I thought we were done with this nonsense. In 1960, John Kennedy had to deflect fears that his primary loyalty resided in Rome, not in the US Constitution. Some voters charged that JFK would consult the pope before he made important decisions, and quite a few nervous Protestants reprised anti-Catholic rhetoric that was straight out of the Gilded Age. After eking out a narrow victory, Kennedy allayed fears in a masterful inaugural speech in which he told Americans that “here on earth, God’s work must surely be our own.” In 1962, the Supreme Court struck down school prayer; in 1973, it said that a woman had the right to make her own reproductive decisions. Too bad the court didn’t go the whole nine yards and demand that all references to God be struck from US currency, official documents, political speeches, the NFL, and patriotic songs. The court left enough wiggle room for that old demagogue Ronald Reagan to put God back in the voting booth without requiring proof of residency.
Flash forward to 2012, where you’d think that every Republican candidate has been handpicked by the Creator. Even worse, religion keeps popping up in ways that threaten American freedoms. Just recently American bishops forced Barack Obama, a president as pliable as Gumby, to back down on a regulation that would make religious-based hospitals and businesses offer contraceptive benefits in employee healthcare plans. This, the bishops argued, is antithetical to Catholic doctrine and violated principles of religious freedom. No—it doesn’t. The first amendment guarantees personal religious rights, but the Constitution is grounded in the separation of church and state. It’s time to make this explicit and find those seeking to mix religion and politics in violation of the Constitution. There is no place whatsoever for religion in the civic life of Americans.
It is, of course, deeply ironic that Catholic bishops would presume to lecture anyone on such issues. Entrusting moral principles to those who tried to whitewash the church’s pedophilia past is akin to asking Lizzie Borden for advice on axe etiquette. The bishops apparently slept through logic as well as ethics. A public institution is precisely that; Catholics may teach and preach as they wish within the private confines of their churches, but once they open their doors to the broader public, these institutions are no longer private. We have all manner of regulations within the public realm—ask Amish people who have to have reflective triangles on buggies traversing public highways, or Jewish butchers who must meet food inspection codes when they prepare kosher meat. In the case of a Catholic hospital, for instance, an attempt to impose Catholic dogma violates the religious freedom of non-Catholic employees. If that hospital wishes to hire and treat only Catholics, fine, but it should not get any taxpayer money, nor should it be certified. Moreover, any religious leader using the pulpit to influence public opinion should forfeit the tax-exempt status of the church and be forced to register it as a political organization.
Let me repeat: There is no place for religion in American civic life—as John Kennedy tried to tell us. I don’t say this because I’m anti-religion. I’m not. I’m anti-your religion. I’m anti-Rick Santorum’s religion, anti-Mitt Romney’s religion, anti-Pat Robertson’s religion, anti-Elijah Muhammad’s religion, anti-Moshe Hersch’s religion, and anti every other religion you can name insofar as that faith system seeks to dominate public policy. Americans are not “one nation under God,” as devilish a phrase as ever devised by man. We are many nations under many different deities and the moment we express preference for any one of them, none of us have religious freedom. The GOP right is fond of evoking the Founding Fathers, but apparently not even that “historian” Newt Gingrich grasps what they had in mind when they constitutionally forbade the establishment of an official religion in America. What would the USA look like under an official religion? Probably a lot like Massachusetts Bay Colony under the Puritans—a land of imposed orthodoxy that was unwelcoming to Quakers, mainstream Anglicans, Baptists, Catholics, and Native religions. Perhaps one prone to throwing out ecumenical thinkers such as Roger Williams, or uppity women such as Anne Hutchinson. Or maybe one that launches periodic witch hunts. The Founding Fathers understood that Roger Williams was ultimately correct: freedom of conscience and political freedom were incompatible with state-sanctioned religion.
It’s so easy and pious-sounding to evoke God in political life. It’s also facile, heretical, and dangerous. I raise the question: If we are to be one nation under God, whose god? Rick Santorum thinks that life begins at conception; I think it’s just a bunch of cells. Which of us is correct? Catholics think God doesn’t want anyone to use birth control. I find such an idea morally reprehensible in a planet of seven billion people, nearly half of whom live in abject poverty. Who is correct? I have many private spiritual beliefs; some might find a few of them ridiculous. Fine. I find the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation absurd, and to say that I find the back-story behind the Book of Mormon hard to swallow grossly underestimates my position. In my view, a lot of Southern Baptists are Pharisees with funny accents, and any black preacher who opposes gay marriage ought to hang his head low enough to read a good history of the civil rights movement! Who is right?
Who indeed? The greatest heresies ever committed are by those who presume to speak for God. Religion takes place in the realm of faith, things unseen and improvable. It seeks to help us apprehend that which we cannot entirely comprehend; that is, religion as practiced by humans is at best a glimpse into mysteries that pass human understanding. To claim more is to presume some Americans know the mind of God, a view that most faiths would consider heretical.
But Americans can read the Constitution. That’s the beauty of a nation under law rather than under God—there is one standard for all, be that person a Baptist, a Mormon, a Jew, a Muslim, a freethinker, or a Catholic bishop. American society can only function as a secular one that protects private beliefs, but also demands public decorum and collective rights. The day that Americans decide to place Jehovah or Allah or Jesus or the pope or the Angel Moroni in the Oval Office will be our day of reckoning. Expect plagues of locusts, not heavenly trumpets.
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2 comments:
I certainly agree with your assessment of the contraception issue, public money=public rules. And with the idea that no religion should run society. But I think a religion does run society, Deism.
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2012/02/simon-critchley-faith-of-the-faithless.html?mbid=social_retweet
Perhaps, but Deism is a vague moral philosophy/religion whose theology is akin to what is often called the Clockwinder God--that a creator cranked up the universe, put it on a timer, and left us to our devices. JFK invoked such a view with his remark that here on earth God's work must be our own. And I disagree that it's faith for the faithless. The same charge is leveled against Quakerism. Why must faith presume dogma? And why must faith presume a deity at all? Could not one have faith in the Constitution? I actually hold some religious views, but none that I think would impose as universal public policy. I also think Jesus meant to separate church and state, the lesson embedded in his "render unto Caesar" remark. LV
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