Positive Liberty

I came across this blog post by Stacey Campfield, a Tennessee state representative with quite a colorful past. He didn’t actually write this, he’s just passing it on from an anonymous friend, but it’s clear that he agrees with it and it fits right in with his politcal ideology. He’s giving “a very short history of the evolution of ‘church and state’ interpretation.” Unfortunately, almost every “fact” cited is wrong.

In the beginning (1644), Roger Williams preached a sermon and used the words “separation of church and state”. Roger Williams founded a colony (Rhode Island) where religious freedom was not restricted by a governing body. This was in contrast to other places Mr. Williams had resided, such as England and the Massachusettes colony.

Notice how he pretends that the situation for Roger Williams was only that the government was violating his religious freedom; he does so because folks like him like to pretend that separation of church and state only means the church is protected from state intervention. But the reality, as demonstrated perfectly by the Roger Williams situation, is that separation requires both. The reason why Williams’ religious freedom was restricted by the Massachusetts Bay Colony was because that colony was controlled by the Puritans, who rejected any notion of separation of church and state.

The Mass Bay Colony was a theocracy, ruled by Puritans. They used the Mosaic law as the civil and criminal law for the colony and they were ruled over by religious leaders. Anyone preaching anything contrary to their narrow theology was imprisoned, deported or killed. Williams was about to be deported when he fled the colony and settled in what is now Rhode Island, starting the Providence Colony. He was not alone. Quakers, Baptists and other non-Puritan Christians also found themselves jailed in Massachusetts for having the wrong theological interpretations of the Bible.

Williams clearly understood that religious freedom demanded both freedom OF religion and freedom FROM religion - that is, from the imposition of someone else’s religion. So in contrast to the false impllcation here, Williams’ case demonstrates perfectly the necessity of keeping the church from controlling the state and destroying the religious freedom of all who are not members of that church.

In 1802, Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter to the Danbury, Connecticut Baptist Society because these people had heard a rumor that the Congregationalist denomination was about to become the state religion. Mr. Jefferson used the term “separation of church and state” as an interpretation for the first amendment establishment clause. He wanted to assure the Danbury baptists that the Government did not have the right to favor one denomination over another.

Again, almost none of this is true. There was no “rumor” that the Congregationalists were “about to” become the state religion of Connecticut; Congregationalism was already the established church in that state before this letter was written. Frankly, I think he’s just repeating, with distortions, David Barton’s equally false claim that the Danbury Baptists wrote the letter because of a rumor that Congregationalism was to become the national religion. That claim is bad enough, being without a shred of evidence whatsoever, but Campfield’s version is even more absurd.

All one needs to do is read the actual letter from the Baptists to Jefferson, which mentioned the problems they were already having in Connecticut. They were writing to Jefferson to say that they hoped his strong support of separation at the Federal level would sweep down to the individual states as well and the states would disestablish their official religions. “Our hopes are strong,” they wrote “that the sentiments of our beloved president, which have had such genial effect already, like the radiant beams of the sun, will shine and prevail through all these states and all the world, till hierarchy and tyranny be destroyed from the earth.” And Jefferson replied and said that, while he lacked the authority to impede upon a state’s religious establishment, he shared the same hope that the spirit of separation would soon end all such state establishments so that religious liberty could be established.

The 1879 Reynolds vs U.S. case involved polygamy. The Separation of Church and State language was upheld in the decision which outlawed polygamy in Utah or anywhere else in this country.

This is true, but I have no idea what he means to imply or prove with it. This decision does quote from Jefferson’s letter to the Danbury Baptists in dealing with Reynolds’ claim that the law outlawing polygamy violated the free exercise clause. It’s true that the Court did refer to Jefferson’s description of the purpose of the first amendment as authoritative:

Coming as this does from an acknowledged leader of the advocates of the measure, it may be accepted almost as an authoritative declaration of the scope and effect of the amendment thus secured. Congress was deprived of all legislative power over mere opinion, but was left free to reach actions which were in violation of social duties or subversive of good order.

So this paragraph is true, but it would seem to argue against the position being taken, not for it. Camp’s friend continues:

In 1947 Justice Hugo Black blew the separation of church and state language totally out of proportion in a case (Everson vs Board of Education) which involved transportation funds for Parochial student. Mr. Black was a former KKK member who did not like Catholics.

This is a very common tactic of those who oppose separation of church and state, an almost obsessive focus on Hugo Black, who wrote the opinion in Everson v Board of Education, the 1947 ruling referred to here. The ruling was 5-4, so 4 other justices joined with him in this decision. And ironically, despite the fact that the ruling explicitly refers to the need to keep church and state separate, Black’s ruling upheld a state program that used public school busses to be used to transport students to Catholic schools.

For some bizarre reason, separation opponents love to bring up that Black had been a KKK member as a young man (a stance he thoroughly repudiated, and went on to be a strongly pro-civil rights voice on the Supreme Court. He joined the unanimous court in desegregating schools in Brown v Board of Education as well as joining the majority in overturning racial covenants in property deeds. Indeed, Black was actually burned in effigy by white supremacists in Alabama for his civil rights rulings on the Court.

So why go out of the way to mention that Black was a member of the KKK and therefore held anti-Catholic views at one point in his life? It’s a pure ad hominem. The implication can only be that support for church/state separation is based upon racism or anti-Catholic feelings. But this is an absurd claim. If that was the case, then surely Black would have ruled the other way. The dissent in Everson agreed with Black on the interpretation of the first amendment, but they argued that this understanding should have invalidated the program to bus kids to Catholic schools. If Black was motivated by anti-Catholicism, surely he would have used the same rationale to overturn that program rather than uphold it. Instead, he was the swing vote to upholding that program. Clearly, this is nonsensical.

As for the notion that Black’s opinion “blew the separation of church and state language totally out of proportion”, I’ll let you judge for yourself. Here is the relevant passage from the Everson ruling:

“The ‘establishment of religion’ clause of the First Amendment means at least this: Neither a state nor the Federal Government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions or prefer one religion over another. Neither can force nor influence a person to go to or to remain away from church against his will or force him to profess a belief or disbelief in any religion. No person can be punished for entertaining or professing religious beliefs or disbeliefs, for church attendance or non-attendance. No tax in any amount, large or small, can be levied to support any religious activities or institutions, whatever they may be called, or whatever form they may adopt to teach or practice religion. Neither a state nor the Federal Government can, openly or secretly, participate in the affairs of any religious organizations or groups and vice versa. In the words of Jefferson, the clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect ‘a wall of separation between Church and State.’”

He continues to swing blindly at Black:

Mr. Blacks words “We cannot approve the slightest breach” (in regard to c&s separation) have been used as an excuse to build “precept on top of precept” in regard to religious and educational issues for almost 60 years. McCollum vs Board of Education (1948) and Engel vs Vitale (1962) stand as prime examples of the restrictions on religious activities in educational institutions.

Utter nonsense. Both of those rulings deal not with “religious activities in educational institutions” but with government-sponsored religious activities, which is quite a different thing. McCollum dealt with whether schools could release kids from regular school activities to go to religious classes, but specifically it dealt with the fact that the government exercised direct control over the religious instruction. That is something clearly forbidden by the first amendment. If requiring students to attend religious exercises over which the government has control is not an establishment of religion, then what is?

Likewise, Engel v Vitale involved mandatory religious exercises. The Court ruled that the government could not force students to recite Christian prayers in school. Again, if government-directed prayer is not an establishment of religion, what on earth could be? Forcing schoolchildren to participate in religious exercises is a clear violation of both religion clauses of the first amendment and it is astonishing to me that religious right types still argue that such cases were wrongly decided. Change it to a government-written and mandated Muslim prayer and they’ll be whistling a different tune in a nanosecond. They’ll suddenly recognize what the religion clauses actually mean.

I see the teaching of evolution as a similar process. Instead of building “precept upon precept”, evolutionist build “supposition upon supposition”. I was recently taken to task for referring to evolutionism as Darwinism. It was explained to me that modern evolutionists do not like to be called Darwinists. The modern explanations bear little resemblance to those which Darwin espoused. The explanations offered 30 years in the future will probably bear little resemblance to those offered now.

This is pure ignorance. It’s not true that modern evolutionary theory bears little resemblance to the theory that Darwin espoused. The basic themes of common descent and natural selection working upon natural variation are still there. But evolutionary theory has vastly expanded since Darwin’s day. How could it not? Darwin did not know what DNA was or how they coded for different traits, he only knew that phenotypic traits were hereditary and varied within a population, which allowed natural selection.

This basic model of common descent with natural selection working on variation remains the core of evolutionary theory today. But we also recognize other mechanisms operating at both the individual and species level that can influence which traits are fixed within a population. Calling evolutionary biologists “Darwinists” is as silly as calling those who work with gravity “Newtonists”; we have learned a great deal since the days of both Newton and Darwin, and both areas of inquiry are informed by the inputs of huge numbers of scientists working diligently to illuminate specific aspects of those theories. Science is not a cult of personality and should not be labeled as such.

Judicial precepts which get us farther away from our original Constitution. “Scientific” suppositions which get us farther away from common sense. Does this sound like a valid comparison? Or are a few verses of the old “kool-aid” jingle in order?

Of course, he doesn’t bother to make any argument at all for why evolution is distinct from “common sense”. This is just pointless rhetoric, devoid of any substance at all. Of course, this seems to be the norm for Campfield, who specializes in doing loopy things to get attention for himself. LIke trying to join the Congressional Black Caucus in Tennessee so that he would whine and complain when he was turned down. Upon being rejected by the group, he told the Washington Post, “My understanding is that the KKK doesn’t even ban members by race.”

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