own power has not even come up. This is worrisome to anyone who loves liberty.
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