In the ecumenical spirit, I'll assume Sunday is a day for secularists and pulpit-punchers, non-believers and believers, to come together in shared memorial of our common past. Earlier this week, a tidy bit of stagecraft occurred that raised even the brows of some Trinity College religion students, wherein the Republican presidential aspirant whom Christoper Hitchens' has called "the well-heeled son of a gold-plated church" managed to demonstrate himself ignorant not only of the Enlightenment legacy and secular thrust of our nation's founding, but also the self-evident advice that one should avoid the tautological in favor of the remedy of simpler truths that don't confuse our values.
Though ours is not the age of simple truths, but rather of the sort of wicked bumper-sticker-ready theo-con koans that only a political adman could flim-flam. And we got it good:
Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom.
Meanwhile in Madison Cemetery, some restless bones.
In what feels very much like a rebuke across the centuries, the Founding Father who was the principal author of the US Constitution and our fourth president, responds decisively and forcefully in no uncertain terms:
If Religion be not within the cognizance of Civil Government how can its legal establishment be necessary to Civil Government? What influence in fact have ecclesiastical establishments had on Civil Society? In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the Civil authority; in many instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny: in no instance have they been seen the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wished to subvert the public liberty, may have found an established Clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just Government instituted to secure & perpetuate it needs them not.
"Spiritual tyranny". "Political tyranny." No instances where religious authorities have been seen the guardians of the liberties of the people. Wow. Them's fightin' words, and seem to clearly contradict the assertion that "freedom requires religion" in most any sense. Much to the opposite. Mitt managed to be half right and all wrong all at once.
The context of course is the "Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments" which James Madison published in 1785 and which proved indispensable in passing Virginia's 1786 Statute for Religious Freedom, co-authored by Madison with that other notorious American revolutionary, Thomas Jefferson, who was himself called a deist, an infidel and an atheist in his own time. Both these documents sprang out of a resistance to proposals by Patrick Henry to tax citizens to provide for "teachers of the Christian religion". Both men would be astonished at Romney's ill-dignified axiom, as well as the recent raids the Bush Administration has made upon the public coffers for the sake of "faith-based charities", which lean heavily on the very Christian "teachers" Madison and Jefferson sought to deprive.
They would be surprised not least because the Statute for Establishing Religious Freedom passed overwhelmingly in their time, and would serve to be one of the guiding documents for the Constitution, which itself would omit the word "God" throughout its text. (It's also worth noting that Virginia's General Assembly overwhelmingly voted against acknowledging Jesus Christ over a nonsectarian deity in the language of the act.)
Let's cite the active language of the statute:
Be it enacted by the General Assembly, That no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained, molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their opinion in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise diminish enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.
And though we well know that this assembly elected by the people for the ordinary purposes of legislation only, have no power to restrain the acts of succeeding assemblies, constituted with powers equal to our own, and that therefore to declare this act to be irrevocable would be of no effect in law; yet we are free to declare, and do declare, that the rights hereby asserted are of the natural rights of mankind, and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to repeal the present, or to narrow its operation, such act shall be an infringement of natural right.
It's important to note how clear the terms of this legislation are. And how the clauses are ordered precisely to establish freedom from religion first, and freedom of religion subsequently. At no moment and in no manner do they establish a necessary relationship between freedom and religion.
These are central, foundational documents for our nation, and the ignorance of them in any sane realm would be a disqualifying condition for seeking the presidency of this country. Yet it only took a single speech to prove Romney has never read them, or operates in bad faith, in spite of them.
All Kossacks should take some time to revisit this material in preparation for 2008, where we are likely to do battle with terminal know-nothings like Romney or Huckabee, who seek to use religion as a blunt instrument to distort and erase the founding tenets of this country. A good way to start is to remind oneself of the battles that preceded us... the battles the Founding Fathers waged against the theocratic tyrants of their day.
I recommend Susan Jacoby's 2004 book: Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism. To quote Phillip Roth: In the best of all possible Americas every college freshman would be required to take a course called 'The History of American Secularism'. The text would be Susan Jacoby's."
But of course the National Archives are free to all. Let's use them wisely.