The No Kool Aid Zone

Americans United (to Confuse Americans)

Posted by Byron November 20, 2006 at 12:11 pm
Filed Under In a Handbasket, Life as a Jesus-follower | 1 Comment |

First Freedom First is a campaign by the Americans United for Separation of Church and State, in conjunction with something called the “Interfaith Alliance Foundation”, which sounds vaguely unwholesome, IMHO. At any rate, I discovered this particular entity while reading USA Today’s Important Section (Sports) on my flight from Atlanta to Pittsburgh week ago Wednesday (flying back to PA to do a wedding and then to move the fam to Georgia). At any rate, in this ad there is a petition that the folks at AU are asking Americans to sign and send in, in their words, a “petition safeguarding separation of church and state and protecting religious liberty”. Now, that sounds good, and if that’s what the petition were about, I might be a signatory; in fact, though, while there are a couple of planks that are worthwhile, there are several others that…well, let’s just work our way through them, and I’ll make my points.

Here’s da preamble:

The founders of our nation believed that all Americans should have the right of worship according to their own beliefs, or not to worship at all. So strong was their commitment to religious freedom that they enshrined it in the first sentence of the Bill of Rights.

If we do not stand together as a nation, we stand to lose this fundamental freedom.

If I wanted to pick apart the above statement, there are some things I could say, but I’ll leave it to the below statements, and so now, here are the five planks of their petition, with my comments in bold:

We, the undersigned, call upon elected and appointed officials to join us in reaffirming America’s religious freedom by demonstrating a commitment to the following:

Every American should have the right to make personal decisions–about family life, reproductive health, end of life care and other matters of personal conscience.

This is not about “separation of church and state”. Rather, this particular plank takes a liberal position on ethical matters, and then asks us to sign off on them in the name of the First Amendment. It seeks to effectively take ethical discussions off the table by labeling them as “personal”. Sorry; it won’t wash. “Family life”? What does this mean? Is this vagary, as I suspect, an attempt to suggest that the state ought to allow any “couple” to define “family”—and “marriage”, particularly, in any manner as they please? This is not a “religiously neutral” option—but our disingenuous friends in this group would have us believe such. “Reproductive health?” Nice euphemism. Again, in the name of the First Amendment and “personal decisions”, we are to jettison our concern for the lives of the unborn. No…in this case, the decision to terminate a life in utero is not a merely “personal decision”…if it’s a baby in there. Candidly, the libertarian in me is a tad more sympathetic to “end of life care” decisions being personal, but even there, there are strong arguments that deny that this decision is purely “personal”. Regardless, labeling items “matters of personal conscience” is a deliberate attempt to short-circuit moral discussion and deliberation, all in the name of “religious freedom.” No sale.

American tax dollars should not go to charities that discriminate in hiring based on religious belief or that promote a particular religious faith as a requirement for receiving services.

I agree with this plank, as it is one of the two planks which actually involve issue with which a group named “Americans United for Separation of Church and State” ought to concern itself. I realize that this plank would prohibit the president’s “faith-based initiatives”, and there’s a big part of me that doesn’t like that. The pragmatist in me is persuaded as to the effectiveness of private charities as opposed to government entities. In other words, faith-based programs tend to be far more effective, and I do want to see people helped, as a Christian. That said, taking money from the government, as a faith-based program, involves making a deal with the devil, and on balance, I’ve come to believe should be rejected.

Political candidates should not be endorsed or opposed by houses of worship.

This is the second plank that AU gets right: it is not the place of a “house of worship” to publicly and officially endorse a candidate by name. That said, it certainly is the place of a “house of worship” to inform people of Christian beliefs and priorities, and to encourage them to translate those beliefs into every venue of life, the voting booth included.

Public schools should teach with academic integrity and without the promotion of religious preference or belief.

As if this were actually within the realm of the possible…frankly, this plank would have made exactly as much sense if the folks at AU had written “ooga chabooga balooga”. It is simply impossible for a school of any type to teach without promoting “religious belief”. Example (and there are many): when considering the question of origins, there is no possible “non-religious” position. Either there exists the possibility that a Supreme Being was involved in the project (as proponents of Intelligent Design would openmindedly suggest), or that possibility will not even be considered (as many proponents of “science” would suggest, effectively ruling out the possibility of a creator by definition). Do we want to say that “there might be a Creator” is a “religious” statement? Fine. But is “there is no Creator” any less a “religious” statement? Of course not. To take another example, how can history be taught without an underlying religious bias? Sure, “Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492”, but is there any meaning behind such events of history? When the student asks, “what does this mean?”, the answer must be either “it’s what happened”—effectively denying, of course, the hand of a sovereign Being, or that “it’s is part of a grander plan”, implying the existence of a Grand Planner. This subject could be/has been dealt with in far greater detail, and by far more capable commentators, but the point remains: what AU calls for is an impossibility (which is why, by the way, I do not support public education—though I quickly add my sincere appreciation for the many Christian teachers who exert what influence they can to whatever degree they can…stay with it, Christian teachers!).

Decisions about scientific and health policies should be based on the best available scientific data, not on religious doctrine.

Once again, “religious doctrine” is way too broad a term to make this plank meaningful. And once again, I ask, what does this have to do with the “separation of church and state”.

We join together, as the most diverse nation on earth, to commit ourselves to defending and preserving this freedom.

No, this document is a propaganda piece, a not-so-transparent attempt to further privatize “religious belief” into a backwater, and to suggest that we check our principles at the door (unless those principles are derived from a secular/humanistic base). Sorry, AU; if you’d stick to what you claim to be about, perhaps we could work together, but not with such drivel as this…