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Religion: "Winking" at Separation of Church and State and First Amendment Violations [1]
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Date: 2023-05-03
An unlikely "religious" figure is upon us.
To various degrees, both parties have long “winked” over separation of Church and State violations and taking it seriously. While the religious right is a more recent develop which has always strongly leaned Republican fascist, the Democrats have infrequently defended or enforced separation of church and state openly and have invested a relatively small amount of political capital doing so in the past. It was only a matter of time until this problem metastasized into what it is today, a problem which threatens our democratic way of life and perhaps even our very own lives.
While our founding fathers made some grievous errors, chief among them allowing slavery to continue to exist, one thing they were fundamentally correct about, and was enshrined in the very first part of the first amendment was:
Exact Wording, First Amendment “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
Separation of Church and State is best for both.
It’s important to recognize that the First Amendment was intended to be, among other things, a law both restricting and freeing the practice of religion by separating and limiting the powers of both. As with any law it needs to be enforced as required, which it was largely not since it’s passing.
Typically, in our more distant past it was not considered a good political idea or necessary to emphasize this part of the First Amendment too strongly. Most Americans back in our early days were fairy religious but most churches were content not to challenge government openly, politically or directly. In more recent times we saw this change dramatically. It is widely thought that abortion was in the beginning the rallying cry for extremist evangelists who, after Roe v. Wade, became increasingly politicized and right wing.
This reasoning is debatable, and many think the rapid decline in membership for many churches coupled with the need to hold onto or attract members with segregationist or racist sympathies were the main impetus, the latter motivation becoming much more obvious with the arrival of Trump on the scene.
The KKK Once Had a Tax Exemption
The KKK actually once had a tax exemption from the IRS into the 1940s.
Having no consistent history of speaking out for separation of church and state or educating voters about its Constitutional wisdom, Democrats are severely handicapped today in the face of this right-wing mainly evangelist led movement combined with a large % of miseducated voters. I would go back even further as to the very beginnings of this movement, back to the 60s when LBJ appeared to publicly embrace the Civil Rights agenda and most of the white South was lost for generations to the Republicans.
The recent dissolution of Roe v. Wade and 50 years of sanity has helped awaken a movement which again raises church and state issues front and center, among other critical ones, one which takes away basic civil and human rights again for women as well as showing all of us the inherent dangers of mixing religion and politics.
Jim and Tammy Baker, two of many religious grifters.
I suspect neither party once wanted to antagonize religious leaders or be associated with such a lawsuit, fine or legal action. So, over the years more and more got involved in politics. The same goes for abusing tax exemptions. No consistent standard for what constituted/qualified as a religious group was or could be enforced. Even a chapter of the KKK had a tax exemption until revoked in the 1940s. Although not as a religion, but as a fraternal group! IRS tax exempt standards for religious groups are quite detailed and include:
Distinct legal existence
Recognized creed and form of worship
Definite and distinct ecclesiastical government
Formal code of doctrine and discipline
Distinct religious history
Membership not associated with any other church or denomination
Organization of ordained ministers
Ordained ministers selected after completing prescribed courses of study
Circumventing the First Amendment
T.V. evangelist, singer, pianist, and entertainer Jimmy Swaggert, on T.V. since 1971.
The standards, however, were easy to get around by claiming to be a denomination of an already existing religion and then grifting people to send money or buy their products. Resulting in a proliferation of T.V. and radio evangelists, who ran little more than “get-rich-quick” grifting operations. Plus, there was public pressure to paint the broadest possible picture of what qualified as religious belief.
Racism and the Religious Right
Our virulent history of racism in nearly every aspect of American society could not have helped but to infect our religious institutions to various degrees, many of which in America are smaller local Christian churches with limited resources and dependent on parishioner donations.
I would add that politics of course is not itself immune to racism and racial compromise as well as every other societal institution, so I do not wish to only find fault with some religious institutions for having succumbed to recent right-wing movements.
The Dangers of Authoritarian Patriarchal Rule
Illustration: The Catholic Inquisition, under which unspeakable acts were committed.
Some of the best arguments against the religious right are Constitutional ones, along with the reasons given by the founding fathers, some of whom read about or witnessed the sectarian strife experienced in Europe along with the associated corruption and political/religious tyranny of the Catholic Church and the sectarianism that followed afterwards in the reformation period.
Without Democracy Moral Codes
Quickly Evaporate
The lessons are disastrous ones when you assign political and legal powers to religious ideologies that follow conflicting, irrational or unverifiable doctrines believed to be material truths and are not subject to democratic control, the Catholic Inquisitions that tortured or murdered thousands if not millions of innocents being a prime example. Non-religious authoritarian leaders are just as likely to abuse their powers when there is a lack of democratic control. Hitler’s murder of ten million in gas chambers, mostly Jews, is one of the worst and most instructive examples of what modern fascism is capable of producing in an allegedly civilized society. History is replete with such atrocities, usually at the order of some patriarchal authoritarian leader, sometimes religiously motivated.
Most religions came into existence as basic moral codes to live by, well before the time when states had clear boundaries between civil and religious law. Their roles in society gradually adapted to the modern civil states of today, with some important exceptions in countries still dominated by religious patriarchal authoritarianism. Those exceptions have a strong likelihood of becoming tyrannical. Such as Saudi Arabia and Iran to name two.
A most important lesson history teaches us is that compromised states that still follow religious laws are incompatible with real democracies.
Trump represents the most dangerous piece of American Kryptonite.
It is indeed ironic that America, a long-standing country based on the principle of separation of Church and State and democracy, threatens to be destabilized and overthrown by an emerging coalition of racist, fascist and extremist religious groups. It should also be added that the right leaning media may be deliberately responsible for both under and overstating the size, influence and strength of the religious right.
America’s Kryptonite
America’s Kryptonite had always been white supremacy, racism, and misogyny. They infect every institution in society, both civil and religious. The Republicans have promoted this Kryptonite eruption in some religious institutions, and also placed 6 religious extremists on the Supreme Court, who dared to void Roe V. Wade and 50 years of modern case law based on a strictly religious belief that a soul exists at fertilization and is placed there by God.
Sir Matthew Hale, 17th Century barrister quoted by SC Judge Alito in his ruling against Roe v. Wade.
Sure, the majority ruling written by SCJ Alito avoids directly using religious terminology, but in it he repeatedly quotes a card-carrying 17th Century misogynist (Sir Matthew Hale) to back his “logic” and their ruling assumes a two celled fetus has legal rights over the woman carrying it and infers state control over the birth process.
It further assumes that even immediately after fertilization a fetus is equivalent to a human being with the same legal rights that needs to be protected from being “murdered.” In essence, the ruling is a thinly concealed violation of the First Amendment by our nation’s own Supreme Court.
About Sir Matthew Hale Alito’s apparent judicial idol, Hale was an English judge know to have sentenced women to death for witchcraft. Hale’s misogynist rulings on criteria for the rape of women persist in law to this day and are virtually identical to the approach taken recently by Trump’s attorney Joe Tacopina at the former’s defamation trial in New York. For a more complete history of Hale, click here.
Why Patriarchal Religions Align with the Religious Right?
Many confuse religious freedom with the right to merge it with governmental and public institutions.
Most if not all patriarchal religions are authoritarian to some degree. Many of the doctrines and teachings are viewed as timeless and immutable to be passed along by church leaders. The leadership in these institutions perceive there is no need or reason for internal doctrinal democracy since members are required to follow their leaders, who in any case are alleged to be speaking to them the word of God.
I am not suggesting that every pastor or church fits this description, but the major religions are not known for their flexibility in regard to the doctrines they teach. Most but not all preach, to various degrees, a male oriented version of a heterosexual, nuclear family and have limited roles for women. And advocate a sex negative approach to life outside of their proscribed marriage unit.
In the 20th and 21st Century, we have increasing numbers of church members abandoning many of these practices and sometimes Church membership entirely. This is one of the reasons the religious right has sidestepped dealing with societal fall out from racism but is often more than willing to ignore or even pander to it and other biases to keep people in attendance. And why they seem to gravitate more to the fascist Republicans politically — with both sharing a distain for democracy and preference for authoritarian patriarchal rule.
Many confuse religious freedom with the right to merge it with governmental and public institutions. Historically speaking, the First Amendment was perhaps the most revolutionary element in of our Constitution. It should be emphasized and defended as the best way to defend both freedom of religion and freedom from religion in civil government.
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