[PLUG-TALK] Being plonked on plug...

Paul Heinlein heinlein at madboa.com
Fri Nov 14 15:57:42 UTC 2003


On Thu, 13 Nov 2003, Russ Johnson wrote:

> Religion should NOT be a basis for laws that apply to all Americans,
> or do you only preach constitutionalism when it's in line with your
> religious beliefs?

There are two fairly critical distinctions you're blurring here:

* religion and church
* basis and outcome

Religion and church
-------------------

Our 18th-century forebearers went to considerable trouble to make sure
that church and state remained separate. They took no such pains with
religion, e.g.,

  When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one
  people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them
  with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the
  separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of
  Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of
  mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel
  them to the separation.

  We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
  equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
  unalienable Rights, ....

Admittedly, Thomas Jefferson's definition of "Nature's God" and
"Creator" might be different than mine, but there's little doubt that
his political argument is based at least in part on the very religious
idea that a divine being has some ideas about the human life and that
those ideas can be known by humans. If that's not religion, I'm at a
loss to identify it elsewhere.

That's different from laws respecting churches, esp. the establishment
of an official national church. Still, many individual states had laws
bordering on that, before and after the Constitution was passed, e.g.,
New Hampshire had a Protestant religious requirement for all state
legislature members until 1852. (FWIW, I think that's a horrible
requirement; I just cite it as an example of 18th- and 19th-century
legal philosophy.)

Basis and outcome
-----------------

In a free society, voters and legislators cannot have their
motivations dictated by others' ideals, religious or secular.

Based on my religious conscience, I vote for laws (or legislators who
support laws) that support the poor, prohibit murder, etc. If you
don't like my motivation, tough. If I don't like your motivation,
tough. Neither of us has any right to dictate the motives -- religious
or secular -- of the other.

That's completely different from discussing the outcome of a law.
There, the courts do (and should) have judicial review.

--Paul Heinlein <heinlein at madboa.com>




More information about the PLUG-talk mailing list