Separation of Church and State: Republicans vs. Founding Fathers

Americans United for the Separation of Church is sounding the alarm on the Republican "faith based" initiatives. This initiative completely violates the Constitution, particularly since to date ONLY Christian organizations have been given money.

There is no ambiguity in the line our Founding Fathers drew separating Church and State. Our Founding Fathers were very outspoken in their ideas. For example, Ben Franklin very specifically gave his opinion of government funding of religious institutions:

"When a religion is good, I conceive it will support itself; and when it does not support itself, and God does not take care to support it so that its professors are obliged to call for help of the civil power, 'tis a sign, I apprehend, of its being a bad one."

— -- Benjamin Franklin, letter to Richard Price, October 9, 1780, quoted from Adrienne Koch, ed., The American Enlightenment: The Shaping of the American Experiment and a Free Society, New York: George Braziller, 1965, p. 93.

So what would Ben Franklin say to our tax money going to Congressional earmarks for: (info from an Americans United letter)

$375,000 of tax money going to Camp Barnabas, a summer camp in Purdy, MO. Its webite proclaims that all volunteers working there should be "ready to help us spread the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to all campers that come through our gates."

$595,000 of tax money going to Morning Star Ranch in Florence, KS. The ranch offers a Christian leadership training program that includes Bible studies and devotions. It also operates camps for children, the goals of which are described as "relationship building, evangelism, spirital growth and wholesome fun." The ranch's operators say its facilities are "made available to all followers of Christ."

$282,000 to the World Impact Youth Program: "A Christian missions organization seeking to present Christ to the unchurched through all of our ministries."

$490,000 to Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries for a "Christian summer camping experience" that is "committed to sharing the gospel of the love of Jesus Christ."

Ben Franklin would see this Federal funding of Christian organizations as a sign of weakness and corruption in both the Christian church and the Federal government. Aand it is espcially worrisome since ONLY Chritian organizations are given Federal money, and that money often goes specifically to conversion of non-Christians. And, specifically fundamentalist, extremist Protestant organizations receive the most money. Thomas Jefferson would be opposed to the Federal funding of organizations that advocate specific religious practices:

"I consider the government of the United States as interdicted by the Constitution from intermeddling in religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises...Certainly, no power to prescribe any religious exercise or to assume authority in religious discipline has been delegated to the General Government...

"But it is only proposed that I should recommend, not prescribe a day of fasting and prayer. That is, that I should indirectly assume to the U.S. an authority over religious exercises which the Constitution has directly precluded them from.... I do not believe it is for the interest of religion to invite the civil magistrate to direct it's exercises, it's discipline, or it's doctrines; nor of the religious societies that the general government should be invested with the power of effecting any uniformity of time or matter among them. Fasting and prayer are religious exercises. The enjoining them an act of discipline. Every religious society has a right to determine for itself the times for these exercises, and the objects proper for them, according to their own particular tenets; and this right can never be safer than in their own hands, where the constitution has deposited it...every one must act according to the dictates of his own reason, and mine tells me that civil powers alone have been given to the President of the U.S. and no authority to direct the religious exercises of his constituents."

— -- Thomas Jefferson, to Samuel Miller, January 23, 1808

And James Madison, the author of the Bill of Rights and our fourth President, specifically warned against precisely this kind of encroaching of government into religious practice:

"I must admit moreover that it may not be easy, in every possible case, to trace the line of separation between the rights of religion and the Civil authority with such distinctness as to avoid collisions and doubts on unessential points. The tendency of a usurpation on one side or the other, or to a corrupting coalition or alliance between them, will be best guarded by an entire abstinence of the Government from interference in any way whatever, beyond the necessity of preserving public order, and protecting each sect against trespass on its legal rights by others."

-- James Madison, letter to Reverend Adams, in Robert L. Maddox, Separation of Church and State: Guarantor of Religious Freedom (1987) p. 39

But this is only the tip of the iceburg. The Bush Administration has been violating the Constitutional separation of church and state in even worse ways. Evangelical extremists are being given full access to the Pentagon and are using that access to intimidate, threaten and try to convert non-Christians.

And then we have John McCain, like Bill O'Reilly and many Republicans, coming right out and saying that America is a Christian nation, comlpetely contrary to the foundations of our nation. This is specifically contrary to the views of our Founding Fathers and agreed upon by the Senate unanimously and signed by President John Adams, our second President.

"As the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen [Muslims] ... it is declared ... that no pretext arising from religious opinion shall ever product an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries....

"The United States is not a Christian nation any more than it is a Jewish or a Mohammedan nation."

-- Treaty of Tripoli (1797), carried unanimously by the Senate and signed into law by President John Adams (the original language is by Joel Barlow, U.S. Consul)

Thomas Jefferson, our third President, fully agreed with these sentimetns:

"Because religious belief, or non-belief, is such an important part of every person's life, freedom of religion affects every individual. State churches that use government power to support themselves and force their views on persons of other faiths undermine all our civil rights. Moreover, state support of the church tends to make the clergy unresponsive to the people and leads to corruption within religion. Erecting the 'wall of separation between church and state,' therefore, is absolutely essential in a free society.

"We have solved ... the great and interesting question whether freedom of religion is compatible with order in government and obedience to the laws. And we have experienced the quiet as well as the comfort which results from leaving every one to profess freely and openly those principles of religion which are the inductions of his own reason and the serious convictions of his own inquiries."

— -- Thomas Jefferson, to the Virginia Baptists (1808).

But it isn't just our Founding Fathers and earliest Presidents who explicitly stated the doctrine of sharp separation of church and state. Throughout American history Presidents and statesmen opposed mixing church and state. Some more examples:

"All religions united with government are more or less inimical to liberty. All, separated from government, are compatible with liberty."

— -- Henry Clay, address, U. S. House of Representatives, March 24, 1818, from Albert J. Menendez and Edd Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom

"What James Madison and the other men of his generation had in mind when they wrote the First Amendment was that there should be no official relationship of any character between government and any church or many churches, and no levying of taxes for the support of any church, or many churches, or all churches, or any institution conducted by any of them."

— -- Senator Sam Ervin, address, U.S. Senate (April 23, 1973), quoted from Albert J. Menendez and Edd Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom

"Encourage free schools and resolve that not one dollar appropriated for their support shall be appropriated to the support of any sectarian schools. Resolve that neither the state nor nation, nor both combined, shall support institutions of learning other than those sufficient to afford every child growing up in the land of opportunity of a good common school education, unmixed with sectarian, pagan, or atheistical dogmas. Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church and the private school supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and state forever separate."

— -- General and President Ulysses S. Grant, address to the Army of the Tennessee, Des Moines, Iowa, September 25, 1875, from Albert J. Menendez and Edd Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom

"Way down deep the American people are afraid of an entangling relationship between formal religions -- or whole bodies of religious belief -- and government. Apart from constitutional law and religious doctrine, there is a sense that tells us it's wrong to presume to speak for God or to claim God's sanction of our particular legislation and his rejection of all other positions. Most of us are offended when we see religion being trivialized by its appearance in political throw-away pamphlets."

— -- Mario Cuomo, address, University of Notre Dame, September 13, 1984, quoted from Albert J. Menendez and Edd Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom

"The government ought to stay out of the prayer business."

— -- Jimmy Carter (born again Christian), press conference, 1979, Washington, D.C., from Albert J. Menendez and Edd Doerr, The Great Quotations on Religious Freedom

And, in particular, Jewish leaders are rightly concerned about the deliberate Christianization of American government by Republicans:

"Jews are still disadvantaged in many "Christian countries" where the faithful control the structures of education and impose rites of Christian affirmation on school children as part of school policy. We are concerned ... when the evangelical purposes of one church or of all churches are supported through disbursements from the public treasury."

— -- Arthur Gilbert,New York Rabbi; director of Interreligious Cooperation for the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith, Religious Freedom in Jewish Tradition and Experience (1966), quoted from Albert J. Menendez and Edd Doerr, The Great Quotations on Rel

Why is the Republican Party going against the stated policy of our Founding Fathers, and violating the Constitution? Help Americans United for the Separation of Church and State defend against the Republican attacks on our religious freedoms.