God in Government by Kevin

Via Say Uncle, Knox County and Blount County are considering resolutions to proclaim “God as the Foundation of Our National Heritage.”

“I think this resolution is going to allow (posting) the Ten Commandments, which is a code for our judicial system,” said George Vitzthum, of Rockford. “I just want these displays for our children — not to force it on other people.”

Then display it in your front yard, pal. Posting the Ten Commandments on government property is forcing it on other people. And by the way, at best four of the Ten Commandments have any equivalent in secular law, and those are far from being unique to the Ten Commandments; so no, they are not a “code for our judicial system.”

I don’t need to reiterate my stance on this. But what strikes me as odd about this is that whenever these issues come up, someone (usually a “States’ Rights” advocate) brings out the tired old argument that the First Amendment says “Congress shall make no law…” and this isn’t a case of Congress making a law.

Never mind that decades of Supreme Court precedents disagree with that interpretation. It amazes me how the “States’ Rights” folks consistently ignore the State Constitution. The relevant clause here is in the Tennessee Constitution, Article I, Section 3, which states:

That all men have a natural and indefeasible right to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own conscience; that no man can of right be compelled to attend, erect, or support any place of worship, or to maintain any minister against his consent; that no human authority can, in any case whatever, control or interfere with the rights of conscience; and that no preference shall ever be given, by law, to any religious establishment or mode of worship.
[Emphasis Added]

So you see, these resolutions are unconstitutional in the State of Tennessee; thus, appealing to the federal Constitution is irrelevant.

As a side note, in virtually every State Constitution I’ve checked, there are more restrictive church/state separation clauses than the ones in the federal First Amendment.

The other argument you often hear is that prohibiting such resolutions (and public display of the Commandments, yada yada yada) itself qualifies as an infringement of religious liberty. Bullshit. Religious liberty is an individual liberty, and even a group liberty provided you’re dealing with private groups. But when it comes to constitutionally protected rights, the rights of the individual virtually always trump the rights of the group. (Face it: the majority doesn’t NEED protection, because they’re the majority!)

Also, once a government body starts making such resolutions, and once such displays show up on government property, the implication of religious preference is clear. indeed, that’s precisely the purpose of such resolutions: to say that “this is our preferred belief structure.” What else could the purpose possibly be? You believe what you want, but around these parts, we prefer Christians (and a specific subset thereof). That type of preferential treatment is so blatantly, clearly unconstitutional, at both the state and federal level, that I can’t believe we’re still arguing about it.

The constitutional protections might be unpopular in cases such as this, but they’re doing exactly what they’re supposed to do — protecting religious liberty. Religion thrives in America precisely because of church-state separation. James Madison put it best:

“[T]he number, the industry, and the morality of the Priesthood, & the devotion of the people have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the Church from the State.”