You Can Tell It Is Getting Close To Christmas
A battle is brewing in Wisconsin over whether or not a nativity scene can be displayed on the median of a street. I still have yet to find the separation of church and state in the Constitution. Is this even implied? The First Amendment states that there will be no state sponsored religion. I am fine with the state not sponsoring a religion and by letting this nativity scene stand they are not sponsoring since the state did not put it up in the first place.
We are fed this separation junk on a daily basis and yet I find that if you commit a crime against someone that is Jewish then it is a hate crime. If you commit a crime against a Christian then it is a crime. Is this not sponsorship of a religion or at the very least placing Judaism into a protected class? This is not about Jews and Christians, but about how goofed up our government is. I do not deny anyone there right to display their religious symbols and I do not want mine denied either. We can keep fighting or people can stop making this life difficult and get along.
I am going to pick on NS Allen again in this post. I am sure that he/she will be the one to go into some diatribe about how the separation of church and state is not quoted as such, but is implied by the wording blah blah blah. If you are going to comment as I am sure you are then PLEASE show me where it says THE SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE in the United States Constitution. We can all assume whatever we want, but I have read the First Amendment several times and it simply does not state this. There is no harm in the public display of Christian symbols at Christmas time.
Austin
It is only a constitutional issue for nativity scenes. Put up cresent…you are good to go.
Oh that’s right, there are no Churches in Islam, so no issue.
The constitution’s specific language in the 1st amendment is “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” As you noted, the phrase “separation of church and state” does not appear – rather, that term derives from an explanation Thomas Jefferson gave of the amendment in his correspondence.
The important point, though, is that the 1st amendment also doesn’t read “Congress shall not establish a state-sponsored religion.” When you claim that’s what it means, you’re engaging in interpretation – specifically, interpretation of the phrase “establishment of religion.” You take that phrase to mean a state church, while the legal minds appointed to interpret the Constitution on the Supreme Court take the Founding Fathers to have meant something much broader. “Establishment of religion” doesn’t explicitly mean either.
(Given that Thomas Jefferson WAS one of those Founder guys and that “separation of church and state” comes from his explanation of religious freedom in the U.S., the Court’s interpretation is much more plausible than yours. It also happens to be the legally binding one.)
The problem in this specific case is that a holiday display from a certain religion is being set up on public – government-owned – land. The government is therefore implicitly sponsoring the message of that display. From what I can recall, the display would be legally solid if it displayed the winter holiday symbols of other religions (in addition to the Nativity) and possibly even if it included symbols that the Court has taken to be semi-secular, like the Christmas tree.
(Of note, with regards to hate crimes: hate crimes laws protect certain categories like “race” and “religion,” not specific groups of people like “African-Americans” and “Jews.” If you find yourself accosted by some guy in a yarmulke, who assaults you while yelling anti-Christian epithets? You can probably make a case under just about any hate crimes law in the U.S.
Likewise if you were victimized for being white, straight, male, etc. We just don’t hear a lot about hate crimes against those groups, because hate crimes against those groups are barely existent in the U.S.)
Those crimes barely exist in this country? Where the hell do you live? I know it cannot be the United States. Do you really think there are more white on black crimes than black on white or even black on black? WOW! What does one say to someone that makes a statement like that?
Thanks for making my point about you commenting on my post.
You don’t seem to understand what a hate crime is.
Look: I’m white. If I walk outside right now and punch some guy at random, and he happens to be black, I can’t be convicted under a hate crimes law. If I walk outside, find a black guy, and yell racial slurs while kicking him, I can.
Likewise, if I walk outside and happen to be mugged by a black guy, he can’t be prosecuted under hate crimes laws. If I am mugged by a black guy who yells about white devils or whatever else, he probably can!
Hate crimes are crimes motivated by antipathy against certain protected categories like race or religion, not crimes that happen to be committed against people who happen to belong to certain races or religions.
Please learn what the things you’re talking about are before you try to talk about them, from now on.
The phrase “separation of church and state” is but a metaphor to describe the underlying principle of the First Amendment and the no-religious-test clause of the Constitution. The absence of the phrase in the text of the Constitution assumes much importance, it seems, only to those who may have once labored under the misimpression the words appeared there and later learned of their mistake. To those familiar with the Constitution, the absence of the metaphor commonly used to describe one of its principles is no more consequential than the absence of other phrases (e.g., Bill of Rights, separation of powers, checks and balances, fair trial, religious liberty) used to describe other undoubted Constitutional principles.
While some try to pass off the Supreme Court’s decisions, particularly Everson v. Board of Education, as simply a misreading of Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists, that letter played but a small part in the Court’s decisions. Perhaps even more than Jefferson, James Madison influenced the Court’s view. Madison, who had a central role in drafting the Constitution and First Amendment, confirmed that he understood them to “[s]trongly guard[] . . . the separation between Religion and Government.” Madison, Detached Memoranda (~1820). He made plain, too, that they guarded against more than just laws creating state sponsored churches or imposing a state religion. Mindful that old habits die hard and that tendencies of citizens and politicians could and sometimes did lead them to entangle government and religion (e.g., “the appointment of chaplains to the two houses of Congress” and “for the army and navy” and “[r]eligious proclamations by the Executive recommending thanksgivings and fasts”), he considered the question whether these were “consistent with the Constitution, and with the pure principle of religious freedom” and responded: “In strictness the answer on both points must be in the negative. The Constitution of the United States forbids everything like an establishment of a national religion.”
When discussing separation of church and state, it is critical to avoid the all-too-common mistake of conflating the “public square” with “government.” The principle of separation of church and state does not purge religion from the public square–far from it. Indeed, the First Amendment’s “free exercise” clause assures that each individual is free to exercise and express his or her religious views–publicly as well as privately. The First Amendment constrains only the government not to promote or otherwise take steps toward establishment of religion.
As government can only act through the individuals comprising its ranks, when those individuals are performing their official duties (e.g., public school teachers instructing students in class), they effectively are the government and thus should conduct themselves in accordance with the First Amendment’s constraints on government. When acting in their individual capacities, they are free to exercise their religions as they please. If their right to free exercise of religion extended even to their discharge of their official responsibilities, however, the First Amendment constraints on government establishment of religion would be eviscerated.
While figuring out whether someone is speaking for the government in particular circumstances may sometimes be difficult, making the distinction is critical. Here the government is allowing someone to display a religious message on public land where it will be, by design, seen by many as they drive past on the street. To the extent that reasonable people might see the display as the government’s endorsement of religion, there is a legitimate First Amendment concern.
The First Amendment embodies the simple, just idea that each of us should be free to exercise his or her religious views without expecting that the government will endorse or promote those views and without fearing that the government will endorse or promote the religious views of others. By keeping government and religion separate, the establishment clause serves to protect the freedom of all to exercise their religion. Reasonable people may differ, of course, on how these principles should be applied in particular situations, but the principles are hardly to be doubted. Moreover, they are good, sound principles that should be nurtured and defended, not attacked. Efforts to transform our secular government into some form of religion-government partnership should be resisted by every patriot.
I do understand hate crimes laws and there should not be hate crimes laws. By nature if you walk out of the door and punch a black guy then you did not do it because you like him. All crimes of that nature would be considered hate crimes because they sure are not crimes of love. The same would go for a white guy being hit by a black guy. Just because someone calls the other a racial name before beating his ass does not make the crime any better or worse. This is foolishness aimed at our society wanting to be politically correct.
As for Church and State the simple reason for that wording in the Constitution is because of Church Of England and their control in GB. The founders of this nation did not want the same to happen in this country as it did in England. Look at Ireland into the late 20th century. You cannot support one over the other, but allowing someone to display a nativity scene is not a church and state issue.