By Mark Rhoads -
The protocols for making distinctions between religion and politics are not the same as the as the constantly changing standards for the separation of church and state. The latter doctrine stems from the First Amendment statement that Congress is prohibited from endorsing any single specific religious denomination as was and still is the case in the United Kingdom where the monarch was the head of an official state-sponsored denomination. The First Amendment reads as follows:
"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." (Second clause text emphasis was added by me and in my opinion it should apply to judicial fiat as well as legislation.)
Unfortunately very liberal judges in recent decades seem to have deliberately ignored the second clause even as they willfully confuse the words "establishment of religion" to make it seem as if the Constitution officially bans the recognition of God or is officially secular. They have relied almost exclusively not on The debates of the Constitution nor the text itself but instead have enshrined a mere letter from Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury, Connecticut Baptist Association in 1801 which expresses his personal opinion that there should be "a wall of separation between church and state." In the context of the letter, all Jefferson was doing was explaining to the Baptists why he would not unilaterally as president declare a national day of thankgivng without a resolution of Congress. He definitely was NOT saying that the government had to be hostile to religious expressions in the public square or even that the government was officially secular. The Supreme Court certainly did not think the the ban against Congress applied to all situations because two states officially endorsed denominations up until as late as 1857.
Whatever the merits about the doctrine of separating the affairs of government from those of religious denominations may be, they do not and as a practical matter cannot extend to the personal motivations tht people have for voting for one candidate instead of another. My hope, that I think is consistent with the ideas of the Constitution, is that people would not use any religious or denominational test to choose who they want to vote for. The forces of secular humanism and atheism are very strong in modern society and there are those who want to chase any mention of a Supreme Being from the public square and from any public debate. But in my view, people have a right to choose candidates on the basis of whether or not the candidate believes in natural law or a power higher than mere moral men.
Why is this important? Because while the Declaration of Independence of 1776 is not part of The Constitution of 1789, it was neverthless our FIRST foundational document as a nation. The Declaration says in the preamble that, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
So if the Creator is the ultimate Author of Liberty and inalienable rights, then mere governments of mortal and fallible men and courts cannot take away those rights.
For this reason, I believe I as a voter am well within my rights to withhold my vote from any candidate who rejects the very idea of a Supreme Being as the Creator of everything. I might not worry so much about how that person perceives the Creator and through which religious denomination, but I do care that a candidate is not someone who rejects the idea that the Creator gave us the rights we now have. I hope that elected officials will define their job as protecting those rights, and not attacking them under the guise of an intellectually-weak understanding about what the separation of church and state really means in its application.
