Appearing on ABC's This Week, Rick Santorum elaborated on his statement that watching John F. Kennedy's 1960 speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association made him want to "throw up." Especially purgative, apparently, is the idea that a president should openly declare his reluctance to take advice from members of the clergy. Candidate Santorum favors a more fluid relationship between church and state, a sentiment he supports with reference to the free exercise clause of the First Amendment.
As is so often the case with GOP rhetoric, Santorum's statements amount to clamorous half-knowing. (He said in the same interview that all university professors are liberals, which is also half-true; some of us are social democrats.) He is right to question the extent to which religion and politics are distinct realms in the American tradition. Many secularists will instinctively point to the establishment clause of the First Amendment as imposing a separation of church and state. But that view is not quite right. In its 1791 context the establishment clause did not impose an absolute barrier between religious institutions and government: several states in the union had official religions, so the amendment's guarantee that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" assures the states that the new federal government would not impose its will upon them in this regard. It is only much later -- often said to be the Supreme Court's decision in Everson v. Board of Education (1947), though arguably not until Lemon v. Kurtzman (1971) -- that something resembling a full separation of church and state can be said to have taken place.
Santorum is also right that an institutional separation of church and state, even if absolute, does not legitimize the removal of belief statements from the "public square." The First Amendment's free exercise clause does indeed recognize that Congress should not abridge an individual's expressions of conscience. The view that non-belief is a more legitimate form of public discourse than belief is a twentieth-century creature, finding its peak in the judicial assault on religious schooling. Secularists who applaud that assault might pause to wonder if inner-city education has thrived after the de-funding of Catholic schools. And we must wonder more generally if the liberal justification for a secular public sphere holds up to scrutiny: by its logic we must demand that believers leave their beliefs at home and make public statements in the language of reason. It is a logic ironically marginalizing individuals in the name of equality.
But free exercise also has elements flatly contradicting Santorum's position. The clause distills the liberty of conscience tradition, with its emphasis on an individual's right to follow divine will without the interference of worldly authority. It is a tradition deeply hostile to Roman Catholicism. From the Protestant idea of the priesthood of the believer arises antipathy toward the Catholic Church's claim infallibly to embody God's will and to be through its hierarchy the gatekeeper of the Kingdom of Heaven. In Protestant thought such claims are viewed as an arrogation of divine authority and come to be associated with the wiles of Satan -- it was simply taken for granted by early Protestants that the pope was Antichrist's chief agent on Earth. Under this view, liberty of conscience is threatened not only by the over-reaching magistrate, but also by the over-reaching priest. In the speech that Santorum finds so nauseating, Kennedy recognizes that churches can threaten free exercise by using state power to advance their interests: "I am wholly opposed to the state being used by any religious group, Catholic or Protestant, to compel, prohibit, or persecute the free exercise of any other religion."
Santorum may thus be surprised to learn that the ideas underpinning the free exercise clause seek to limit the church's power, and that they are particularly opposed to the church of which he is a member. He is correct in saying that the free exercise clause protects the right of individuals to express religious views in the public square, but he is wrong to say that this amounts to a porous relationship between church and state.
The First Amendment is complex; Rick Santorum is less so. We know this already. Much more alarming is the Supreme Court getting the principles of establishment and free exercise wrong in its recent 9-0 decision in Hosanna-Tabor. But that requires a separate post.
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Free speech does not include a right to incite a riot.
Personal liberty does not keep convicted criminals from incarceration.
Religious liberty for one does not mean they can deny religious liberty (or other rights) to others.
The government exists to protect our rights, and that frequently means trade-offs and compromise.
Social conservatives seem to disagree. They want some rights to be absolute, no matter how much it harms society or how many other rights get trampled in the process.
People like Santorum state that they wish to have a closer relationship between religious organizations and the government. They seem to forget that this also could mean having a religion other than the one they ascribe to be represented.
When Santorum publicly announces that he is fine with his school children being led in the full Muslim prayer ceremony in public schools, I will give his arguments more weight.
I wholeheartedly subscribe to this. No, you don't have to limit your comments to reason, but if you want to convince people of your stance on an issue, you must have more than "Jesus said so" coming out of your mouth. You must have a legitimate argument without basing it on the Bible (old or new), the Koran, the Bhagavad-Gita or D'Auleries Book of Greek Myths.
The "common denominator" of all religions is secular.
Secular methods of fact-finding are the only techniques of fact-finding that are accessible and verifiable by everyone regardless of religion or lack thereof.
What there is no way to accomplish is to keep thoughts and opinions influenced by religious teachings out of the minds of government officials and legislators. It should be enough that the assorted Bishops, Patriarchs, Presiding Elders, and all such have no seat in the Congress. Let them preach all they will. We can listen or not. We can tithe or not. We can move from one faith community to another. Freedom of religion means that they do not have the power of pit or gallows.
Why must we continue to let such blatant falsehood go unchallenged time and time again?
Santorum: "Now we’re going to turn around and say we’re going to impose our values from the government on people of faith, which of course is the next logical step when people of faith, at least according to John Kennedy, have no role in the public square."
JFK's actual speech: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16920600
Now, read that speech and tell me honestly that he said those of faith should have role in the public square?
I attended a public grade school, then a Catholic high school, and never noticed any substantive difference besides religion class. The notion that private schools provide a superior education is pure marketing.
"He is correct in saying that the free exercise clause protects the right of individuals to express religious views in the public square"
The issue we have today is that if evangelists are not given both the loudest voice and final say in all matters, they claim persecution. They can't take it when they don't get their way, and no hyperbole is off limits when they whine.
Santorum is very much in the fore front and spokes person for this current GOP - the mean-spirited, the hatefulness, the religious die hearts, the anti-govt, the gun toters, anti education, etc. When one of these folks are challenged, their claims fall apart like a brick tumbling down a mountain. Their claims are baseless with half truths, misinformation and distortions. They get away with many of their remarks and claims because media don't challenged them for fear of being bias. So their claims stay out there and take a life of their own.
Someone called in on c-span said that Obama got Pat Buchanan fired from MSNBC because Pat wrote a book. If only Obama had that power. So you asked, where did caller get that lie from, where did he hear this misinformation and who put it out there.