George W. Bush began his second presidential term by swearing on the bible, then spewing his religious rhetoric to the American public. “From the day of our Founding, we have proclaimed that every man and woman on this earth has rights, and dignity, and matchless value, because they bear the image of the Maker of Heaven and earth,” proselytized our Commander-in-Chief.
On March 2, the latest hot potato in the decades long debate over secularism in America surfaced in the Supreme Court. The conflict was over the Ten Commandments display on the Texas State Capitol grounds and two Kentucky county courthouses.
Opponents of the Commandment displays charged that the displays, because they are on government buildings, endorse a particular belief-i.e.: Christian values-on a nation that should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” as the First Amendment states.
Those who argued in favor maintained that the displays are a mere recognition of the role that that the Ten Commandments played in bringing about the development of American government and law. Incidentally, they received backing by General Paul Clement who, indeed, was present at the Supreme Court representing the Bush Administration.
The coinage of the term “separation between Church and State” came from Thomas Jefferson who furthered the First Amendment case as he argued for “building a wall of separation” between the Church and the State.
The wall, much like the “iron curtain,” embodied the inherent incompatibilities between states that sponsored religion, like the state under the Church of England that Jefferson et al seceded from, and the free society they envisioned.
Today, however, friends of the Bush Administration speak with an awful resonance comparable to ruling classes of feudal societies of the European Dark Ages: “from my standpoint, above all, we as a nation as vulnerable as we are in a free country, we need to humbly come before Almighty God and acknowledge our sins and ask for His mercy and ask for His protection. He has graciously protected us since the War of 1812. America has prospered and flourished because God has put a hedge of protection around us. This has been a special country to Him. It’s been a land of His choosing,” stated Pat Robertson, a popular religious leader and friend of Bush.
Such rhetoric has led countless Americans to believe that God has placed George Bush as a world leader. A Florida woman stated, “I believe Our Lord elected our president and I believe he put him in office and it is my prayer that he will sustain him in office.” According to an AP poll, 76% of Americans support the display of religious messages on government property.
The religious right’s accusations of liberals and leftists (who push to have secularism properly observed) for being anti-God are laughable. The call to observe proper secularism is an attempt to hold the American government up to scrutiny. Does America mean what it says? Does it say what it means? People challenging the government and wanting it to uphold its secular values, are not necessarily showing disregard for God, Jesus, or Moses.
Nor are those seeking the consistency between the words and actions of “separation between Church and State” denying the rights of all Americans to practice religion as they please in privacy. The Texas and Kentucky cases raise the larger question: can the American government ever sponsor the display of religious messages or objects?
The simple, one word answer: no. Consent to place religious documents and symbols have already brought our moot democracy further down a slippery slope. Americans should have been wary when the supposedly secular governmental body deemed it immoral for homosexuals to marry because it was against the natural order of God, and women could not obtain abortions because God judges it as murder,.
The definition of the word “secular” according to Merriam-Webster means “not overtly or specifically religious; not bound by monastic vows or rules; specifically: of, relating to, or forming clergy not belonging to a religious order or congregation.” The definition alone should teach America its boundaries.