On Conscience in Government

In response to Is separation of church and state important...? by fourwingfive:


Okay, let us begin by referring to the opinion of Roger Williams, who Lonewulf correctly points out argued for the concept we know as "separation of church and state" a good century before Thomas Jefferson advocated the incorporation of such a concept into the Bill of Rights:

TRUTH. I acknowledge that to molest any person, Jew or Gentile, for either professing doctrine, or practicing worship merely religious or spiritual, it is to persecute him, and such a person (whatever his doctrine or practice be, true or false) suffereth persecution for conscience. But withal I desire it may be well observed that this distinction is not full and complete: for beside this that a man may be persecuted because he holds or practices what he believes in conscience to be a truth (as Daniel did, for which he was cast into the lions' den, Dan. 6), and many thousands of Christians, because they durst not cease to preach and practice what they believed was by God commanded, as the Apostles answered (Acts 4 & 5), I say besides this a man may also be persecuted, because he dares not be constrained to yield obedience to such doctrines and worships as are by men invented and appointed....

-- Roger Williams, 1644

These are the words of one who living admist the history of "Protestants and Papists, spilt in the wars of present and former ages, for their respective consciences", of one who determined that "the permission of other consciences and worships than a state professeth only can (according to God) procure a firm and lasting peace". This is the spirit in which the concept of separation of church and state first germinated.

Keep in mind, further, that at that time, even the educated in America had a very parochial view of what constituted a religion, essentially recognizing not much more than, again in Williams's words, "paganish, Jewish, Turkish, or antichristian consciences and worships", including, most likely, the "consciences and worships" of the native nations encountered by those colonist Europeans. Indeed, with the exception of the history of the Crusades against various Muslim populations in the Middle East and Northern Africa, the last of which ended in the 13th century, most Americans conceived of religious tolerance primarily in the context of not having one Protestant sect promelgate law to all other Protestants concerning the nature and priority of the Sacraments or demanding the payment of tithes as taxes in support of a particular denominational organization.

That the First Amendment would come to guarantee the rights of such diverse "consciences" as Hinduism, Sikhism, Jianism, the Baha'i Faith, Buddhism, and Taoism, the last two of which, some semanticists argue, don't even qualify as "religions" under the accepted denotative meaning of that term, instead splitting hairs and arguing that these fall into a broader category deemed "belief systems".

So too, many Americans today self-identify as "spiritual but not religious", denouncing the label of "religious" as describing something regressive and oppressive that does not represent their relationship to the sacred, or the divine. Yet, I somehow doubt we are going to hear a Court decision that "the religious protections of the First Amendment are reserved for those who accept and embrace the term 'religion' as a description of their practices and values."

Advocates of "secular government" engage in the same semantic wrangling as the "spiritual but not religious" types. The later claims that because they don't believe in the rituals of established religion, they are not religious. The former claims that because they do not believe the sacred has a place in public life (whether or not they believe the sacred exists), they are not engaging in "religion" when they act upon those beliefs.

To assert, as Slepnir does, that

I may make disparaging remarks about your religion, because I think that religion is utter nonsense that is damaging to human scientific, ethical and social progress. I think the indoctrination of children into religion is a travesty and an abuse of their developing intellect...

is not intended in a spirit of maliciousness. Instead, I would suggest that Slepnir's words are a statement of conscience, as Williams used that term. Slepnir, please correct me if your above statement comes from something else than your own conscience--your sensitive regard for fairness or justice, if you will.

Yet, Williams, that proponent of separation of church of state, couched his arguments on the premise that "the doctrine of persecution for cause of conscience is proved guilty of all the blood of the souls crying for vengeance under the altar." In essence, no one should be persecuted for cause of another's conscience, whether or not they willfully accept the label of "religious" or the category of "religion" in classifying their conscience.

Here's the rub: when someone makes "disparaging remarks about religion", they are, in their exercise of free speech and free exercise, doing no different from those who make disparaging remarks about another's irreligion. If telling another that they will suffer in the life hereafter unless they accept Jesus into their hearts is cramming beliefs down someone's throat, then so to is telling someone that raising their children according to their religious conscience is a travesty is also. Yet, it is not a violation of anyone's civil rights to make either statement. On the contrary, to suppress either is the violation.

With no intent to insult, I would state plainly that when the athiest, anti-theist, non-theist, apatheist or agnostic, such as Lonewulf, "airs" his or her "beliefs", it comes across as "shoving your irreligion down other people's throats". Claims of tolerance aside, secularism is no less guilty of "actually looking for control of the social and legal order." The example set by the Puritans was simply one example of a long, and continuing history, of those who, as Williams says, would hold "an enforced uniformity of religion in a civil state".

Where the Puritans would select an official religion and enforce it, secularists select an official prohibition upon Free Exercise in the public sphere, and enforce that just as uniformly as the doctrines and practices any state church.

The Free Exercise Clause and the Establishment Clause should be applied equally to the conscience of all, that not only those who embrace the label of religion, and those who might or might not be recognized as religious despite such semantic considerations, but also those who are by definition irreligious, should all benefit from the same protections--and be held to the same standards with regards to the establishment of law.

Which includes the Free Exercise of religious belief in public places. The government has no standing to promote any given religion, but so too the government has no standing to dictate when and were private individuals may exercise their beliefs. To make law that dictates when and where private citizens may act in accordance to their right to Free Exercise, to confine that Free Exercise to the private sphere and expel it from the public sphere, is to "make law regarding the establishment of religion" should no less abhorent to the purportedly enlightened mind than historical laws that prohibited worship of gods not recognized by the ruling tyrant.

To further do so in circumstances where private individuals are compelled by law to participate in institutions existing wholly within the public sphere, and to fund the establishment of such institutions, as is the case with truancy laws and school taxes (as a prominent example), or in the alternative to compel individuals to fund the establishment of such institutions even if they would or do also spend their money to participate in institutions existing outside the public sphere but which otherwise comply with the law (e.g. private schooling), again is contrary to the spirit of separation of church and state, per Williams:

God requireth not a uniformity of religion to be enacted and enforced in any civil state; which enforced uniformity (sooner or later) is the greatest occasion of civil war, ravishing of conscience, persecution of Christ Jesus in his servants, and of the hypocrisy and destruction of millions of souls.

Slepneir, like many others, is "against the notion of teaching dogmatic, non-scientific ideas in science class, particularly in public schools". This, again, I would suggest, arises from a judgment of his conscience. Unfortunately, the current truancy/taxation regime serves to make law which establishes these values of conscience, whatever label in contraindication of "religion" adherents would apply to them, and in so doing makes laws that disestablish religion, and in so doing undermine Free Exercise.

To hear it said, by the secularist to the religious, that if she wishes to pay to send her child five days a week to a religious school, she is free to do so, but only after she has paid from her earnings a share of the monies necessary to operate the secularist school in opposition to her conscience, should be no less offensive to the ear of the politically principled, than the sound of the Calvinist saying to the Quaker, that if he wishes to take his family to a Quaker meeting house for five hours each Sunday, he is free to do so, but only after we have extracted from his livelihood a tax to support the operation of the Calvinist house of worship in opposition to his conscience.

The equation is the same. That in the modern case those who uniformly benefit from the enactment and enforcement of their consciousness by the civil state profess to do so out of something other than "religion" is to obsfucate the underlying economic "persecution for cause of conscience."

In summation, let me make one finally observation, here with regards to brennalass's concerns. This is not an issue of majority or minority. Our federal republic is not a pure democracy, and intentionally so, as the threat of "mobocracy" was well recognized by those who architected our system of government. That the law does not favor the majority is not, and never will be, a justification for changing that law. Being in the majority does not afford one extra considerations, but rather makes one immediately suspect.

Our constitutional rights must be applied to minorities, whether of ethnicity, class, conscience, or other categorization, with as much tenacity, if not greater, than they are applied to the majority. Tenacity however, is not, and never can be, license for tyranny. Courageous adherence to the maintanance of our public values of civil liberty must be applied to all parties equally. No amount of semantic gamesmanship excuses those who would establish their conscience as the law of the land.

To reiterate the originator of the separation doctrine:

TRUTH. I acknowledge that to molest any person, Jew or Gentile, [religious or irreligious,] for either professing doctrine, or practicing worship merely religious or spiritual, it is to persecute him . . . .

-- "A Plea for Religious Liberty" by Roger Williams