Through A Glass, Darkly

These days there are those who are doing everything in their power to make sure that any mention of religion in public life is eradicated like some unwanted weed. Those who do so claim that the establishment clause of the Constitution allows no governmental entity to mention religion, any religion, in any way, shape, or form. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Instead of the secular view now predominating in some quarters the Constitution only forbids Congress from establishing a national religion, not from any mention of spirituality at all. The first amendment is 45 words long and only 16 of them deal with religion:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;"

Many have made arguments on both sides of the issue of what exactly was meant by "respecting an establishment of religion" in the amendment. One way to make sure we understand what something means is to examine contemporaneous accounts that mention the subject of controversy and see what they say.

Fortunately we have Madison's own words to help us out when he put forth the reasons he thought the Constitution should be changed. "I will state my reasons why I think it proper to propose amendments; and state the amendments themselves, so far as I think they ought to be proposed. . . That in article 2st, section 9, between clauses 3 and 4, be inserted these clauses, to wit, The civil rights of none shall be abridged on account of religious belief or worship, nor shall any national religion be established, nor shall the full and equal rights of conscience by in any manner, or on any pretext infringed."

It's a little wordier than the amendment that was passed but anyone can see that the only prohibition placed on Congress is that it cannot establish a national religion. It does not prohibit Congress, or any other governmental agency, from acknowledging people in the country have religious beliefs.

It does not ban the words "under God" from the pledge of allegiance, it does not ban nativity scenes on public property, and it does not ban the word Christmas. There are a lot of things it does not ban, too many to list here.

What it does explicitly state is that the civil rights of people won't be taken away from them simply because they practice their religion and that they may practice their religion, even in the public square.

Too many people don't consider the full text when they talk about the First Amendment. They like to pick and choose which sections of it they like and forget the others. Media types like to concentrate on that part of the amendment talking about freedom of the press, secularists like to talk about the establishment clause, protesters like the part about the right of peaceable assembly and everyone tends to like the part about petitioning the government for a redress of grievances. All of those groups forget that the First Amendment says two things about religion, not just one -- no national religion will be imposed on the populace, and the people will be free to practice their religion unhampered by others.

Secularists are trying to stamp out religion, they know that if they can reduce its visibility and control where it can be viewed, much less practiced, they will have gone a long way towards outlawing it entirely -- which is their ultimate goal.