Fearing Religious Freedom

Supreme Court Building (JNS)

In what is yet another brilliant essay by Jonathan Tobin, his defense of the Supreme Court’s recent decisions on religious rights is in my view irrefutable. Not for the lack of the liberal left trying. But they did not succeed, in my view. From JNS:

Along with that of their secular liberal allies, the advice of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the American Jewish Committee (AJC) was rejected by the court in Carson v. Makin and Kennedy v. Bremerton. 

The following is the First Amendment to the Constitution in its entirety: 

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. 

To view it the way the liberal/left does is to take the most extreme position on the establishment clause. The practical application of which would actually be a denial of the free exercise rights.

I’m sure that my friends on the left will vigorously disagree with that and say that those rulings actually do violate the establishment clause. But I also think their liberal/left biases get in the way of simple common sense and fairness. 

As noted in the Carson v. Kennedy case - when a football coach wants to express gratitude to God in the public square for his team’s victory, denying him that right amounts to preventing his free exercise rights. Only the most extreme interpretation of the establishment clause would deny him that right. To say that a football coach’s influence over his team might ‘force’ them to pray with him violates that clause is a ‘bridge too far’ that beggars common sense. Yet that is exactly what the liberal/left argues. 

The same thing is true about the ‘Carson v. Makin’ case. To argue as does the liberal/left - that government support for vouchers for purposes of school choice is a violation of the establishment clause if given to parochial school parents is the most extreme interpretation of that clause. Which in essence amounts to religious discrimination. It denies them access to government funding public school parents get. 

The liberal/left argues that the religious values taught in a parochial school might somehow be reflected in their secular curriculum and thereby a violation of the establishment clause is beyond extreme and in my view ridiculous.

 Why is the liberal/left so extreme about the separation clause that they are willing to compromise the free exercise clause? Tobin answers that with the following: 

As a religious minority that has suffered discrimination or proscription in other lands, it would seem that Jews would be the first to stand up for the rights of people of faith who are being silenced. But so great is this liberal Jewish fear of non-Jewish faith that organizations like the ADL and the AJC are part of an effort to sweep the public square of all signs of religion, a position that would have left the founders incredulous.  

I think that’s right. The founding fathers were descendants of the Pilgrims who suffered religious persecution in their European homeland. The idea of a completely secular state free of any religion was not what they sought. To the contrary. They sought is freedom of religious expression. Not freedom from religion. A secular democracy guaranteed that there would  be no discrimination based on a particular religious doctrine. 

That assured that everyone had the right to worship God freely as they chose. That is why the First Amendment to the constitution was was established by their descendants – the founding fathers.

That this was the attitude of the founding fathers was illustrated by George Washington in a letter to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, R.I. where he warmly welcomed the Jewish people as equal citizens. Which – as noted by Tobin - said: 

“all possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship.” The government of the United States,” he went on, “gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance.” 

Now its true that antisemitism is alive and well. It is also true that there are bigots on the extreme ight that want America to be a Christian country. But they are still in a very tiny minority that do not in any way refelct the values of the founding fathers as expressed by George Washington in that letter.

At the end of the day, the issue between the left and right is about which values will be more dominant and define the country. Religious values or secular ones. I’m glad to see that the Supreme Court has decided that – without establishing the value of any particular religion – that religious values are no longer given second class status.