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Separation
of Church and State
September 6, 2003
In the middle of the night on July 31, 2001, the Chief Justice of
Alabama’s Courts, Roy Moore, installed a 5,000 pound monument
bearing the Ten Commandments in the State Judicial building. A few
months later, a lawsuit was filed on behalf of three Alabama lawyers
who had official business in the judicial building. They said the
monument offended them personally but, more importantly, it violated
the First Amendment’s separation of church and state. A U.S.
District court hearing the case ruled that the monument’s
presence on public property violates the Federal Constitution’s
ban on government promoting religion.
But this did not end the matter. The Alabama Chief Justice appealed
the ruling. His petition, however, did not succeed. This past July
the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta ordered the removal
of the Ten Commandments. The court said in rendering its judgment:
"If
we adopted Mr. Moore’s position, he would be free to adorn
the walls of the Alabama Supreme courtroom with sectarian religious
murals and have decidedly religious quotations painted above the
bench. Every government building could be topped with a cross,
or a menorah, or a statue of Buddha, depending upon the views
of the officials with authority over the premises."
The great
wisdom of the Appeal Court’s ruling is that it recognizes
that our country is religiously diverse and is becoming even more
so. If all Americans of all religious expressions are to feel comfortable
and at home here in America, government buildings especially, should
be free of symbols, inscriptions and art work allied with one particular
faith.
I remember that for many years, the town square in the city where
I once served as rabbi, had a creche from December through January.
I recall even now, many years later, how alienated I and my family
felt from the city which was our home. I kept thinking, “This
is the center of my city. Yet symbols and scenes on display there
identify it with a faith I don’t share.” It hurt me
and my family and other members of the Jewish community terribly.
But, you might say the Ten Commandments in the Alabama Judicial
building is different. Everyone accepts the Ten Commandments. As
the columnist, James Pinkerton, said in a Newsday editorial this
past Tuesday, “Nobody was being hurt by the presence of a
sculpture with the Ten Commandments in the State Supreme Court building.”
Well, the truth is not that simple. First of all, there is a difference
of opinion between Jews and Christians and among Christians themselves
as to what exactly constitute the Ten Commandments. All agree that
there are ten but not all agree what the ten are. For example, “You
shall have no other God before me,” is the first commandment
for Catholics and Lutherans while it is the second commandment for
Jews. The first commandant according to Jewish reckoning is “I
am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt.”
Posting one version of the Ten Commandments in the Alabama Judicial
building implies that is the correct one. The state has no business
taking sides on this issues. While the divergences may seem minor
to the casual observer, they are very important to people of faith.
But more importantly, it is not true that the Ten Commandments are
accepted by all people, certainly not as God’s revealed truth.
The Ten Commandments come from the Jewish Bible and are accepted
as holy by Jews, Christians and Muslims. But the Bible isn’t
sacred to Hindus. It isn’t sacred to Buddhists and Taoists
and followers of Shinto. It isn’t sacred to any number of
indigenous African or American Indian faiths. Not only that but
several of the Ten Commandments either contradict or are foreign
to these other belief systems. Many native Americans and many Americans
of Asian background believe in multiple gods which the second commandment
specifically prohibits. They also don’t have a Sabbath whose
observance is mandated by the fourth commandment. It is not acceptable
for a government judicial building to officially display religious
principles that aren’t accepted by Americans of all faiths.
The emotional issue of the separation of church and state has spawned
controversies from the very birth of our nation. Just in the past
several years, beside the Ten Commandments controversy, there has
been a debate about government grants to faith based charities and
the inclusion of “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance.
The separation issue is so emotional because undeniably ours is
a religious country. More Americans attend church and synagogue
on a regular basis than in any other western nation.
Besides, it is not clear whether our founding fathers really wanted
to keep religious expressions out of the public sphere entirely
or just wanted to make certain that no one denomination has official
recognition as the Anglican Church does in England and the Catholic
Church once did in many European countries. Even a committed religious
liberal like Benjamin Franklin proposed that a non-denomination
prayer be recited at the Constitutional Convention. The late President
Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was not known as a church-goer, once said,
“Our form of government has no sense unless it rests upon
a deeply felt religious faith – and I don’t care what
that faith is.”
But there is also another model of the place of religion in America,
advocated by our founding father, Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson wanted
a wall of separation between religion and the state. The United
States, as he envisioned it, would be a totally secular nation with
religion purely a personal matter. Rabbi Isaac Lesser of Philadelphia,
one of the most prominent Jewish religious leaders of pre-civil
war America, promoted that model. He repeatedly invoked the principle
of separation of church and state in opposing Sunday closing laws
and Christian prayers and Bible readings in the public schools.
America has provided its citizens with the greatest degree of religious
freedom of any nation in history. Today as our country becomes even
more religiously diverse, I firmly believe that the wall of separation
between church and state must be rigorously maintained. The public
square, government buildings, and public schools belong to all Americans.
For our government to use them as venues for the display of symbols
of one faith is to raise that faith up above all the others. It
constitutes an intolerable violation of the separation clause of
our constitution. Keeping religion and government separate has helped
make our nation great. For it to remain so, we must vigilantly ensure
that the wall continues to stand firm.
Shabbat Shalom
Shabbat Shalom |
